SAN JOSE -- It was a blast, and a couple blasts from the past for Sharks fans on Saturday night.
Logan Couture made his season debut, assisting on Marc-Edouard Vlasic’s game-opening goal. Tomáš Hertl capped the 5-3 victory over the Anaheim Ducks at SAP Center with an empty-netter.
Currently, these are your three longest-tenured Sharks, all holdovers from the glory years, that 15-year stretch when the franchise missed the playoffs just once. Between captain Couture, alternate captain Hertl and defensive stalwart Vlasic, that’s 2,900 regular-season games, all in San Jose, and hundreds of playoff tilts.
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“Fun night,” Couture said of his season debut, personally important also because it’s the first game that his newborn son Kaden was able to experience. “I don’t know if we could’ve scripted it any better.”
Kyle Burroughs and Jan Rutta also scored, their firsts with the Sharks, and Fabian Zetterlund added another to his breakout campaign. Mackenzie Blackwood made 31 saves and earned his first Sharks assist.