The San Jose Sharks Habsolutely Have to Win Tonight at the Tank

The San Jose Sharks face-off against the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night at SAP Center. With this game having huge implications on the standings. Can Team Teal take advantage of this opportunity to move up in the wild west.

This is the third of four games on this home stand for the San Jose Sharks. They won the first games handily, scoring at least 4 goals in the two contests. But tonight’s opponent the Montreal Canadiens are a desperate team and will be playing for their playoff lives Thursday night in the Bay Area.

Team Teal can come within 1 point of the Pacific Division leader the Calgary Flames with a victory this evening at The Tank. Sharks territory can thank the Vegas Golden Knights for putting the Flames out in regulation last night. However gaining two points will be a tall task considering the circumstances surrounding tonight’s match-up.

The San Jose Sharks will be without both Evander Kane and Erik Karlsson  for the 3rd straight game. They will also be icing an ailing Joe Pavelski and Brent Burns who are both battling flu-like symptoms. Nevertheless a team with depth like Sharks can keep them afloat regardless of who is absent from the line-up.

As far as who to expect on the ice, the official San Jose Sharks Twitter account was kind of enough to tweet out Team Teal’s forward and defensive configurations.

The San Jose Sharks desperately need to get the first overall seed in the Western Conference. Not only because it will allow them to avoid a vicious first round match-up with the Vegas Golden Knights. It will grant Team Teal home ice advantage which is where they have flourished this season. They own the league’s second best point percentage at home, per naturalstattrick trailing only the Tampa Bay Lightning This puts added pressure on a group that’s already signaled that they are Stanley Cup or bust this season.

Expect this team to come out sluggish considering they’ve been off for a decent chunk of time. But once they get up to game speed the San Jose Sharks should have no problem out pacing this desperate Habs team who are clinging to a wildcard spot in the eastern conference.

Puck drop for tonight’s game is at 7:30 PT live at the SAP Center. The game is televised on NBCSCA and the audio is streamed via the San Jose Sharks official app courtesy of 98.5 KFOX.