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San Jose Sharks (26-10-6) at Chicago Blackhawks (29-7-8) 7PM Central NBCSN/WGN Radio
THE BUZZ:
In the teams' first and only meeting this season the Hawks handed the Sharks a fairly convincing 5-1 loss at the United Center. Clearly, the Hawks are a team the Sharks need to beat, on the scoreboard and in their own minds, to be the elite team they always seem to be on the cusp of becoming.
Shark GM Doug Wilson set out last season to begin to retool a big, slow team around speed and the results have been good. The Sharks are a competitive, dangerous team.
Over their last ten games, the Sharks are 6-4-0, including a 4-3 loss yesterday in Colorado. Chicago is 6-1-3. The Hawks are 3rd in the league on the power play, the Sharks 11th. On the penalty kill, the Hawks are 28th and San Jose 14th.
PROJECTED LINEUPS
SAN JOSE
Joe Pavelski Joe Thornton Brent Burns Patrick Marleau Logan Couture Matthew Nieto James Sheppard Bracken Kearns Andrew Desjardins Freddie Hamilton John McCarthy Mike Brown
Dan Boyle Marc-Edouard Vlasic Jason Demers Scott Hannan Brad Stuart Justin Braun
Antti Niemi
CHICAGO
Patrick Sharp Jonathan Toews Marian Hossa Brandon Saad Michal Handzus Patrick Kane Kris Versteeg Andrew Shaw Bryan Bickell Brandon Bollig Marcus Kruger Ben Smith
Duncan Keith Brent Seabrook Niklas Hjalmarsson Johnny Oduya Nick Leddy Sheldon Brookbank
Corey Crawford
Recap tomorrow,
JJ