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Jacob MacDonald will play in his first game with his new team and Noah Gregor will play on the third line Friday as the San Jose Sharks face the Carolina Hurricanes.
MacDonald, acquired Wednesday in a four-player trade with the Colorado Avalanche, will likely skate on the Sharks’ third defense pair as they look for their first win on their five-game road trip. The Sharks’ road trip started with regulation-time losses to Columbus and Boston and continued with a 3-2 overtime loss to Detroit on Tuesday.
“Just a two-way defenseman that can join in and contribute offensively,” MacDonald said when asked to describe his style. “Steady in the D-zone and able to make a good first pass and hopefully get in and out of our D-zone pretty quickly. From time to time, there’s a little bit of physicality in there too.”
MacDonald, 29, and forward Martin Kaut, 23, were acquired by the Sharks on Wednesday for forward Matt Nieto and defenseman Ryan Merkley. MacDonald said he was at the house of Jayson Megna, younger brother of Jaycob Megna when he found out about the trade.
“Just the first thing I thought of was just being excited for the opportunity to come here,” said MacDonald, who also knows Mikey Eyssimont and Nico Sturm on the Sharks’ roster, “and then play and kind of show what I can do.”
MacDonald can also play forward at the NHL level. Although he also played forward in youth hockey, he took advantage of another opportunity to play the position after he was traded to Colorado from Florida in June 2019.
MacDonald was with the Colorado Eagles in 2019-20 and said “there was a stretch where the Avs had called up a bunch of forwards and we had eight defensemen, so they asked if I could and I said yes. So stepped in I played a few games forward there, contributed and that versatility has been definitely a big part of my evolution as a player.”
MacDonald said he wasn’t looking for a change of scenery from the Avalanche, with whom signed a two-year, two-way contract extension in July 2022.
“I think that it was just something that in hindsight now, after actually not really processing it for that long, kind of makes sense for both sides,” MacDonald said.
GREGOR’S ‘OPPORTUNITY’: For Friday’s game, Noah Gregor will take Nieto’s spot on the Sharks’ third line with Nico Sturm and Nick Bonino. He’ll also get a chance to be a part of the Sharks’ penalty kill.
Nieto led all Sharks forwards in average time on ice shorthanded (2:13 per game). Gregor, meanwhile, has only averaged about eight seconds per game in the PK in 24 games this season.
Gregor has been in and out of the lineup all season long. But after being a healthy scratch for eight straight games, Gregor will play in his sixth straight game Friday, and being on the penalty kill could be an avenue for him to remain in the lineup.
“To me, it’s a great opportunity for Gregor to take advantage of the trade,” Sharks coach David Quinn said.
The Sharks entered Friday tied for second in the penalty kill at 83.7 percent. The Hurricanes entered the game 26th in the NHL on the power play (18.2 percent).
To be a great penalty killer, Quinn said, a player has to have, “anticipation. You’ve got to be smart. You’ve got to be quick, and you got to understand the structure within the penalty kill. That obviously gives you an opportunity to be a successful penalty killer and we’ve been fortunate here for a long time, not just this year.”
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