Sharks goalie hit with illness; Tocchet calls Celebrini a ‘hockey nerd’

San Jose Sharks goalie Alex Nedeljkovic will start against the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday as Yaroslav Askarov deals with an illness, coach Ryan Warsofsky told reporters.

Askarov should still be able to back up Nedeljkovic, Warsofsky said, as the Sharks play the third game of a five-game road trip.

Nedeljkovic finished with 28 saves, including 15 in the third period, to lead the Sharks to an impressive 4-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh on Sunday.

The win was Nedeljkovic’s first since Nov. 7, when he stopped 32 of 33 shots in the Sharks’ 2-1 victory over the Winnipeg Jets. Before Sunday, Nedeljkovic was 0-3-0 with a .870 save percentage in his last five games.

“Happy that I put us in a position to win, honestly,” Nedeljkovic said Sunday. “If the guys can pull through and we can get two points, it’s huge. They played awesome tonight. We limited them in the first two periods there. … I thought we did a good job of just hunkering down, staying with it in our own end in the third and just keeping it simple.”

Tuesday’s game marks the first time this season that Nedeljkovic will start consecutive games for the Sharks (14-13-3) as Askarov had begun to establish himself as the team’s No. 1 goalie. In 13 games since the start of November, Askarov is 9-4-0 with a .928 save percentage, allowing the Sharks to rejoin the playoff race.

The last time Nedeljkovic, whom the Sharks acquired from Pittsburgh in July, started consecutive games was March 4 and 7 of last season, when the Penguins played road games against the Colorado Avalanche and Vegas Golden Knights.

Askarov’s last start came on Friday when he allowed three goals on 23 shots in the Sharks’ 4-1 loss to the Dallas Stars.

Entering Tuesday, the Sharks, via points percentage (.517), held the second and final wild card spot in the Western Conference. The Flyers (15-9-3) have won four of their last six games and are in sixth place in the Metropolitan Division with 33 points, one point out of a playoff spot.

LINEUP NOTES 

Warsofsky said Timothy Liljegren, who has been on the Sharks’ top defense pair alongside Dmitry Orlov for several games this season, is dealing with a lower-body injury and is questionable to play Tuesday. If Liljegren is unable to play, Shakir Mukhamadullin will enter the lineup, Warsofsky said.

Liljegren is averaging 20:07 of ice time in 24 games this season. Mukhamadullin is averaging 16:28 in 14 games and has been a healthy scratch in four of the last six games, including three straight.

Ryan Reaves, after sitting out the last two games, will draw back into the Sharks’ lineup and start on the fourth line alongside Zack Ostapchuk and Barclay Goodrow.

With Reaves returning, winger Jeff Skinner will be a healthy scratch for just the second time this season. Skinner missed 10 games from Nov. 15 to Dec. 3 with a lower-body injury before returning to play the Stars and Hurricanes. Warsofsky told reporters in Philadelphia that he liked Skinner’s game in Raleigh, but that he wanted to go with a bigger lineup against a heavier Flyers team.

The Sharks could have also scratched Ostapchuk and moved Goodrow to center. But Warsofsky has been impressed by Ostapchuk, who does not have a point in 10 games so far this season but has taken ownership of the fourth-line center role. He won two key faceoffs in the final 1:20 of Sunday’s game, including a defensive zone draw with 15 seconds left.

With Skinner out, Adam Gaudette will move to the third line with Ty Dellandrea and Philipp Kurashev.

The only other time Skinner was a healthy scratch this season was on Oct. 26 when the Sharks beat the Minnesota Wild 6-5 in overtime. Skinner is three games shy of 1,100 for his career.

TOCCHET ON CELEBRINI

Flyers coach Rick Tocchet, an assistant coach on Canada’s Olympic team, called Sharks center Macklin Celebrini “a hockey nerd” and definitely meant it as a compliment.

Celebrini enters Tuesday’s game as the NHL’s second-leading scorer with 43 points in 30 games.

“The guy comes in great shape, plays a 200-foot game. He’s just a hell of a player,” Tocchet said. “He’s not just an offensive guy. You watch him, he’s conscientious, he’s trying to play without the puck. He’s playing 20 minutes a night. Came into camp in great shape. He’s elevated himself.”

Tocchet and Celebrini were at Hockey Canada’s Olympic orientation camp in Calgary in late August. Tocchet said Canada’s coaching staff and management group met a couple of weeks ago and added that Celebrini is “obviously on the list” to make that team.

“I’m an assistant coach, you give your opinion, but then obviously the team will be picked by (general manager Doug Armstrong). But (Celebrini’s) is definitely in the mix,” Tocchet said. “I don’t know where he’s at on the chart, to be honest here, but they’re watching, obviously. (Scoring) 40-plus points, so he’s doing something really well.”

Armstrong, speaking with Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic, said the list of players still in the mix for an Olympic roster spot is now down to the “low 30s,” with every player who made Canada’s 4 Nations Face-Off roster still in the mix. Rosters for the Olympics have to be finalized by Dec. 31.

GRUNDSTROM GETS A SHOT

Ex-Sharks winger Carl Grundstrom will play his second game of the season for the Flyers on Tuesday. In early October, with a roster deadline looming and perhaps some contractual issues on the horizon, the Sharks traded forward Grundstrom and defenseman Artem Guryev to Philadelphia for the contract of defenseman Ryan Ellis and a 2026 conditional sixth-round draft pick.

Grundstrom did not have a good preseason with the Sharks and was the odd man out after both center Michael Misa and defenseman Sam Dickinson made the roster out of camp as rookies. Shortly after the Flyers acquired Grundstrom, they placed him on waivers and later assigned him to their AHL affiliate in Lehigh Valley, where he had 15 points in 19 games before he was recalled on Dec. 2.