The San Jose Sharks and the Boston Bruins are in the same boat at this juncture in the season. Both teams are out of a playoff spot and starting to look toward the NHL draft, where the possibility of a top 10 pick is likely. While the Sharks are officially eliminated mathematically, the Bruins are just waiting for the clock to run out. Boston has 69 points with 12 games to play this season. While that’s only five points back of the Montreal Canadiens, which currently hold the second spot in the Eastern Conference wild card race, Boston would have to leap frog five other teams, including Montreal, to take that spot. In other words, it could happen, but it’s very unlikely.
Boston’s management seems to know that this is the case because the team was sellers at the deadline. The biggest subtraction was Brad Marchand, who was sent to the Florida Panthers. But the Bruins also traded away Charlie Coyle, Brandon Carlo, Justin Brazeau and Trent Frederic.
Some of those players were big names in the locker room, though there were other players acquired to help fill some of the holes. Casey Mittelstadt has three points in six games since coming over in the Coyle trade. Defenseman Henri Jokiharju has a goal and is averaging 21:04 of ice time since the trade.
Even though Marchand is gone, Boston’s top scorer remains. David Pastrnak has 84 points in 70 games. Pastrnak also leads the team with 34 goals. It’s a steep drop off from there, however. The next highest scorer on the Boston roster is Pavel Zacha with 42 points in 70 games.
In the net, Jeremy Swayman is the go-to guy for the Bruins, for better and for worse. He is 20-24-6 this season with a 3.04 goals against average and a .896 save percentage. The Bruins are 3-6-1 in the team’s last ten games.
As for the Sharks, the team keeps rotating in young players and veterans from the Barracuda who are getting rewarded for their work in the AHL. Jimmy Schuldt was returned to the Barracuda earlier this week and Lucas Carlsson was called up. This will be Carlsson’s first NHL game since Nov. 1, 2022 when he played for the Florida Panthers against the Arizona Coyotes. Carlsson has a career total of 60 games and 11 points.
The last time these two teams played was on Jan. 20 when the Sharks lost 6-3 in Boston.
The young Sharks will start the game on a line together. According to NHL.com, Collin Graf, Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith will skate on the top line. That drops Tyler Toffoli to the second line with William Eklund and Alex Wennberg. On the backend, look for Carlsson to make his first NHL start in more than two years.
ForwardsCollin Graf — Macklin Celebrini — Will SmithWilliam Eklund — Alexander Wennberg — Tyler ToffoliTy Dellandrea — Patrick Giles — Nikolai Kovalenko
Carl Grundstrom — Zack Ostapchuk — Barclay Goodrow
DefenseMario Ferraro — Shakir MukhamadullinLucas Carlsson — Timothy Liljegren
Luca Cagnoni — Vincent Desharnais
GoaltendersAlexandar Georgiev
Georgi Romanov
The Bruins will be without top defenseman Charlie McAvoy, according to NHL.com. The defenseman injured his shoulder during the Four Nations and hasn’t played since. Without McAvoy, here’s what the lines for the Bruins are expected to look like tonight. It looks like backup goaltender Joonas Korpisalo will be in the net for Boston.
Forwards
Morgan Geekie — Pavel Zacha — David PastrnakCole Koepke — Casey Mittelstadt — Vinni LettieriMarat Khusnutdinov — Elias Lindholm — Fabian Lysell
John Beecher — Patrick Brown — Jakub Lauko
Defense
Nikita Zadorov — Henri JokiharjuMason Lohrei — Andrew Peeke
Parker Wotherspoon — Michael Callahan
GoaltenderJoonas Korpisalo
Jeremy Swayman
Sharks fans can watch the game on NBC Sports California. They can also hear the game on the Sharks Audio Network.
Bruins fans can watch the game on NESN.
The puck drops at 7:30 p.m. PT/10:30 p.m. ET at SAP Center in San Jose.
