And he has a familiar face from the Warriors taking the ice right alongside him.
Halbgewachs, 24, was officially called up to the San Jose Sharks from their AHL affiliate on Dec. 13 and played his first game on Thursday night in the Sharks’ 5-2 home-ice loss to the Vancouver Canucks.
The former Western Hockey League scoring champion skated on the left wing alongside Thomas Hertl and Alexander Barabanov and didn’t have a light night in his debut, seeing a total of 16:44 of ice time, including 1:10 on the power play. Halbgewachs finished with three shots total and took his first penalty, a holding call for tying up Canucks defenceman Noah Juulson at 12:58 of the second period.
And, of course, before the puck drop he received the traditional rookie treatment...
An NHL debut is brewin’ 👀@halbgewachs97 | #SJSharks pic.twitter.com/AZU8G0dcBe
— San Jose Sharks (@SanJoseSharks) December 17, 2021
Halbgewachs has led AHL San Jose Barracuda in scoring for much of the season and currently has seven goals and 16 points in 19 games.
He re-signed a two-year contract with San Jose prior to the 2020-21 campaign and was projected to make his NHL debut but ended up sticking with the Barracuda through the whole pandemic-shortened season. He ended up with six goals and 11 points in 25 games, missing 10 games with a hip injury.
The Emerald Park native’s time with the Warriors is the stuff of legend -- he put together a seven-point outing in his final game of the 2016-17 season to finish with 50 goals and 101 points and followed up with a club-record-tying 70 goals and 129 points in 2017-18.
Halbgewachs isn’t the only former Warrior from that era in the Sharks line-up, either.
Noah Gregor -- who played alongside Halbgewachs for three seasons before being traded to Victoria and eventually joining Prince Albert for their 2018-19 title run -- was called up from the Barracuda on Nov. 20 and has a goal and three points in 13 NHL games. In the AHL, Gregor put up four goals and 12 points in eight games before joining the parent team.
Halbgewachs and Gregor are roommates in San Jose alongside yet another former Warrior in goaltender Zach Sawchenko, who is in his third season with the AHL affiliate.
