Canucks at Sharks preview

CANUCKS (16-12-4) at SHARKS (15-17-2)
10 p.m. ET; CBC, SN, SN360, SN1, CITY, NBCSCA, NHL.TV

The 32-year-old, who has played his entire 14-season NHL career with the Sharks, also will become the third player to reach 1,000 games with San Jose, joining forward Patrick Marleau (1,523 with the Sharks) and center Joe Thornton (1,068).
San Jose, on a season-long six-game winless streak (0-5-1), is coming off a 6-3 loss against the New York Rangers on Thursday in the debut of coach Bob Boughner, who took over after Peter DeBoer was fired Wednesday.
Brandon Sutter will be a game-time decision for the Canucks, who are 4-2-0 in their past six games after going 2-4-1 in their previous seven. The forward has missed 13 games with a groin injury.

Players to watch

Canucks center Elias Pettersson has nine points (five goals, four assists) in his past 10 games.
Sharks center Logan Couture has 38 points (19 goals, 19 assists) in 40 games against Vancouver.

They said it

"It wasn't too long ago they were playing deep into the postseason. They've had a lot of big changes, but I'm expecting a real hard game. This is a tough building to play in and they've got a lot of good players on their team. It's going to be a good test but you can say that about every team these days." -- Canucks coach Travis Green
"I want to be a four-line team. I want us to play with energy and be that team that is relentless, and not let the other team off the hook when you have them in that position." -- Sharks coach Bob Boughner

Canucks projected lineup

Tanner Pearson -- Bo Horvat -- Josh Leivo
J.T. Miller -- Elias Pettersson -- Jake Virtanen
Antoine Roussel -- Adam Gaudette -- Brock Boeser
Tim Schaller -- Jay Beagle -- Brandon Sutter
Tyler Myers -- Chris Tanev
Jordie Benn -- Troy Stecher
Quinn Hughes -- Jalen Chatfield
Jacob Markstrom
Michael Dipietro
Scratched: Guillaume Brisebois , Oscar Fantenberg, Loui Eriksson, Zack MacEwen
Injured: Tyler Motte (upper body), Alexander Edler (upper body), Tyler Graovac (lower body), Micheal Ferland (upper body), Thatcher Demko (concussion)

Sharks projected lineup

Evander Kane -- Logan Couture -- Timo Meier
Tomas Hertl -- Joe Thornton -- Kevin Labanc
Patrick Marleau -- Barclay Goodrow -- Joachim Blichfeld
Marcus Sorensen -- Noah Gregor -- Melker Karlsson
Marc-Edouard Vlasic -- Erik Karlsson
Brenden Dillon -- Brent Burns
Mario Ferraro -- Tim Heed
Aaron Dell
Martin Jones
Scratched: Dylan Gambrell
Injured:Dalton Prout (upper body), Antti Suomela (upper body), Radim Simek (knee)

Status report

Markstrom will make his third straight start. … Gregor will play center, his natural position, Boughner said. … Suomela is day to day. … Simek is expected to be out at least one more week.

Stat pack

Pearson has eight points (three goals, five assists) in his past seven games. … Leivo has six points (five goals, one assist) in his past seven games. … Vlasic has been in the San Jose lineup for 576 regular-season wins, the fourth-most in NHL history through 999 games behind Larry Robinson with the Montreal Canadiens (607), Serge Savard with the Canadiens(599) and Nicklas Lidstrom with the Detroit Red Wings (581).