The San Jose Sharks Look To Rebound Tonight Against The Blue Jackets

The San Jose Sharks are set to defend home ice against an explosive Blue Jackets team that has produced mixed results so far this season.

The San Jose Sharks are looking to bounce back off a disheartening 4 -3 shootout loss where they looked uncharacteristically lethargic Tuesday evening. Hopefully tonight’s game yields a better more entertaining outcome.

Their previous game against the New York Rangers was interesting to say the least. For much of the contest the San Jose Sharks spent a lot of time in their own zone. It wasn’t until the final 15 minutes of the game that Team Teal started to put pressure on the Rangers and generate some dangerous looks at the net.

They were lucky to scrap and crawl their way for a point, if not for a Tomas Hertl buzzer beater to send it to OT. This perpetuates their point streak to 6 games.

From the looks of it the San Jose Sharks are heading into tonight’s game with the same lineup they started with earlier in the week. The official San Jose Sharks account tweeted out the potential line ups in their slick #StealthMode font and layout.

Coach Peter DeBoer seems determined to continue to try the Joe’s on the same line. It really hasn’t produced much success with either Evander Kane or Timo Meier on their left wing. But to be fair it’s a little too early to judge the results produced with Jumbo on the ice. At least if things start slow again tonight the Sharks have the ability to reformulate the extremely potent line of Hertl – Couture – Meier.

The San Jose Sharks really struggled to get out of their own end and a lot of that had to do with how aggressive the Rangers played on defense. They really never stopped forechecking and swarmed the Sharks more dynamic playmakers whenever they had the puck. It really limited their ability to  trek the puck through the neutral zone and create any solid offensive zone entries.

The Sharks need to find a way to get players like Erik Karlsson, Couture, and Hertl some open ice so they can use their vision and passing/shooting ability to create some scoring chances. The Rangers did a good job last game of preventing this and it showed on the stat sheet. Team Teal put together arguably their most underwhelming performance as far as shot share and generating hazardous scoring possibilities in front of the opposing netminders crease.

Speaking of netminders the San Jose Sharks are icing the worlds “okayest” goalie tonight, Aaron Dell. The man has played a little better than “okay” this season while making the most of his limited starts.

Dell is entering tonight’s game with 0.921 SV%. He was Team Teals best player against the Hurricanes last week when he almost single-handedly earned the Sharks a point that they really didn’t deserve.  Look for him to maintain his level of play tonight against a Columbus Blue Jackets team that sports some extremely talented players up and down their roster.

Tonight’s game starts at 7:30 and will be airing on NBCSCA, and also streaming through the San Jose Sharks official app courtesy of 98.5 KFOX