The Sharks are gearing up for their first road game of the season against the Utah Mammoth tonight, on the front end of a back-to-back. This is a big game for the Sharks as they look to bounce back from a poor performance on Tuesday against the Carolina Hurricanes.
Heading into tonight's game, the Sharks are banged up on their back end. Timothy Liljegren has been placed on IR with a lower-body injury. At the same time, Klingberg and Muhkhamadullin are day to day with Lower and Upper body injuries, respectively. New addition Vincent Iorio will be making his Sharks debut after being claimed on waivers yesterday. The Sharks' lines are as follows.
Skinner - Celebrini - Kurashev
Eklund - Wennberg - Toffoli
Graf - Dellandrea - Smith
Goodrow - Gaudette - Reaves
Orlov - Leddy
Ferraro - Iorio
Dickinson - Desharnais
Askarov
Misa is once again scratched after debuting against the Hurricanes on Tuesday; his scratching is likely more due to load management than poor play. The Sharks did not play Will Smith in back-to-backs a season ago for the first half of the year, and are taking a similar route with Misa. Warsofsky said in his pre-game presser that he doesn’t expect Misa to be out of the lineup for long. My guess is he draws back in Saturday night against Pittsburgh.
The forward lines have once again changed. I do think Smith, with Dellandrea and Graf, is an interesting combination that could benefit Smith’s game at five-on-five. Skinner was the Sharks' most consistent forward versus Carolina, so giving him a chance on the top line makes sense. He has played well this season and isn’t far removed from being a consistent 30-goal scorer.
Askarov is back in the net for his second game of the season. The top prospect had a rough outing against the Ducks a week ago in his debut, letting in 7 goals. He will look to put on a strong performance tonight as the Sharks have struggled as a whole in net early in the season.
Finally, Sam Dickinson is getting another shot to prove himself; his last time out was rough to say the least. The young defender is facing a more uphill battle to stay with the club than he was at the start of the month, with the addition of Iorio. The Sharks once again would need to clear a contract to keep him around. But a bounce-back could give the organization confidence that he can handle the ups and downs of learning the NHL game on the fly.
Utah’s lines can be seen here. Utah is 2-2 so far this season, while Utah is further ahead of the Sharks in the eyes of many, it should be a fun game between two young teams trying to find their winning identity early in the season.