San Jose Sharks’ Markus Nutivaara was out all season with hip injury, may possibly be career-ending

San Jose Sharks defenseman Markus Nutivaara may be calling it a career, although it may be due to necessity than choice.

Sharks general manager Mike Grier provided an update on Nutivaara on Sunday, saying that the defenseman was out all season with an ongoing hip injury, and it may possibly be career-ending.

Sharks GM Mike Grier said Markus Nutivaara had a hip injury that kept him out for the season. Sounds like it might be a career, too.

— Corey Masisak (@cmasisak22) April 16, 2023

Nutivaara suffered this injury all the way back before the 2021-22 season opener when he was with the Florida Panthers. He reportedly crashed into the net during practice the night before their opener, and was out with a hip injury. He attempted to return later in October that year, but then opted to have surgery on it, and has since been recovering from it.

Nutivaara signed with the Sharks in the 2022 offseason, with the team being optimistic that he’d recover from his hip injury and get into some games in the 2022-23 season. He played some preseason games for the Sharks, but sat out to start the regular season as the injury was still nagging. He was unable to fully heal the injury, and stayed on long-term injured reserve all season, and with him now playing just one game in the past two seasons, his career is most certainly in jeopardy.

Nutivaara actually did produce in his extremely limited time in 2021-22, as he had an assist in that lone game against the Detroit Red Wings in October 2021. In his last season where he played a decent chunk of the year in 2020-21, Nutivaara had 10 assists in 30 games with the Panthers.

If this is it for Nutivaara, he will finish his NHL career with a respectable 275 games played over the course of six seasons with both the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Panthers. In those 275 games, he managed to put up 17 goals, 54 assists, and 71 points.

Nutivaara was a former 7th round pick of the Blue Jackets in 2015, but managed to only need one season in the Finnish Elite League after getting drafted before making the Blue Jackets in 2016-17, an impressive turnaround for a 7th round selection.

He was on a one-year, $1.5 million contract with the Sharks, although due to his injury he never got to play a game for the Sharks. His pending UFA status is another reason why his future is up in the air, as only playing one game in the past two seasons may mean other teams don’t want to take a chance on him.