San Jose Sharks Roll with the Punches into Game 4 on the Road
The San Jose Sharks are looking to keep things rolling tonight versus the St. Louis Blues on the road in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals.
Game 3 produced some wild results for the San Jose Sharks, with Team Teal winning in controversial fashion in overtime on an Erik Karlsson goal that got assisted by a Timo Meier hand pass that went uncalled on the ice.
The NHL has since apologized to the St. Louis Blues for missing that play, but we shouldn’t expect them to take much solace in that fact. Team Teal will be facing an angry Blues squad looking to correct the leagues mistakes and tie this series back up at 2 – 2.
The San Jose Sharks will need to keep their heads up tonight, with St Louis ramping up the physicality in this series. The Blues nearly doubled up Team Teal in hits in Game 3, and over time this will wear down opponents. This makes the depth of San Jose that much more crucial during this years Western Conference Finals.
Team Teal leaned heavily on the bottom tier of its roster in Game 3, with Joe Thornton leading the charge early with 2 early goals. He ended the night with an extremely effective 3 points, and will be asked to carry his strong play into Game 4.
Thornton and the rest of bottom half of this lineup will be the X-Factors in the rest of this series. The big guns on each group are canceling one another out. That means the Sharks will be turning to players like Kevin Labanc, Joonas Donskoi, and Marcus Sorensen (who makes his return to the lineup after missing Game 3).
When it comes to other lineup changes don’t expect many tweaks besides swapping out Micheal Haley for Marcus Sorensen. At the same time it doesn’t seem like the Blues will be tweaking their lineup configurations. With that being said here’s who we will be seeing on the ice for Game 4 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
Marcus Sorensen ~ 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 will keep rolling with the punches heading into Game 4 where they expect to see a fired up Blues squad looking to tie things back up 2 -2. This evenings contest will be a wild one, yet it’ll be difficult to match the calamity both teams experienced in Game 3. Hopefully things will be uneventful this evening, but having things ultimately turning up Teal.
Must Read. Pros and Cons From the Sharks Game 3 Win. light
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.