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

Hungry for redemption, the Sharks (31-19-8, 2nd Pacific) look to close out a strong home stand against the high flying Dallas Stars (34-20-4, 3rd Central). Tied in points with the St. Louis Blues for the final guaranteed playoff spot in the terrifying Central division, the Stars have won six of their last seven games and sit five points behind the Predators and Jets.

The Sharks are eager to forget their last meeting in Dallas, a 6-0 walloping on New Year's Eve. San Jose's coaching staff is framing that contest as a classic "burn the tape" game, and say we should, too.

San Jose will want to build on their most recent successes rather than dwelling on tragedies of eras past, and in this case that took the shape of a dominant 4-1 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday night. The Martin Jones show continued, as a 43 save performance went a long way to backstop the boys in blue to the W. Jones is 3-3-1 in his last seven, but that definitively average record conceals a 1.84 goals against average and a .941 save percentage.

The Stars are building quite a bit of momentum of their own, they came out on top of a 2-1 contest over the Blues on Friday night, good for a four point swing in the standings. The addition of goaltender Ben Bishop and the adoption of the defensive style of head coach Ken Hitchcock seems to have finally taken hold in Dallas, as Bishop looks like a starter again, and defenseman John Klingberg looks like a legitimate Norris threat.

The current Norris holder, Brent Burns, will move back to the blue line tonight, after a brief but uneventful foray to the front lines during the first period of Thursday's game. The Sharks need to start creating some distance in the standings if they want to breathe easy over the coming road trip. They're still in second place, but only one point ahead of the Anaheim Ducks, two ahead of the Calgary Flames, and three ahead of the Los Angeles Kings. This will be a race to watch up to the final day of the season.

The Sharks had no morning skate today, so take the lineups with a grain of salt or 30 until the pregame skate. Tomas Hertl is likely to sit tonight, but he will travel with the team on the road this week.

A win tonight would go a long way to helping us forget that New Year's Eve massacre, boys. Go get 'em.

Sharks Lines

Timo Meier -- Joe Pavelski -- Melker Karlsson

Joonas Donskoi -- Logan Couture -- Kevin Labanc

Mikkel Boedker -- Chris Tierney -- Jannik Hansen

Marcus Sorensen -- Barclay Goodrow -- Danny O'Regan

Joakim Ryan -- Brent Burns

Marc-Edouard Vlasic -- Justin Braun

Brenden Dillon -- Dylan DeMelo

Martin Jones

Aaron Dell

Scratched: Tim Heed

Injured: Joe Thornton (knee), Joel Ward (shoulder), Tomas Hertl (upper body)

Stars Lines

Jamie Benn -- Tyler Seguin -- Alexander Radulov

Antoine Roussel -- Radek Faksa -- Tyler Pitlick

Mattias Janmark -- Jason Spezza -- Devin Shore

Gemel Smith -- Remi Elie -- Brett Ritchie

Esa Lindell -- John Klingberg

Dan Hamhuis -- Greg Pateryn

Marc Methot -- Stephen Johns

Ben Bishop

Kari Lehtonen

Scratched: Jason Dickinson, Julius Honka

Injured: Martin Hanzal (general soreness)

Where to watch

Broadcast: NBCSCA, FS-SW

Stream: NHL.tv / NHL App

Radio: 98.5 KFOX / NHL App / Sharks App