ANAHEIM — Brendan Guhle didn’t actually disappear after playing 30 games with the Ducks in 2019-20, but in order to find him you had to go to San Diego, and more to the point, you had to go into the Gulls’ training room. Guhle’s NHL career didn’t stall because of performance, but because of injuries.

Guhle made his return to the Ducks last week, playing in a loss Friday to the Vegas Golden Knights and a victory Tuesday over the Boston Bruins, only his third and fourth NHL games since 2019-20. It remained to be determined whether Guhle, a 24-year-old defenseman, would stick around.

He wasn’t in the Ducks’ lineup for Sunday’s game against the San Jose Sharks.

“He’s had a tough go of it,” Ducks coach Dallas Eakins said. “He’s had a couple of fairly significant injuries. He’s worked super hard at getting those healed up, rehabbing them, working on his strength. We all know he’s an excellent skater. We just thought it was important to be patient with him.”

Overall this season, Guhle has played four games with the Ducks and 28 with the AHL’s Gulls. He was scoreless in four games with the Ducks and he had two goals and three assists with the Gulls after he had two goals and 10 assists in 23 games last season with San Diego.

Eakins teamed Guhle with Cam Fowler for the past two games, shifting the left-handed shooting Fowler to the right side in the pairing to allow the left-handed shooting Guhle to play in his natural position on the left. Guhle was scoreless in each game with a minus-1 defensive rating overall.

“He was solid,” Eakins said of Guhle’s play last week.

Guhle’s superb skating ability could enable him to stick around a while. Or at least until Josh Manson is fit enough to play again after sitting out for an 11th consecutive game Sunday because of a finger injury. Guhle appears to be locked in a battle with ice time with Simon Benoit and Josh Mahura.

“I think it’s really important for coaches and management to have a level of patience,” Eakins said. “Man, with Guhle, the kid had some really significant injuries. I think it’s important to forget about how many years he’s been a pro, forget about how many games he’s played and realize, hey, he’s missed this amount of time because of injuries, and when you look at that amount of time, it is significant.

“That’s where patience has to come in.”

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FACTS AND FIGURES

Right wing Derek Grant’s assist on Nicolas Deslauriers’ second-period goal Friday against Vegas was his 100th career point in the NHL (45 goals, 55 assists). Eighty-three of his 100 points (42 goals, 41 assists) have come over 241 games over three different stints with the Ducks.

Ducks goaltending prospect Lukas Dostal gave up four goals on 13 shots and was pulled from the Gulls’ loss Friday to the Colorado Eagles, two nights after he made a career-high 51 saves and scored a goal in San Diego’s win over Colorado. He made 30 saves in Saturday’s loss to the Eagles.

The Ducks recalled Dostal to serve as Anthony Stolarz’s backup Sunday against the Sharks.