Oilers at Sharks preview

OILERS (9-10-1) at SHARKS (11-7-3)
10:30 p.m. ET; NBCSN, NBCSCA, SNW, NHL.TV

Hitchcock replaced Todd McLellan, who was fired Tuesday. McLellan was 123-119-24 in parts of four seasons with the Oilers. Edmonton is 9-10-1 this season and has lost six of its past seven games; it is in sixth place in the Pacific Division.
Hitchcock, a native of Edmonton, is the third winningest coach in NHL history (823-506-119, 88 ties) in 22 seasons with the Dallas Stars, Philadelphia Flyers, Columbus Blue Jackets and St. Louis Blues.
Sharks forward Joe Pavelski will try to extend his four-game goal and multipoint streaks. He has nine points (six goals, three assists) in his past four games for San Jose, which is 3-1-0 in its past four games, including a 4-0 win against the Blues on Saturday.

Players to watch

Oilers center Connor McDavid, who is one goal shy of 100 in the NHL, has 17 points (eight goals, nine assists) in his past 14 games.
Sharks defenseman Erik Karlsson has five points (one goal, four assists) during a three-game point streak.

They said it

"Mostly this is on us as players. For me personally he was amazing. I love Todd. It's part of the business. It's a new look and gives us hopefully some new energy and a little bit of a push." -- Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl on the firing of Todd McLellan as coach and hiring of Ken Hitchcock
"We're not going to change because of the coaching change, other than we have to be aware their desperation level is going to be ramped up." -- Sharks coach Peter DeBoer

Oilers projected lineup

Drake Caggiula -- Connor McDavid -- Leon Draisaitl
Ryan Spooner -- Ryan Nugent-Hopkins -- Alex Chiasson
Milan Lucic -- Cooper Marody -- Ty Rattie
Jujhar Khaira -- Kyle Brodziak -- Zack Kassian
Oscar Klefbom -- Adam Larsson
Darnell Nurse -- Matt Benning
Kris Russell -- Kevin Gravel
Mikko Koskinen
Cam Talbot
Scratched:Jason Garrison, Patrick Russell
Injured:Tobias Rieder (upper body), Andrej Sekera (Achilles)

Sharks projected lineup

Evander Kane -- Joe Pavelski -- Joonas Donskoi
Tomas Hertl -- Logan Couture -- Timo Meier
Marcus Sorensen -- Joe Thornton -- Kevin Labanc
Barclay Goodrow -- Antti Suomela -- Melker Karlsson
Joakim Ryan -- Brent Burns
Brenden Dillon -- Erik Karlsson
Marc-Edouard Vlasic -- Justin Braun
Martin Jones
Aaron Dell
Scratched: Radim Simek, Tim Heed, Lucas Radil
Injured: None

Status report

Chiasson, who has eight goals and one assist, will move from the third to the second line and trade places with Rattie. ... Radil was recalled and Dylan Gambrell was assigned to San Jose of the American Hockey League on Tuesday.

Stat pack

Draisaitl has a three-game point streak with two goals and four assists and has 15 points (eight goals, seven assists) in his past 12 games. ... Pavelski has 51 points (24 goals, 27 assists) in 49 games against Edmonton. ... Thornton needs one assist to tie Mario Lemieux (1,033) for 11th place on the NHL's all-time list.