For just the third time, Erik Karlsson will suit up for an NHL game at the CTC as a San Jose Shark. Almost two years to the day later (October 27th 2019) the Sharks return to Ottawa, and the Senators will look to go 3-0 against their former captain. On this (very) young season, the Sharks have gone 2-0 and come to town hot off a 5-0 stomping over Montreal on Tuesday. With just five games played combined between these two teams so far, we can’t look too deeply into the numbers (especially since we’re talking about perennial basement dwellers) but with so many subplots, this could turn into a fairly entertaining game between non-traditional rivals.

From what we’ve heard, Brady Tkachuk and Matt Murray will likely make their season debuts tonight with Filip Gustavsson headed back to Belleville and one of Ottawa’s fourth-liners (possibly Parker Kelly?) coming out of the lineup:

Wednesday practice lines:

Tkachuk Norris Batherson
Paul Pinto Brown
Stützle Tierney Formenton
Sanford Shaw Ennis
Kelly xxxxx Sabourin

Chabot Zub
Del Zotto Zaitsev
Holden JBrown
Mete

— TSN 1200 (@TSN1200) October 20, 2021

The Sharks intend to roll out the same lineup that they’ve used for their first two games and James Reimer will likely start for San Jose:

#SJSharks lines tonight, same as opening night:

Dahlen-Couture-Meier
Eklund-Hertl-Balcers
Nieto-Bonino-Labanc
Cogliano-Weatherby-Pederson

Ferraro-Burns
Middleton-Karlsson
Vlasic-Simek

Hill

— Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) October 19, 2021

Game Notes:

• Among the more obvious storylines that we can’t overlook, Tim Stützle will make his debut against the team who unknowingly surrendered his draft pick rights three years ago, and Josh Norris will get to face-off against the team who drafted him.
• Another trivial Sens and Sharks connection: Jasper Weatherby played his last three seasons with the University of North Dakota alongside Jacob Bernard-Docker (and Shane Pinto for the latter two)
• Five (!) years after the Senators drafted him in the second round, Jonathan Dahlen has cracked the NHL and will play for the first time in Ottawa while Rudolfs Balcers will play against Ottawa for the first time since the Senators waived him.
• Mere months after the Sharks selected him in the NHL entry draft, William Eklund has also started his year in the big leagues at the age of 18 (it doesn’t hurt that Eklund played professional hockey in the SHL last year)./

Cath the game on TSN5, RDS, and TSN1200 @7PM EST

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