Sharks’ Kesselring says he learned a ‘tough lesson’ with Buffalo Sabres

SAN JOSE — New San Jose Sharks defenseman Michael Kesselring joked that he’ll now be able to wear flip-flops to the practice rink instead of what he typically wore during his one year in snowy Western New York with the Buffalo Sabers.

Of course, more exciting for Kesselring will be the increased opportunity he could receive with the Sharks, as he’ll likely be expected to play a larger role than he did during his injury-plagued season with the Sabres.

With the ink now dry on the three-year, $13.5 million contract he signed with the Sharks over the weekend, the 26-year-old Kesselring, acquired via trade two weeks ago, said he’s eager for a fresh start with a San Jose team that’s eying a playoff spot next season.

“I’m a hungry guy,” Kesselring said Monday. “I’m a sixth-rounder; I kind of worked my way into the league. I feel like I’ve really earned everything I’ve gotten, and now I feel like I’m going to get a big opportunity to prove what I can do.”

Kesselring sustained a litany of lower-body injuries last season with the Sabres, especially early on when he played in just nine of the team’s first 32 games.

After he was acquired by the Sabres from the Utah Mammoth, Kesselring revealed Monday that during last year’s training camp, he suffered a partially torn quad tendon around his right knee, causing him to miss the first nine games of the regular season. Admitting he returned too soon, Kesselring was then felled by a high ankle sprain, which cost him another month.

With more than two months left before the start of training camp, Kesselring says he’s now nearing 100% health.

“I was trying to play catch-up all year with my knee injury,” Kesselring said. “Basically, anytime I bent my right leg, I got knee pain. It’s still something I’m dealing with right now.”

Still, from mid-December until early March, Kesselring played more regularly, though he said he was still less than fully healthy.

But after the March 6 trade deadline, when the Sabres acquired defenseman Logan Stanley and Luke Schenn from the Winnipeg Jets, Kesselring was mostly a spectator, as he played in just five of the final 20 regular-season games and in just one of Buffalo’s 13 playoff games.

He finished the season with just two assists in 35 games, playoffs and regular season combined.

“It was tough, to be honest,” Kesselring said. “I felt like I kind of played hurt and not myself all year, and then right before the trade deadline, I thought I was starting to play better, a little bit more consistent, and I felt like they had their mind made up for that year.

“It’s nothing against (the Sabres), I should have played better, I should have handled the situation better. I have to own up to it, and I didn’t handle everything the best, and that’s a tough lesson I had to learn.”

Kesselring said he’s often been skating this offseason with Sharks forward Will Smith and sometimes with winger Collin Graf.

“That’s one of the lessons I had to learn, and (there’s) no one to blame but myself for that,” Kesselring said of his quad injury. “Being able to manage how my body’s feeling and knowing when I can really push and when I have to lay off it a little bit is something I’m trying to be very aware of this summer, just getting that explosiveness back.

“When I tore it, and I was trying to play, I could barely jump. I couldn’t even run off the ice. Now I’m training, I’m sprinting, I’m jumping with little to no pain.”

Kesselring is eager to return to the form he showed in Utah, when he played all 82 games and posted a career-high 29 points while averaging close to 18 minutes per night.

He could be in the right place. The Sharks’ defense corps combined for just 141 points this past season, a total that ranked 21st in the NHL. Kesselring is an exceptional skater who can join the rush and create odd-man situations and could also get some power-play time this season.

But if they want to make the playoffs, the Sharks will need to cut down on the goals against. Last season, they allowed 190 goals during 5-on-5 play, tied for the fifth-highest total in the NHL.

While it appears the goalie tandem of Yaroslav Askarov and Alex Nedeljkovic will be back, the Sharks’ defense corps could be overhauled, with four of their blueliners – Mario Ferraro, Vincent Desharnais, John Klingberg, and Nick Leddy – able to become unrestricted free agents on Wednesday.

With the Mammoth, in over 1,300 minutes during 5-on-5 play, Kesserling, per Natural Stat Trick, had an expected goals-for percentage of 53.99. He was on the ice for 250 high-danger chances for and 191 against.

With the 6-foot-5, 215-pound Kesselring locked up, can he also help the Sharks fix their biggest problem of allowing too many goals?

“When I’m playing at my highest level, I can deny the blue lines really well,” Kesselring said. “Last year, the big problem was my skating kind of took a hit with the two lower-body injuries, and I’ve had all summer to get that pop back in my step.

“This year, when I did play with the high ankle injury, it was tough to be physical all the time. In battles, it would tweak, when I’d hit guys, it would tweak. So I’m looking forward to building that side of my game as well, being able to close plays and finish guys. So when I come on the ice, other forwards are like, ‘Damn, I gotta play against this guy again?”

KURASHEV CUT LOOSE

The Sharks, as expected, issued qualifying offers to pending restricted free agents Collin Graf and Shakir Mukhamadullin, but parted ways with forward Philipp Kurashev after one year.

The 26-year-old Kurashev, who signed a one-year, $1.2 million deal with San Jose last July 1 as an unrestricted free agent, will again become a UFA after not receiving a qualifying offer from the Sharks. The Sharks also did not extend qualifying offers to minor leaguers Noah Beck, a defenseman, and Gabriel Carriere, a goalie.