@ 7:30 PST
2-2-0, 4 points		1-0-1, 3 points
7th in Eastern Conference		9th in Western Conference

For all Sharks fans, this last week has been an extremely rough one to get through– the week long break in between games, coupled with an overseas start in Europe, has taken a lot of the energy out of what is usually a very exciting time to be a Sharks fan.

Thankfully, tonight changes all that.

According to David Pollak of Working The Corners, Antti Niemi will be getting the start tonight in the home opener. The last time Niemi played in front of a packed house at HP Pavilion was when he was shutting down the Sharks with the Chicago Blackhawks, so it should be interesting to see how that all shakes out.

DP also broke down the likely lineup for tonight, with not much changing between here and Stockholm:

McGinn-Thornton-Setoguchi

Marleau-Pavelski-Mitchell

Clowe-Couture-Heatley

McLaren-Nichol-McCarthy

Mitchell obviously impressed the coaches enough since training camp to receive a bump up to that second line, but like the case was earlier, don’t view these as any type of weighting tool– the top nine should receive just about equal amounts of minutes at evens, with the power play and penalty kill separating the wheat from the chaff.

SBN Bay Area’s story stream for tonight’s tilt can be found here.

Some thoughts on Thornton’s extension will drop later today or early tomorrow morning.

Prediction: Sharks win 4-2. Goals by McGinn, Boyle, Mitchell, and McLaren. Dustin Byfuglien looks like an idiot skating backwards the whole game.

Go Sharks.