I can practically smell the refrigerated ice already and taste the $13 Budweiser. Hockey season is fast approaching and we get our first look at the 2015 Sharks tonight as they take on the Vancouver Canucks. This is part of the Kraft Hockeyville series and the puck will drop at 7:30 p.m. in Victoria, B.C.

San Jose is definitely going with a young team tonight as is evidenced by the lineup below. This will be a good chance to check out Nikolay Goldobin (who we previewed nicely) and Timo Meier.

Tale Of The Tape

	@
40-33-9, 89 points	Last Season’s Record	48-29-5, 101 points
5th in Pacific	Last Season’s Rank	2nd in Pacific
51.2%	Last Season’s Score-Adj. Fenwick	50.5%
99.3	Last Season’s PDO	100.4
21.6	Last Season’s PP%	19.3
78.5	Last Season’s PK%	85.7

7:30PM PDT | Q Centre | Victoria, British Columbia
TV: CSNCA-HD, NHL-N, SN1 | Radio: SJSharks.com, 98.5 KFOX
Know Your Enemy: Nucks Misconduct

Projected Sharks Lineup

Tomas Hertl – Chris Tierney – Tommy Wingels
Matt Nieto – Ben Smith – Barclay Goodrow
Nikolay Goldobin – Ryan Carpenter – Timo Meier
Dylan Sadowy – Bryan Lerg – Mike Brown

Brenden Dillon – Matt Tennyson
Mirco Mueller – Dylan DeMelo
Gus Young – Jeremy Roy

Troy Grosenick
Aaron Dell

Projected Canucks Lineup

Sven Baertschi – Brandon Sutter – Radim Vrbata
Chris Higgins – Bo Horvat – Jannik Hansen
Brendan Gaunce – Adam Cracknell – Alexandra Grenier
???? – Blair Jones – Niklas Jensen

Alexander Edler – Christopher Tanev
Matt Bartkowski – Luca Sbisa
Ben Hutton – Alex Biega

Jacob Markstrom
Richard Bachman

Last Meeting

The Sharks went up 2-0 in the first period in a pivotal game against the Canucks only to seen the lead whither and die. They lost in regulation thanks to Radim Vrbata’s third-period power play goal.

Storylines

• It’s our first look at the Sharks after a summer of changes, so expect some new looks from new head coach Peter DeBoer.
• Youth, youth and also youth. Meier, Goldobin, Mueller, Roy…Lots of young guys here getting a look. That’s what I’ll be watching tonight.
• The Sharks went 2-3 against the Canucks last season./