The San Jose Sharks are in the Lone Star State tonight as they return to face the Dallas Stars. The Sharks took the Stars to the shootout earlier in the season before falling. Fresh off a win over the Detroit Red Wings in overtime, the Sharks will be trying to rectify that loss by taking two points from Dallas tonight and moving into this back-to-back with a win.
After Mackenzie Blackwood sparkled against the Red Wings, continuing his great form, we'll see the Sharks give him the reigns again. It'll be interesting to see where the Sharks go for tomorrow's game against the St Louis Blues with Vitek Vanecek listed as day-to-day but on the road trip and young Yaroslav Askarov chomping at the bit to get into an NHL game for the Sharks. There's no right answer for tomorrow, but there is a difficult game against Dallas to deal with tonight.
Dallas is 11-6 on the season and is one of the favorites for a deep postseason run in the spring. San Jose took them to the shootout earlier in the season, so we can be certain that the Stars will want revenge for that. They'll want to get this game out of Team Teal's reach as soon as they can and focus on just adding the two points to their standings totals.
Projected Lineups
San Jose Sharks
William Eklund - Mikael Granlund - Fabian Zetterlund
Barclay Goodrow - Macklin Celebrini - Will Smith
Ty Dellandrea - Alex Wennberg - Tyler Toffoli
Klim Kostin - Luke Kunin - Carl Grundstrom
Henry Thrun - Cody Ceci
Mario Ferraro - Timothy Liljegren
Jake Walman - Jan Rutta
Mackenzie Blackwood
Yaroslav Askarov
Dallas Stars
Jason Robertson - Roope Hintz - Wyatt Johnston
Mason Marchment - Matt Duchene - Tyler Seguin
Jamie Benn - Mavrik Bourque - Logan Stankoven
Oskar Back - Sam Steel - Evgenii Dadonov
Miro Heiskanen - Matt Dumba
Tomas Harely - Ilya Lybushkin
Esa Lindell - Nils Lundkvist
Casey DeSmith
Jake Oettinger
Puck Drop
It'll be a 5 p.m. Pacific puck drop from Dallas as the Sharks build on their win over the Red Wings. Dallas is a much sterner task than the team from Motown, which has a lot more offense, but the Sharks know they can take them the distance anyway. Where the question lies is in the result. Can the Sharks get over the line and take the two points, or will the come up short again?