Things to know: Timo Meier gives an update on his health for Sharks’ playoffs

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SAN JOSE — Timo Meier skated onto the ice about 10 minutes before Sharks practice got underway on Monday, eliminating any doubt that he’ll be available for his team’s opening-round playoff series with the Vegas Golden Knights.

Meier confirmed that he’ll be healthy enough to play when Game 1 kicks off at SAP Center on Wednesday. As a result, the Sharks will be opening the playoffs with their most-complete roster since Erik Karlsson left the ice in Boston with a groin injury on Feb. 26. Karlsson returned from a 17-game absence on Saturday, Joe Pavelski rejoined the team after missing seven games with a lower-body injury on April 1 and Meier is confident that he won’t be hindered by the apparent left-wrist ailment that kept him out of Saturday’s season finale at the Tank.

Radim Simek, who blew out his right knee on March 12, is the only member of the Sharks regular lineup who won’t be available in the series.

Meier called his injury “something small.”

“I’m confident that I’m going to be 100 percent out there and I’m going to be able to help the team,” Meier said.

The Swiss forward left Thursday’s win over the Edmonton Oilers at the 9:26 mark of the third period after he took a spill down to the ice and defenseman Darnell Nurse fell on top of him. Meier could also be seen holding his left hand on the Sharks bench after he took a fall to the ice in a collision earlier in the game.

Though it’s possible that Meier will be playing through the injury in the playoffs, he insisted that his absence from Saturday’s game against the Colorado Avalanche was precautionary. His presence at practice Monday morning seems to back up the suggestion that he’s dealing with a minor ailment. If the injury was serious, the Sharks would have likely kept him off the ice until Wednesday.

“Just being cautious,” Meier said. “I probably would have played (Saturday) if it was a playoff game. We’ll take it day by day and I already feel a lot better.”

2. Head coach Pete DeBoer said that Karlsson’s groin responded without issue to the 22:01 of ice time that he logged in Saturday’s win over the Avalanche.

The Sharks coach isn’t going to be imposing a pitch count on Karlsson during the playoffs. He expects the two-time Norris Trophy winner to log somewhere near his average workload of 24:29 per game in the series.

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As he did on Saturday, Karlsson skated with Brenden Dillon in practice on Monday while Marc-Edouard Vlasic partnered up with Brent Burns. Regardless, DeBoer expects his defensive pairings to be fluid throughout the playoffs. The blue line will see a lot of mixing and matching depending on variety of situations, including time of game, score, on-ice matchups and zone starts.

For instance, it’s entirely possible that Karlsson and Burns will take the ice together in some offensive zone faceoff situations and Vlasic and Braun will be reunited if the Sharks need a shutdown pairing while holding a lead late in games.

“That’s fair,” DeBoer said. “We’ve got, basically, five veteran guys and a young guy. Depending on how things look early and how everybody’s playing, I think you could see a bunch of different options there.”

3. The “young guy” that DeBoer is referring to is Joakim Ryan, who will open the playoffs as the Sharks sixth defenseman after Jacob Middleton received an audition to replace him last week.

DeBoer gave Middleton a look after Ryan fumbled his opportunity to replace Simek as Burns’ defensive partner, posting a minus-3 rating in a nine-game run down the stretch. But Ryan performed better in 12:15 of ice time on Saturday, responding well to the predictability of Justin Braun’s game after spending the majority of his 106 NHL games reacting to Burns’ freelancing style of play.

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“I like playing with him,” Ryan said of Braun. “I don’t have to worry about where he’s going to be. He knows our systems and he’s always doing what we’re supposed to be doing. That always makes my job easier.”

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Home sweet home? Giants, visitors at Oracle Park, tie franchise record in win The Sharks coach said he’s giving Ryan the nod over Tim Heed in Game 1 for a couple of reasons. First, he doesn’t like his defensemen playing on their off-side, so plugging Ryan onto the third pairing allows him to stick with three left-handers and three righties on the blue line. Second, Karlsson’s return decreases Heed’s value to the defensive group. With Burns and Karlsson in the lineup, the Sharks wouldn’t be using Heed in power play situations anymore.

“This is on Joakim. We’re at that point, he’s not a 20-year-old player,” DeBoer said. “He’s got to get his game in the right place whoever he’s out there with and give us consistent-meaningful minutes. That’s on him.”

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