{"id":387578,"date":"2026-01-03T01:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T01:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/387578\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T01:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T01:14:11","slug":"sharks-injury-update-optimistic-smith-kurashev-will-return-before-olympic-break-klingberg-doubtful-tomorrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/387578\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharks Injury Update: &#8220;Optimistic&#8221; Smith &#038; Kurashev Will Return Before Olympic Break, Klingberg Doubtful Tomorrow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s now a more definitive Will Smith injury timeline.<\/p>\n<p>The young San Jose Sharks star was injured on Dec. 13 at the Pittsburgh Penguins, felled with an upper-body injury.<\/p>\n<p>Smith has been pretty much week-to-week since then.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s still week- to-week. He\u2019s progressing really well, but he\u2019s still in that week-to-week category,\u201d head coach Ryan Warsofsky said on Friday after practice.<\/p>\n<p>Could this injury extend past the February Olympic break?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re pretty optimistic that we\u2019ll get them back before the break,\u201d Warsofsky said.<\/p>\n<p>This also applies to Philipp Kurashev, also felled in the same game by an upper-body injury.<\/p>\n<p>The San Jose Sharks\u2019 last game before the Olympic break is Feb. 4 at the Colorado Avalanche. Kurashev is also likely to be named to the Swiss Olympic team.<\/p>\n<p>There was plenty of other San Jose Sharks injury news after practice today:<\/p>\n<p>Defenseman John Klingberg (lower-body) is doubtful to play on Saturday. Defenseman Timothy Liljegren (upper-body) is probable to return in his place. Liljegren also took Klingberg\u2019s place next to Dmitry Orlov and on the power play.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"da\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SJSharks?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#SJSharks<\/a> lines today, no Klingberg\/Gaudette, Liljegren &amp; Desharnais practicing:<\/p>\n<p>Eklund-Celebrini-Chernyshov<br \/>Graf-Wennberg-Toffoli<br \/>Regenda-Dellandrea-Skinner<br \/>Goodrow-Ostapchuk-Reaves<\/p>\n<p>Ferraro-Mukhamadullin<br \/>Orlov-Liljegren<br \/>Dickinson-Iorio<br \/>Leddy-Desharnais<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Sheng_Peng\/status\/2007169078197170224?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">January 2, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p lang=\"no\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SJSharks?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#SJSharks<\/a> power play groups at practice sans Klingberg\u2026<\/p>\n<p>PP1: Orlov-Celebrini-Eklund-Toffoli-Wennberg<br \/>PP2: Liljegren-Skinner-Graf-Chernyshov-Regenda<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Sheng_Peng\/status\/2007172767435862494?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">January 2, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Adam Gaudette (lower-body) is still out, but can be considered day-to-day.<\/p>\n<p>Vincent Desharnais (upper-body) participated in his first full practice in about a month today and appears to be on the verge of being upgraded from week-to-week to day-to-day.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s now a more definitive Will Smith injury timeline. The young San Jose Sharks star was injured on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2806,58,5,691,4,4525,5897,4462,507],"class_list":{"0":"post-387578","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-adam-gaudette","9":"tag-featured","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-john-klingberg","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-philipp-kurashev","14":"tag-timothy-liljegren","15":"tag-vincent-desharnais","16":"tag-will-smith"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115828520739881647","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}