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

The Sharks (23-13-6, 4th Pacific) continue a rough week with a rematch against the Coyotes (10-28-7, 8th Pacific) in Glendale. San Jose is doing their darnedest to make up their games played deficit all at once, as tonight marks the Sharks' third game in four nights and the second of a five games in seven nights gauntlet.

If the Coyotes look familiar, it might be because they visited San Jose just three days ago, eventually gifting the Sharks a 6-5 overtime win in a bit of a slop fest. The Sharks seemed to have learned the right lessons from the affair, though, going on to dominate the Kings in Los Angeles yesterday afternoon with a 4-1 win. This week is a great opportunity for the Sharks to bank some points with all of those games in hand, as they sit just two points behind the idle Calgary Flames for second place in the Pacific.

The Coyotes have struggled lately, where "struggled" is code for "flailed hopelessly" and "lately" is code for "since 2012." Arizona boasts a 3-10-3 record in their past 16, and comes into the evening having lost their last four. At this point, it probably behooves them to lose as often as possible to increase the odds of drafting Swedish Olympian Rasmus Dahlin in the Spring, but you tell an NHL player to lose on purpose, I'll wait.

One area the Sharks may struggle tonight is on the man advantage, as the Coyotes have the league's third best penalty kill since 31 October, sitting at a pretty 85.5%. Additionally, Arizona goaltenders have a history of starching Sharks' offence, and newcomer Antti Raanta is no exception. In five games against San Jose, Raanta is 2-1-0 with a goals against average of 1.46 and a save percentage of .942. The Sharks will have to break through the Finn to keep climbing the standings.

Speaking of climbing standings, Joe Thornton is likely to hit one more points milestone this year. After passing up the fun-loving Adam Oates on the all time points list, Thornton is only three points shy of catching Bryan Trottier for 16th place at 1425. It could happen tonight if he shares any time at all with the red hot Joonas Donskoi, who's been breaking ankles all weekend to the tune of two goals and three assists in two games.

Go get 'em!

Sharks Lines

Timo Meier -- Joe Thornton -- Joe Pavelski

Tomas Hertl -- Logan Couture -- Kevin Labanc

Mikkel Boedker -- Chris Tierney -- Joonas Donskoi

Joel Ward -- Barclay Goodrow -- Melker Karlsson

Brenden Dillon -- Brent Burns

Marc-Edouard Vlasic -- Justin Braun

Joakim Ryan -- Tim Heed

Aaron Dell

Martin Jones

Scratched: Jannik Hansen

Coyotes Lines

Brendan Perlini -- Derek Stepan -- Richard Panik

Tobias Rieder -- Max Domi -- Christian Fischer

Clayton Keller -- Christian Dvorak -- Josh Archibald

Zac Rinaldo -- Brad Richardson -- Jordan Martinook

Oliver Ekman-Larsson -- Jason Demers

Jakob Chychrun -- Niklas Hjalmarsson

Alex Goligoski -- Luke Schenn

Antti Raanta

Scott Wedgewood

Scratched: Freddie Hamilton, Nick Cousins, Kevin Connauton

Where to watch

Broadcast: NBCSA, FS-A PLUS

Stream: NHL.tv / NHL App

Radio: 98.5 KFOX / NHL App / Sharks App