Your San Jose Sharks are back in action tonight. With the recent wins over the Washington Capitals and Seattle Kraken, the Sharks are hot as they ride into the Sunshine State. Tampa's been struggling with a 5-5-1 record in their last 10; playing .500 hockey makes them a beatable team, but the Sharks must turn up and defeat them. This Tampa Bay roster will not roll over for the Sharks, and Jon Cooper will make sure they fight to the final horn.
The best way to beat this Tampa team is to stay out of the penalty box. With that deadly powerplay, the Lightning will convert most of the man advantages they are given through the night, so the Sharks must remain disciplined. While the Sharks penalty kill has been good this year, sometimes you want to limit the work they must do. If the Sharks keep skating and are wise, they'll restrict much of what Tampa likes to do.
Beating Andrei Vasilevskiy is the other difficult task the Sharks endure tonight. As the best goaltender in the league for the last half-decade, Vasy has been dominant against almost every team he's faced. He's not had many games against the rebuilding Sharks in that time, as the Bolts favored giving him the night off instead to rest. They'll have a chance if the Sharks can get an early goal or two and play ahead of the game.
Projected Lineups
San Jose Sharks
William Eklund - Macklin Celebrini - Fabian Zetterlund
Luke Kunin - Alex Wennberg - Tyler Toffoli
Klim Kostin - Mikael Granlund - Will Smith
Carl Grundstrom - Nico Sturm - Ty Dellandrea
Jake Walman - Cody Ceci
Mario Ferraro - Timothy Liljegren
Jack Thompson - Jan Rutta
Vitek Vanecek
Mackenzie Blackwood
Tampa Bay Lightning
Jake Guentzel - Brayden Point - Gage Goncalves
Brandon Hagel - Anthony Cirelli - Nick Paul
Cam Atkinson - Connor Geekie - Michael Chaffee
Zemgus Girgensons - Luke Glendening - Michael Eyssimont
Victor Hedman - J.J Moser
Ryan McDonagh - Erik Cernak
Eml Lilleberg - Darren Raddysh
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Jonas Johansson
Puck Drop
This 4 p.m. puck drop from Amalie Arena will see the Sharks and Bolts face off. San Jose will be looking for a fourth straight win to continue this momentum and potentially get back into the playoff conversations, but that is a conversation for a different day. As the Sharks look to continue to build, this would be another big scalp to add to Washington's.