Sharks vs. Red Wings preview: Road trip from hell continues in Detroit
Beating an old rival might qualify as something left to play for.
Their postseason hopes are dead in the water but the Sharks swim on, continuing a seven-game road trip that has already all-but-mathematically claimed their ability to return to the Stanley Cup Playoffs for an eleventh consecutive season. They'll face the only team that has a longer active streak of playoff appearances as the Detroit Red Wings look poised to make the dance for a 24th straight year this spring.
Tale Of The Tape
 | @ |  |
| 35-30-8, 78 points | Record | 39-21-12, 90 points |
| 5th in Pacific | Rank | 3rd in Atlantic |
| 50.7% | Score-Adj. Fenwick | 52.5% |
| 99.1 | PDO | 99.7 |
| 21.8 | PP% | 24.9 |
| 79.1 | PK% | 81.0 |
4:30PM PDT | Joe Louis Arena | Detroit, Michigan
TV: CSNCA-HD | Radio: SJSharks.com, 98.5 KFOX
Know Your Enemy: Winging It In Motown
Projected Sharks Lineup
Joe Pavelski - Joe Thornton - Melker Karlsson
Patrick Marleau - Logan Couture - Tomas Hertl
Matt Nieto - Chris Tierney - Tommy Wingels
John Scott - Ben Smith - Barclay Goodrow
Marc-Edouard Vlasic - Justin Braun
Matt Irwin - Brent Burns
Mirco Mueller - Brenden Dillon
Antti Niemi
Alex Stalock
Projected Red Wings Lineup
Gustav Nyquist - Henrik Zetterberg - Justin Abdelkader
Riley Sheahan - Darren Helm - Tomas Tatar
Joakim Andersson - Stephen Weiss - Teemu Pulkkinen
Drew Miller - Luke Glendening - Tomas Jurco
Brendan Smith - Marek Zidlicky
Danny DeKeyser - Kyle Quincey
Jakub Kindl - Jonathan Ericsson
Jimmy Howard
Jonas Gustavsson
Last Meeting
After taking a 2-1 lead midway through the second period, the Sharks managed one shot on goal over the remainder of the game, ultimately following up their Stadium Series loss with yet another disappointing defeat sealed by a last-minute Luke Glendening goal.
Storylines
- Pavel Datsyuk and Niklas Kronwall for Detroit are day-to-day with their respective lower body injuries and could potentially return to the Wings lineup tonight.
- This will be the Sharks' first visit to Detroit since October 21st, 2013. Considering these teams faced each other nineteen times in a two-season span from 2009 to 2011, that's certainly a new wrinkle to the schedule since the Wings switched conferences./