SAN JOSE – The Sharks’ playoff push continues Friday night as the puck drops on their Stanley Cup playoff second round series with the Colorado Avalanche.
San Jose will be without captain Joe Pavelski for Game 1 at SAP Center after he suffered a scary injury in the third period of the Sharks' season-extending win over the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 7 of the first round on Tuesday. Forward Joonas Donskoi, who missed Game 7 with an unspecified injury, will also no be available to play Friday.
Colorado has been idle since defeating the Calgary Flames a week ago. But the Avs have used that time productively.
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SIGN UP HERE “We’ve had some good practices and then the last couple of days we’ve been preparing for the Sharks here,” said Matt Nieto, an Avalanche winger and former Shark. “Everyone here is feeling good and feeling healthy and they’re ready to go.”
This series marks the fifth time the Sharks and Avalanche have met up in the postseason, with San Jose winning two of the previous meetings. They last met in the first round of the 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs, and the Sharks won that series in six games. San Jose is 21-18 all-time in Game 1 of a playoff series, and 10-7 when those games take place at SAP Center.
Sharks projected lines and pairs
Timo Meier – Logan Couture – Gustav Nyquist
Evander Kane – Tomas Hertl – Lukas Radil
Marcus Sorensen – Joe Thornton – Kevin Labanc
Barclay Goodrow – Dylan Gambrell – Melker Karlsson
San Jose Sharks
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Marc-Edouard Vlasic – Brent Burns
Brenden Dillon – Erik Karlsson
Joakim Ryan – Justin Braun
Martin Jones – projected starter
Aaron Dell
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Avalanche projected lines and pairs
Gabriel Landeskog – Nathan MacKinnon – Alexander Kerfoot
Colin Wilson – Carl Soderberg – Mikko Rantanen
Matt Calvert – JT Compher – Matt Nieto
Tyson Jost – Derick Brassard – Gabriel Bourque
Sam Girard – Erik Johnson
Nikita Zadorov – Tyson Barrie
Ian Cole – Cale Makar
Philipp Grubauer – projected starter
Semyon Varlamov