With one game left, the Sharks look to close out their six-game homestand with a 3-1-2 record by beating a Boston Bruins team having an eerily similar season to San Jose. Like the Sharks, the Bruins are a team that entered the season with fairly high hopes but currently find themselves fifth in their division with less auspicious underlying numbers than they’ve historically posted. Unlike the Sharks, the Bruins have some legitimate excuses: Zdeno Chara has missed the team’s last 15 games due to injury and No. 2 center David Krejci has been on the shelf for an extended stretch as well. Still these are too teams very much trying to get on track as the Bruins visit the Tank having lost both games in Southern California while the Sharks look to extend their season-high-tying two-game regulation win streak to three.

Tale Of The Tape

	@
14-11-1, 29 points	Record	12-10-4, 28 points
5th in Atlantic	Rank	5th in Pacific
52.0%	Score-Adj. Fenwick	51.5%
100.0	PDO	99.1
17.7	PP%	23.5
80.0	PK%	82.0

7:30PM PST | SAP Center | San Jose, California
TV: CSNCA-HD | Radio: SJSharks.com, 98.5 KFOX
Know Your Enemy: Stanley Cup Of Chowder

Projected Sharks Lineup

Tomas Hertl – Joe Thornton – Joe Pavelski
Patrick Marleau – Logan Couture – Tommy Wingels
Matt Nieto – James Sheppard – Tyler Kennedy
John Scott – Andrew Desjardins – Mike Brown

Marc-Edouard Vlasic – Justin Braun
Brenden Dillon – Brent Burns
Matt Irwin – Scott Hannan

Antti Niemi
Alex Stalock

Projected Bruins Lineup

Brad Marchand – Patrice Bergeron – David Pastrnak
Milan Lucic – Carl Soderberg – Loui Eriksson
Matt Fraser – Chris Kelly – Reilly Smith
Daniel Paille – Gregory Campbell – Simon Gagne

Dennis Seidenberg – Dougie Hamilton
Matt Bartkowski – Kevan Miller
Torey Krug – Zach Trotman

Tuukka Rask
Niklas Svedberg

Last Meeting

Despite taking a 3-2 lead into the third period, the Sharks ended up closing out their first lengthy Eastern Conference road trip with a loss as the Bruins rallied with three goals in the final frame. Logan Couture had his best game of the season with two goals on eight shots, seven controlled zone entries and a 60% Corsi going up against Patrice Bergeron.

Storylines

• After colliding with the Flyers’ Michael Raffl early in the third period of the Sharks’ win over Philadelphia and not returning to that game, Logan Couture remains questionable for tonight’s contest. He was on the ice for morning skate but still needs to undergo another test before being cleared for action.
• One Shark who has been cleared for action is Tyler Kennedy, activated off injured reserve earlier today. He skated with James Sheppard and Tye McGinn at morning skate but if Couture can go, Nieto would probably be the opposite wing.
• Boston is 4-4-0 against the West this season while the Sharks are 6-7-2 against the East./