San Jose Sharks host the Chicago Blackhawks in clash of the bottom two teams
By Conor Power
After the hard fought loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning in Duclairs return home, we trade the skill of Tampa for a battle of the bottom feeders. The Chicago Blackhawks are the team providing the opponents tonight as the two teams at the bottom of the NHL standings clash. It's a battle for the right to get the best odds at the first overall pick and Macklin Celebrini so we will see where this leads as the Sharks and Blackhawks battle.
For San Jose, they already hold a four point lead in the Celebrini sweepstakes. They have an extra game to play, but as the only team in the NHL with less than 40 points, the Sharks have the best odds at the pick. If t hey were unable to get the result tonight, those odds would only increase, and the Sharks know that they need to get one of the up and coming young talents that can be the face of a franchise.
If you don't want to watch this game because it's the Sharks and the Blackhawks and it might be against the Geneva convention as a form of torture, there are 11 games on tonight across the league. Dive into your Saturday hockey with a few matinees, and get into the flow of the day. There's a lot to like about weekends when the games are staggered like this, so enjoy all you can!
Projected Lineups
Chicago Blackhawks
Nick Foligno - Connor Bedard - Philipp Kurashev
Andreas Athanasiou - Tyler Johnson - Lukas Reichel
Landon Slaggert - Jason Dickinson -Joey Anderson
Taylor Raddysh - Ryan Donato - Jarred Tinordi
Alex Vlasic - Seth Jones
Kevin Korchinski - Jaycob Megna
Wyatt Kaiser - Nikita Zaitsev
Petr Mrazek
Arvid Soderblom
San Jose Sharks
Fabian Zetterlund - Mikael Granlund - Klim Kostin
Filip Zadina - Luke Kunin - Alexander Barabanov
Thomas Bordeleau - Nico Sturm - Justin Bailey
Jacob MacDonald - Ryan Carpenter - William Eklund
Mario Ferraro - Kyle Burroughs
Henry Thrun - Jan Rutta
Marc-Edouard Vlasic - Calen Addison
Mackenzie Blackwood
Devin Cooley
Puck Drop
This is a 7:30 puck drop from the Shark Tank as these two teams will complete the season series. Chicago have won the previous two, with the Sharks only sneaking a point out of a shootout loss the first time they played each other. Now, both team will be trying to give the points away to solidify their claim at the first overall pick.