Road-heavy start for Sharks
Challenging slate awaits San Jose, which may not play first home game until Feb. 1
The NHL released its regular season schedule Wednesday and as expected, the San Jose Sharks won’t be playing home games at SAP Center anytime soon.
The Sharks’ first eight games of the season will be away from San Jose, as they start the year by playing two games each against Arizona, St. Louis, Minnesota and Colorado from Jan. 14 to Jan 28. It is the Sharks’ longest road trip of their 56-game season.
The first games the Sharks are scheduled to play in San Jose are Feb. 1 and 3 against the Vegas Golden Knights. However, Santa Clara County’s ban on contact sports, as well as its mandatory 10-day quarantine for anyone traveling to the county from more than 150 miles away, may force those games to be relocated.
Santa Clara’s directives are in place until at least Jan. 8, and it is unclear whether they would be extended further into next month. The Sharks announced Sunday that their training camp will be held in Scottsdale, Arizona.
The Sharks said in a news release that the location of those home games in early February will announced at a later date, “in accordance with current local health directives.”
In any case, it is a challenging schedule for a Sharks team that is looking to get off to a good start and return to the playoffs after they were left out of the NHL’s Return to Play earlier this year. The Sharks haven’t played a game since March 11.
“To me, I just look at as an
opportunity,” Sharks general manager Doug Wilson said Sunday of likely starting the season with a long road trip. “I look at the teams that had success last year that had to live in a bubble for two months. I think it’s all attitude.
“It’s challenging, but to me, it’s a way of proving your mental toughness and your want to get off to a great start.”
If the Sharks can make it though the first five weeks of their schedule, when they play 14 of their first 18 games on the road, they could be in good shape. Eighteen of their final 28 games at scheduled to be played in San
Jose, although it is unknown when fans would be allowed inside SAP Center.
The Sharks are in the same division as Arizona, Anaheim, Colorado, Los Angeles, Minnesota, St. Louis and Vegas. Each team is scheduled to play each other eight times —
four at home and four on the road — for a 56-game regular season. Teams will play each other twice in a row to reduce costs and limit exposure.
The Sharks are scheduled to play on back-toback nights 12 times — six times at home and six times on the road. Their longest
homestand is six games from Feb. 26 to March 6.
There are three fiveday breaks between games built into the schedule to allow time for possible makeup games to be played. For the Sharks, those breaks occur from Feb. 21 to Feb. 25, March 7 to March 11 and April 4-8.