The Sharks ended the month of January on a high note, reeling off three consecutive victories against the Kings, Ducks and Blackhawks to catapult into second place in the Pacific Division and gain what appeared at the time to be a fairly tight grip on a playoff spot. What a difference a month makes as the Sharks enter tonight’s game against the Ottawa Senators, their final contest in February, hoping to notch just their first home victory of the month and only their fourth overall in the past 28 days.

Tale Of The Tape

	@
26-23-10, 62 points	Record	30-24-8, 68 points
6th in Atlantic	Rank	4th in Pacific
48.6%	Score-Adj. Fenwick	50.2%
100.9	PDO	99.2
16.6	PP%	20.6
83.0	PK%	80.4

7PM PST | SAP Center | San Jose, California
TV: CSNCA-HD | Radio: SJSharks.com, 98.5 KFOX
Know Your Enemy: Silver Seven, Bonk’s Mullet

Projected Sharks Lineup

Tomas Hertl – Joe Thornton – Joe Pavelski
Patrick Marleau – Logan Couture – Melker Karlsson
Matt Nieto – James Sheppard – Tommy Wingels
Tye McGinn – Andrew Desjardins – Barclay Goodrow

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

Antti Niemi
Alex Stalock

Projected Senators Lineup

Mike Hoffman – Mika Zibanejad – Bobby Ryan
Milan Michalek – Kyle Turris – Mark Stone
Colin Greening – David Legwand – Alex Chiasson
Erik Condra – Jean-Gabriel Pageau – Curtis Lazar

Marc Methot – Erik Karlsson
Patrick Wiercioch – Cody Ceci
Mark Borowiecki – Eric Gryba

Andrew Hammond
Chris Driedger

Last Meeting

It’s been over sixteen months since the Sharks and Senators last met as San Jose got goals from Tomas Hertl, Andrew Desjardins, Tommy Wingels, James Sheppard and Joe Pavelski along with 38 saves from Alex Stalock in his first ever NHL start for a 5-2 victory over the Sens in Ottawa on October 27th, 2013. Simpler times, those were.

Storylines

• No-name goalie Andrew Hammond has burst onto the scene in his first four career starts for Ottawa, winning all of them and notching back-to-back shutouts of the Ducks and Kings earlier this week. He has a sparkling .962 save percentage in five big league appearances this season and will get another crack at keeping the Sens’ dwindling playoff hopes alive tonight in San Jose.
• This is the Sharks’ last game before Monday’s noon trade deadline (they host the Habs that night) so it could be the last game as a Shark for a number of players, including longtime members of the team like Antti Niemi and Scott Hannan. Enjoy the (hopefully) last few moments of Scott Hannan while you can, Sharks fans!
• It’s getting close to the time when we should probably stop caring about playoff probabilities with this team but a win tonight would get them to a 32.8% chance of making the dance per Sports Club Stats./