diff --git a/spacy/ml/models/entity_linker.py b/spacy/ml/models/entity_linker.py
index 4d18d216a..299b6bb52 100644
--- a/spacy/ml/models/entity_linker.py
+++ b/spacy/ml/models/entity_linker.py
@@ -71,11 +71,10 @@ def span_maker_forward(model, docs: List[Doc], is_train) -> Tuple[Ragged, Callab
             cands.append((start_token, end_token))
 
         candidates.append(ops.asarray2i(cands))
-    candlens = ops.asarray1i([len(cands) for cands in candidates])
-    candidates = ops.xp.concatenate(candidates)
-    outputs = Ragged(candidates, candlens)
+    lengths = model.ops.asarray1i([len(cands) for cands in candidates])
+    out = Ragged(model.ops.flatten(candidates), lengths)
     # because this is just rearranging docs, the backprop does nothing
-    return outputs, lambda x: []
+    return out, lambda x: []
 
 
 @registry.misc("spacy.KBFromFile.v1")
diff --git a/spacy/tests/pipeline/test_entity_linker.py b/spacy/tests/pipeline/test_entity_linker.py
index 4d683acc5..99f164f15 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/pipeline/test_entity_linker.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/pipeline/test_entity_linker.py
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ from spacy.compat import pickle
 from spacy.kb import Candidate, InMemoryLookupKB, get_candidates, KnowledgeBase
 from spacy.lang.en import English
 from spacy.ml import load_kb
+from spacy.ml.models.entity_linker import build_span_maker
 from spacy.pipeline import EntityLinker
 from spacy.pipeline.legacy import EntityLinker_v1
 from spacy.pipeline.tok2vec import DEFAULT_TOK2VEC_MODEL
@@ -715,7 +716,11 @@ TRAIN_DATA = [
     ("Russ Cochran was a member of University of Kentucky's golf team.",
         {"links": {(0, 12): {"Q7381115": 0.0, "Q2146908": 1.0}},
          "entities": [(0, 12, "PERSON"), (43, 51, "LOC")],
-         "sent_starts": [1, -1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]})
+         "sent_starts": [1, -1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]}),
+    # having a blank instance shouldn't break things
+    ("The weather is nice today.",
+        {"links": {}, "entities": [],
+         "sent_starts": [1, -1, 0, 0, 0, 0]})
 ]
 GOLD_entities = ["Q2146908", "Q7381115", "Q7381115", "Q2146908"]
 # fmt: on
@@ -1196,3 +1201,18 @@ def test_threshold(meet_threshold: bool, config: Dict[str, Any]):
 
     assert len(doc.ents) == 1
     assert doc.ents[0].kb_id_ == entity_id if meet_threshold else EntityLinker.NIL
+
+
+def test_span_maker_forward_with_empty():
+    """The forward pass of the span maker may have a doc with no entities."""
+    nlp = English()
+    doc1 = nlp("a b c")
+    ent = doc1[0:1]
+    ent.label_ = "X"
+    doc1.ents = [ent]
+    # no entities
+    doc2 = nlp("x y z")
+
+    # just to get a model
+    span_maker = build_span_maker()
+    span_maker([doc1, doc2], False)