Sharks vs. Stars: Afternoon delight

San Jose tries to make it a perfect homestand as they host Dallas for the first time this season.

Yup, Dallas still has a hockey team. For whatever bizarre combination of reasons, this afternoon will mark the first time the Sharks host the division rival Stars this season and only the second contest between San Jose and Dallas all year. The first came in Texas as some dude named Cristopher Nihlstorp back-storped the Stars to a 3-1 win. This is a fairly different Dallas team than the one the Sharks faced that February evening, though. Jaromir Jagr, who wins this season's Eric Lindros award in the distinguished category of "wait, he actually played for Dallas?", Brenden Morrow, Derek Roy and Michael Ryder are all gone and Kari Lehtonen, in the midst of an impressive season despite Dallas' struggles, will be between the pipes.

Dallas Stars

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San Jose Sharks
17-17-3, 37 points
20-11-6, 46 points
13th in Western Conference 5th in Western Conference

1PM PST | HP Pavilion | San Jose, California
TV:
CSNCA-HD | Radio: 98.5 KFOX, SJSharks.com
Know Your Enemy:
Defending Big D

Projected Sharks Lineup

T.J. Galiardi - Joe Thornton - Brent Burns
Patrick Marleau - Logan Couture - Tommy Wingels
James Sheppard - Joe Pavelski - Martin Havlat
Andrew Desjardins - Scott Gomez - Adam Burish

Matt Irwin - Dan Boyle
Marc-Edouard Vlasic - Justin Braun
Brad Stuart - Matt Tennyson

Antti Niemi
Thomas Greiss

Projected Stars Lineup

Ray Whitney - Jamie Benn - Alex Chiasson
Loui Eriksson - Cody Eakin - Matt Fraser
Eric Nystrom - Vernon Fiddler - Erik Cole
Lane MacDermid - Antoine Roussel - Ryan Garbutt

Trevor Daley - Stephane Robidas
Brenden Dillon - Alex Goligoski
Aaron Rome - Philip Larsen

Kari Lehtonen
Richard Bachman