Stan Szeto-USA TODAY Sports
It’s only fitting that the San Jose Sharks would lose their second-best forward to a season-ending knee injury on a completely innocuous play, a little more than three weeks after they lost their best forward to a long-term ankle injury on another seemingly innocuous play. It’s been that kind of season for the Sharks. That sound you hear from northern California is the Sharks’ Stanley Cup window officially being slammed shut.
The loss of Tomas Hertl to a knee injury isn’t devastating to the Sharks only because they’re already one of the league’s worst offensive teams and can ill afford to lose a player who can create at least a modicum of offense.