Sharks’ Blackwood gets revenge on his former team

Mackenzie Blackwood made 44 saves to shut out his former team as the San Jose Sharks beat the New Jersey Devils 1-0 on Sunday at the Prudential Center to start a four-game road trip.

Blackwood made 25 saves in the first two periods but was especially brilliant in the third when he made 19 saves and helped kill a hooking penalty to defenseman Mario Ferraro with 3:32 left in regulation.

Blackwood, who now has 11 career shutouts, made six saves on the penalty kill, the Sharks’ second of the game. The 44 saves he made are the most in team history in a shutout victory.

Nico Sturm scored the only goal for the Sharks (5-9-2), who won for the fifth time in the last seven games.

Sturm was credited for his third goal of the season at the 16:21 mark of the first period.

After a strong forecheck, Sturm took control of the puck behind the Devils and backhanded a pass intended for Carl Grundstrom toward the front, but it went off the skate of former Shark Timo Meier and past Jake Allen for a 1-0 San Jose lead.

The Sharks thought they had taken a 2-0 lead when Fabian Zetterlund, on a second effort amid a scramble in front of the Devils’ net, chipped the puck over the goal line. But after initially ruling the goal to be good, on-ice officials determined that Zetterlund illegally contacted Allen’s pad before the goal.

Blackwood, who was traded by the Devils to the Sharks on June 27, 2023, for a 2023 sixth-round draft pick, was starting against his former team for the second time.

Blackwood faced New Jersey once last season, on Feb. 27 at SAP Center, but an injury forced him to leave the game after just 17 minutes. Kaapo Kähkönen allowed seven goals on 31 shots to the Devils in relief as the Sharks went onto a 7-2 loss.

Blackwood, drafted by the Devils in 2015 and a team member from 2018 to 2023, is a pending unrestricted free agent. He’s in the final year of his two-year contract, which he signed with San Jose on July 1, 2023.

Blackwood, now with a 3-4-2 record, entered Sunday with a 3.52 goals against average and a .894 save percentage.

The Sharks came into Sunday with a 1-5-1 record away from home. Their only road victory was a dramatic 5-4 overtime win over Utah on Oct. 28, when they erased a three-goal deficit in the final five minutes of the third period before Wennberg scored in the extra session.

SMITH SITS: Rookie center Will Smith was given another development day Sunday, his fourth in 16 games this season. Smith also did not dress for road games last month against the Winnipeg Jets, Los Angeles Kings, and the Utah Hockey Club.

The Sharks are now 2-2-0 in games without Smith, who has two goals and an assist in 12 games as a rookie. Smith has not played in games on back-to-back days yet this season, a trend that will continue Monday when Smith is expected back in the lineup as the Sharks play the Philadelphia Flyers.

The Sharks are giving Smith and fellow rookie centerman Macklin Celebrini intermittent ‘development days’ through at least the first half of the season, trying to help both players adjust to the hectic travel and playing schedules in their first NHL seasons.

Alexander Wennberg replaced Smith as the Sharks’ third-line center for Sunday’s game, with Barclay Goodrow and Luke Kunin on the wings.

Celebrini centered a line with Ty Dellandrea and Tyler Toffoli on the wings, and the Sharks reunited the “Lund Line” for Sunday, with center Mikael Granlund playing with William Eklund and Zetterlund.

Eklund had a season-low 15:20 in ice time in the Sharks’ 5-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Thursday. Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said after the loss that he needed more from Eklund, who has one assist in his last four games.

Eklund, Zetterlund, and Granlund became the Sharks’ top forwards toward the end of last season, combined for 58 points over the final 24 games in March and April.

WALMAN STILL OUT: Defenseman Jake Walman practiced Saturday but missed his third straight game Sunday, and the second straight he’s missed because of an upper-body injury. Walman leads all Sharks defensemen with nine points in 13 games.

After Monday, the Sharks finish their road trip with games against the New York Rangers on Thursday and the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday.