San Jose Sharks Look to Regain Form Against the Vegas Golden Knights
Both the San Jose Sharks and Vegas Golden Knights are on active losing streak. Something’s got to give on Saturday at the Tank.
The San Jose Sharks are coming off a tough 4 – 5 defeat against the Chicago Blackhawks. Team Teal gave up an early lead and were unable to recover despite a valiant comeback orchestrated by the heroics of Tomas Hertl and “Goose” Nyquist.
Excluding a few high quality individual performances Team Teal looked flat for major portions of the game. The San Jose Sharks struggled mightily to transition the puck out of their own zone and through the neutral areas of the ice. This resulted in weak zone entries and lazy turnovers that translated into odd man rushes going the other direction. They’ll need to tighten up play in their own zone if they are looking to break the cold streak.
The typically explosive San Jose Sharks offense has gone cold only compiling 2.57 goals per game during this recent rough patch. To make matters worse Team Teal has surrendered 4.28 goals per game during that same amount of time. With only 5 games remaining in the season the Sharks are running out of runway to solidify their team play.
On the other side of this equation is the Vegas Golden Knights who have gone 1 – 3 – 1 since their last match-up against the San Jose Sharks are also looking to stabilize their play. They’ve sacrificed 3 or more goals over their last 4 and are clearly showing dents in their armor. It appears that the absence of their star netminder Marc-Andre Fluery is definitely starting to show during this recent skid.
The losing streak couldn’t have come at a better time for the San Jose Sharks. Tonight Team Teal has the opportunity to clinch 2nd in the division and home ice advantage for the first round with any type of win against the Golden Knights on Saturday evening.
With tonight being the first of back to back against division rivals it’s going to be interesting how the San Jose Sharks approach this match-up against their future first round playoff opponent. Here’s what to expect when it comes to line configurations, defensive pairings, and projected starters for both clubs.
San Jose Sharks
Forward Combinations
Timo Meier ~ Logan Couture ~ Gus Nyquist
Evander Kane ~ Tomas Hertl ~ Joonas Donskoi
Marcus Sorensen~ Joe Thornton ~ Kevin Labanc
Micheal Haley ~ Barclay Goodrow ~ Dylan Gambrell
Defensive Pairings
Joakim Ryan ~ Brent Burns
Marc-Edouard Vlasic ~ Tim Heed
Brendan Dillon ~ Justin Braun
Goalie
Projected Starter ~ Martin Jones
Backup ~ Aaron Dell
Vegas Golden Knights
Forward Combinations
Jonathan Marchessault ~ William Karlsson ~ Reilly Smith
Max Pacioretty ~ Paul Stastny ~ Mark Stone
Tomas Nosek ~ Cody Eakin ~ Alex Tuch
Will Carrier ~ Pierre-Edouard ~ Ryan Reaves
Defensive Pairings
Nate Schmidt ~ Deryk Engelland
Brayden McNabb ~ Shea Theodore
Jon Merrill ~ Colin Miller
Goalie
Projected Starter ~ Malcom Subban
Backup ~ Maxime Lagace
Puck drop for tonight’s game is at 6:00 PM PT live at the SAP Center. The game will be televised on NBC Sports California while the audio is streamed via the San Jose Sharks official app courtesy of 98.5 KFOX.
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