Sharks at Oilers: Lines, gamethread, and where to watch

The Sharks (17-10-4, 3rd Pacific) visit Edmonton for the first time since a first round playoff exit last year to visit the desperate Edmonton Oilers (14-17-2, 7th Pacific) tonight. Edmonton has shocked most of the hockey world with their inability to score with anyone on the ice not named McDavid. As it turns out, trading Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle for forty Canadian cents on the American dollar hurts a team's scoring depth. Who knew hockey could be this complicated?

Our boys in blue are coming in off of another stirring comeback overtime thriller, and another disappointing result, both on the scoreboard and on their roster sheet. The 4-3 loss to the Vancouver Canucks not only lost the Sharks a valuable point in the standings, but their leading scorer as well as Logan Couture, who leads the team in goals (15) and points (26), will sit out tonight with a concussion. Still, the Sharks can get out of this road trip with five of a possible six points if they can stop the Oilers from winning two games in a row for only the third time this season.

Edmonton is coming off of a win of Saturday night, heralding the triumphant return of Cameron J. Talbot, esq. While a win over Alex Stalock and the Minnesota Wild is not overly impressive at this point in the season, the Oilers will take every two points they can as they cling to their futile (in this not so humble writer's opinion) playoff hopes. Adam "not Taylor Hall" Larsson will return to the lineup tonight after missing eight games with an upper body injury.

A move earlier in the day to send Joakim Ryan down to the AHL frees up room on the Sharks' active roster to bring Mikkel Boedker off of injured reserve, and a corresponding move by the Oilers sent Anton Slepyshev away to make room for Larsson. This will be a big test for Tomas Hertl, who is slated to take Couture's shut down second line center role against hockey Jesus himself, and since no one else on the Oilers seems terribly likely to score anything, tonight's result could be a referendum on Hertl and company's ability to do just that.

Sharks Lines

Melker Karlsson -- Joe Thornton -- Joe Pavelski

Mikkel Boedker -- Tomas Hertl -- Kevin Labanc

Timo Meier -- Chris Tierney -- Joonas Donskoi

Marcus Sorensen -- Joel Ward -- Jannik Hansen

Brenden Dillon -- Brent Burns

Marc-Edouard Vlasic -- Justin Braun

Dylan DeMelo -- Tim Heed

Martin Jones

Aaron Dell

Scratched: Daniel O'Regan

Injured: Logan Couture (concussion), Barclay Goodrow (lower body)

Oilers Lines

Milan Lucic -- Connor McDavid -- Jesse Puljujarvi

Patrick Maroon -- Ryan Nugent-Hopkins -- Drake Caggiula

Jujhar Khaira -- Leon Draisaitl -- Ryan Strome

Nathan Walker -- Mark Letestu -- Zack Kassian

Darnell Nurse -- Kris Russell

Oscar Klefbom -- Matt Benning

Brandon Davidson -- Adam Larsson

Cam Talbot

Laurent Brossoit

Scratched: Eric Gryba, Michael Cammalleri, Yohann Auvitu

Injured: Andrej Sekera (knee)

Where to watch

Broadcast: NBCSCA, SNW

Stream: NHL.tv / NHL App

Radio: 98.5 KFOX / NHL App / Sharks App