Hope everyone had a happy holidays.
The San Jose Sharks start the post-Christmas hockey portion of the season with a showdown at the Tank with the Vegas Golden Knights. This will be the first time former Sharks forward Tomas Hertl will play at SAP Center while wearing Vegas’ black and gold.
“I’m pretty excited to come back, but at the same time, it’s going to be a little weird. I was there for 11 years,” Hertl told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “I was never in the visiting room. Now, I’m coming to the rink like an outsider.”
Hertl was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights last season before the trade deadline because he wanted to compete for a Stanley Cup. With the Sharks clearly in a rebuild, Hertl was unsure if the team could be competitive while he was still in his prime. At the same time, the Golden Knights are more than competitive. The team currently leads the Pacific Division with 49 points. The team is five points up on the Edmonton Oilers and six points up on the Los Angeles Kings.
The Sharks, on the other hand, are last in the Pacific Division, though they are much more in the mix compared to last season when the team was well behind the rest of the league at this juncture of the season.
The two teams play three times this season. The Sharks lost 7-3 in Vegas on Oct. 26. After tonight, the Sharks and Golden Knights will play once more in San Jose on Jan. 7.
Jack Eichel leads the Golden Knights with 45 points in 34 games. Ivan Barbashev is the team’s top goal scorer with 15 goals in 31 games. Former Shark Adin Hill has claimed the net this season. He is 15-5-2 as the starting goaltender for the Golden Knights. He has a 2.61 goals against average and a .905 save percentage.
On the Sharks side of things, here’s to hoping that William Eklund isn’t facing a long-term injury after he left the game against the Vancouver Canucks on Dec. 23 after a hit from Tyler Myers.
Ignore the goal, just watch Tyler Myers truck Eklund instead pic.twitter.com/wPIpNsXx2Y
— Wyatt Arndt (@TheStanchion) December 24, 2024
It was a clean hit by Myers, but Eklund was hurt. The 22-year-old forward looks to be day-to-day, according to San Jose Hockey Now’s Sheng Peng, but a few days of rest for the Christmas holiday won’t hurt. Defenseman Jake Walman is still injured and considered day-to-day.
San Jose Sharks lines tonight
With the two missing players, this is what Peng reports the lines are likely to look like for tonight.
Forwards
Barclay Goodrow – Mikael Granlund – Tyler Toffoli
Fabian Zetterlund – Macklin Celebrini – Will Smith
Nikolai Kovalenko – Alex Wennberg – Klim Kostin
Carl Grundstrom – Nico Sturm – Ty Dellandrea
Defense
Henry Thrun – Cody Ceci
Mario Ferraro – Timothy Liljegren
Shakir Mukhamadullin
Goaltenders
Alexandar Georgiev
Yaroslav Askarov
Vegas Golden Knights lines vs. San Jose Sharks
As for the Golden Knights, we’re going off the lines that the Golden Knights played on Dec. 23 during the team’s beat the Anaheim Ducks 3-1.
According to SinBin.Vegas, Vegas Head Coach Bruce Cassidy liked the second line of Hertl, William Karlsson and Keegan Kolesar.
Cassidy says he likes the complement that Kolesar offers Hertl. Says putting Karlsson in the middle adding the pace really worked out.
— SinBin.vegas (@SinBinVegas) December 24, 2024
Forwards
Victor Olofsson – Jack Eichel – Mark Stone
Tomas Hertl – William Karlsson – Keegan Kolesar
Brett Howden – Tanner Laczynski – Pavel Dorofeyev
Tanner Pearson – Cole Schwindt – Alexander Holtz
Defense
Brayden McNabb – Shea Theodore
Noah Hanifin – Alex Pietrangelo
Nicolas Hague – Zach Whitecloud
Goaltenders
Adin Hill
Ilya Samsonov
How to watch Vegas Golden Knights at San Jose Sharks tonight
The puck drops at 7:30 p.m. PT at SAP Center in San Jose.
Sharks fans can watch the game on NBC Sports California or listen on the Sharks Audio Network.
Golden Knights fans can watch on Vegas 34 or listen on FOX Sports Las Vegas 98.9 or 1340.
You can also come back here to talk about what’s happening on the ice when the puck drops.
