Sharks update

By David Pollak

Posted: 03/06/2010 09:36:27 PM PST

Updated: 03/06/2010 10:48:02 PM PST

Nichol doesn’t verbally blast player who hit him.

Scott Nichol was a little more forgiving than others have been for the illegal hit by Montreal center Maxim Lapierre that sidelined the Sharks center with a shoulder injury.

He and Lapierre both play on the third or fourth line, Nichol said Saturday, and “you play right on the edge. Sometimes, for myself, you’re going hard to the net, and things like that happen.”

Lapierre earned a four-game suspension for a “late, careless hit” that drove Nichol into the end boards in the third period Thursday night.

“I’m no saint by any means — I’ve been suspended, too, before — and in the heat of the battle, you don’t mean to do it,” Nichol said. “You’re trying to finish your check or you’re trying to stick up for a teammate. There’s so many different variables.”

Nichol said he was able to brace for his collision with the board because everything seemed to be in slow motion.

“I just tried to keep my arms and everything in tight and just kind of rolled out of it,” he said. “My shoulder took the brunt of it, and that was probably a good thing. It could have been my head or neck.”

Nichol stayed on the ice awhile after the hit. But when he did get up, he mistakenly skated after Montreal defenseman Andre Markov, thinking he was the culprit.

“He was like, ‘No, no. It wasn’t me,'” said Nichol, who indicated he thought the four-game suspension that Lapierre received from the NHL was reasonable.

Sharks coach Todd McLellan has said Nichol could be back in the lineup after missing seven to 10 days, and Nichol thought that was possible, too.

“Today it feels a lot better than it did yesterday,” he said, “so if it keeps going at this rate I don’t see why not. . . . That’s good news for my psyche.”