Sharks at Ducks Preview: On the road again
San Jose looks to continue its success away from SAP Center.
The Sharks are on the road again, kicking off a stretch in which they’ll play eight of ten games away from SAP Center, including two in Alberta and four more east of the Mississippi. They start tonight in Anaheim, playing their third game of the season against a Ducks team that’s still trying to get out of the hole it dug by starting 1–7–2.
Anaheim has climbed from last place to fifth since the last time these two teams met, only five points (with two more games played) behind San Jose in a so-so Pacific division thanks to a bunch of loser points. The Ducks’ fancy stats indicate that they’re probably still a pretty good team, so it’d be prudent for the Sharks to beat them tonight and pick up a little more breathing room in the standings.
The Sharks have slowed down a bit since sweeping that six-game east coast road trip, winning just one of three games on the recent homestand, but one of the losses was to the defending league champion Blackhawks (with Justin Braun out of the lineup) and the other was a much closer affair than the final score of 5–1 vs. the Penguins indicated. They’ve been a much better team on the road through their first 24 games; hopefully that trend continues tonight.
Tale Of The Tape
|
| @ |  |
| 14–10–0 | Record | 9–12–5 |
| 2nd in Pacific | Rank | 5th in Pacific |
| 51.5% | Score-Adj. Fenwick | 51.4% |
| 101.0 | PDO | 96.6 |
| 17.1 | PP% | 18.7 |
| 80.0 | PK% | 87.0 |
7:00 PST - Honda Center - Anaheim, California
TV: CSN-CA - Radio: KFOX 98.5
Know Your Enemy: Anaheim Calling
Last meeting
Corey Perry scored the only goal as the Ducks beat the Sharks 1–0. San Jose fired 31 shots at the net but couldn’t beat Anton Khudobin.
Storylines
- The Sharks are starting December with one game at home, one on the road, one at home, two on the road, one at home, and five on the road. Someone count the frequent flier miles.
- How well have the Sharks played on the road so far? They’ve averaged 3.08 goals and won 10 of 13 games away from SAP Center, compared to just 2.36 goals per game and 4 wins in 11 tries at home.
- Logan Couture’s getting closer to returning from his broken leg, but Pete DeBoer says he won’t play tonight or tomorrow.
Logan Couture skated for entire #SJSharks practice today but he won’t play in either game this weekend, per Pete DeBoer
— Kevin Kurz (@KKurzCSN) December 2, 2015