San Jose Sharks Aspire to Rebound on the Road in Game 3

Coming off another disappointing Game 2 loss during this years Stanley Cup Playoffs. The San Jose Sharks aspire to rebound in Game 3 on the road.

The valiant comeback effort by Logan Couture in Game 2 was all for nothing with the San Jose Sharks falling 4 – 2 at the Tank. The St. Louis Blues responded well after their Game 1 loss.

They adjusted their style of play focusing more on funneling their offense through their talented blueliners, instead of worrying about compiling hits on the stat sheet. This paid off well for St. Louis in the Sharks end of the ice. Their defenders compiled 5 total points, with at least one of them being involved on every Blues goal scored.

The San Jose Sharks are going to need to center themselves and get back to the team defense that’s brought them this far into the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Their forwards regularly lost track of their assignments in the defensive zone, resulting in open passing lanes, easy scoring chances, and a few too many power play chances for this extremely deep Blues roster to capitalize on.

Expect the San Jose Sharks to respond with a more disciplined effort in tonight’s contest with home ice advantage hanging in the balance at the Enterprise Center in Game 3.

Something that got understated following Game 2 was the disappearing act by Tomas Hertl. He wasn’t credited for a single shot on goal, and his line consisting of Evander Kane/Joe Pavelski were only on the ice for 1 shot according to naturalstattrick.

The St. Louis Blues Coach Craig Berube has tasked the pairing of Jay Bouwmeester and Colton Parayko to suppress what he believes is the Sharks top offensive unit. It’ll be interesting to see how Coach Pete DeBoer adjusts, especially with the Blues having last change and home ice advantage in Game 3.

That means a lot of the responsibility will be placed on the other forwards on the Sharks roster. Couture and his linemates are producing, but Thornton and the rest of the bottom 6 have been noticeably quiet during the first 2 games. Team Teal desperately needs them to step up if they want to overcome the depth of this St. Louis Blues club.

At morning skate it appeared the San Jose Sharks were skating without Marcus Sorensen in the lineup. Instead they had Melker Karlsson in his place, with Haley filling in on the 4th line. This isn’t set in stone, but it seems Team Teal feels the need to switch things around depth wise.

Conversely it seems that the St. Louis Blues won’t make any changes to their lineup configuration that brought them success in Game 2. That being said, here’s who we will be likely seeing on the ice in Game 3 at the Enterprise Center.

San Jose Sharks

Forward Combinations

Timo Meier ~ Logan Couture ~ Gus Nyquist

Evander Kane ~ Tomas Hertl ~ Joe Pavelski

Melker Karlsson~ Joe Thornton ~ Kevin Labanc

Micheal Haley ~ Barclay Goodrow  ~ Joonas Donskoi

Defensive Pairings

Marc-Edouard Vlasic ~ Brent Burns

Brenden Dillon ~ Erik Karlsson

Joakim Ryan ~ Justin Braun

Goalie

Projected Starter ~ Martin Jones

Backup ~ Aaron Dell

St. Louis Blues

Forward Combinations

Jaden Schwartz ~ Brayden Schenn ~ Vlad Tarasenko

Sammy Blais ~ Ryan O’Reilly ~ David Perron

Pat Maroon~ Tyler Bozak ~ Robert Thomas

Ivan Barbashev ~ Oskar Sundqvist  ~ Alexander Steen

Defensive Pairings

Joel Edmundson ~ Alex Pietrangelo

Jay Bouwmeester ~ Colton Parayko

Vince Dunn ~ Robert Bortuzzo

Goalie

Projected Starter ~ Jordan Binnington

Backup ~ Jake Allen

The San Jose Sharks plan on bouncing back from their Game 2 defeat, with a total team effort on the road versus the St. Louis Blues. The depth of both clubs will be put to the test in this match-up with each team playing in at least 15 Stanley Cup Playoffs games since April 10th.

Puck drop for tonight’s game at the Enterprise Center is at 5:10 PM PT. The game will be televised nationally on NBCSN. The audio can be streamed on the NHL and Sharks Apps courtesy of 98.5 KFOX.