San Jose Sharks Opening Night Lineup Projection

The forward lines will likely remain exactly the same as they were in the Sharks' final preseason game against the Vegas Golden Knights . While an argument could be made to swap Sherwood and Toffoli, Ryan Warsofsky seemed to really like the top two lines during their time together, so it seems unlikely much will change there. Brett Leason will remain on the Sharks roster until Adam Gaudette is ready to return, then he'll likely be waived for the purpose of reassignment to the Barracuda. Dellandrea will cycle in as needed throughout the season.

This is where things got a little bit difficult. During preseason, Jacob Trouba played almost exclusively with Nolan Allan and logically, that would continue into the regular season. With that being said, since the Sharks opted to keep Sam Dickinson in the NHL, I'd assume they're not planning on sitting him in the press box when he could be developing in the American Hockey League. If they don't want Dickinson in the lineup, they could've easily kept Libor Hajek in the NHL as the seventh defenseman and allowed their 20-year-old prospect to regain his confidence at the AHL level.

Throughout the preseason, Dmitry Orlov split his time between playing with Dickinson and Luca Cagnoni. As a result, it was difficult to figure out where exactly to put them each in the lineup. Orlov and Cagnoni are both comfortable playing their off-side, which gives them some flexibility as well. Ultimately, I opted to put Cagnoni with Trouba simply so he doesn't have to play his off-hand while adapting to the NHL.