If the Sharks hope to finish their season-derailing seven-game road trip with a winning record they’ll have to do so without their best defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic against a Penguins team stocked with offensive weapons that Vlasic usually thrives in shutting down. A banged-up San Jose blueline will try to keep the team’s slim playoff hopes alive in Pittsburgh.

Tale Of The Tape

	@
37-30-8, 82 points	Record	41-23-11, 93 points
5th in Pacific	Rank	2nd in Metropolitan
50.9%	Score-Adj. Fenwick	53.8%
99.0	PDO	100.5
21.7	PP%	19.7
79.3	PK%	85.5

4:30PM PDT | Consol Energy Center | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
TV: NBCSN | Radio: SJSharks.com, 98.5 KFOX
Know Your Enemy: Pensburgh

Projected Sharks Lineup

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

Brenden Dillon – Justin Braun
Matt Irwin – Brent Burns
Scott Hannan – Taylor Fedun

Antti Niemi
Alex Stalock

Projected Penguins Lineup

Daniel Winnik – Sidney Crosby – Patric Hornqvist
Chris Kunitz – Evgeni Malkin – Blake Comeau
Beau Bennett – Brandon Sutter – Steve Downie
Nick Spaling – Maxim Lapierre – Craig Adams

Paul Martin – Kris Letang
Derrick Pouliot – Ben Lovejoy
Rob Scuderi – Ian Cole

Marc-Andre Fleury
Thomas Greiss

Last Meeting

Antti Niemi stopped 39 Penguins shots and Tommy Wingels scored in the shootout as the Sharks defeated Pittsburgh on home ice by a 2-1 final score earlier this month.

Storylines

• Evgeni Malkin returned to the Penguins lineup last night after missing two weeks with an injury and is expected to face the Sharks.
• Vlasic and Mueller have been ruled out while Hannan’s status is questionable. Taylor Fedun has been recalled from Worcester and is expected to make his regular season Sharks debut./