The out-of-town scoreboard has been of no help to the Sharks as of late. Since San Jose last played on Tuesday, the Flames, Kings, Canucks, Wild and Jets have combined to earn 11 out of a possible 14 points to leave the Sharks four points behind the most attainable playoff spot. The good news is that their closest competitors have more or less played their games in hand on San Jose meaning it’s going to be a tight-knit knife fight the rest of the way, starting tonight against Vancouver.

Tale Of The Tape

	@
36-24-4, 76 points	Record	32-25-8, 72 points
2nd in Pacific	Rank	5th in Pacific
50.2%	Score-Adj. Fenwick	50.6%
99.3	PDO	99.4
17.8	PP%	21.5
85.9	PK%	79.6

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Know Your Enemy: Canucks Army, Nucks Misconduct, Pass It To Bulis

Projected Sharks Lineup

Joe Pavelski – Joe Thornton – Melker Karlsson
Patrick Marleau – Logan Couture – Matt Nieto
Tomas Hertl – Ben Smith – Tommy Wingels
John Scott – Chris Tierney – Barclay Goodrow

Marc-Edouard Vlasic – Justin Braun
Scott Hannan – Brent Burns
Mirco Mueller – Brenden Dillon

Antti Niemi
Alex Stalock

Projected Canucks Lineup

Daniel Sedin – Henrik Sedin – Zack Kassian
Chris Higgins – Shawn Matthias – Alexandre Burrows
Derek Dorsett – Nick Bonino – Radim Vrbata
Ronalds Kenins – Bo Horvat – Jannik Hansen

Alex Edler – Yannick Weber
Dan Hamhuis – Luca Sbisa
Ryan Stanton – Adam Clendening

Eddie Lack
Jacob Markstrom

Last Meeting

Chris Tierney, Melker Karlsson and Logan Couture scored within the first four shots of the Sharks’ last game to chase Canucks third-stringer Jacob Markstrom from net and lead San Jose to a huge 6-2 win in Vancouver on Tuesday.

Storylines

• Matt Irwin sustained an upper-body injury in practice on Friday and will likely not be available tonight, with Hannan taking his place. That’s a huge blow to the Sharks who have gotten significant mileage out of an offensive specialty pairing of Irwin and Brent Burns in these past two wins. Irwin has a four-game point streak going that includes two goals.
• Taylor Fedun was recalled yesterday from Worcester and he’ll be in San Jose well in time for the game but isn’t expected to play.
• On the flipside of the injured defenseman front, the Canucks got top blueliner Alex Edler back from injury for Thursday’s game against Arizona and he’s expected to anchor Vancouver’s top pairing tonight too.
• Unfortunately the Sharks won’t have the luxury of shooting on Jacob Markstrom this time around. Eddie Lack is expected to start after backstopping Vancouver to a shootout loss against the Coyotes./