Sharks look to take advantage of homestand after tough road schedule

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SAN JOSE – The stretch of the hockey season right around the holidays can be grueling. It’s a fact the Sharks know all too well.

The team has played in four back-to-back situations since Thanksgiving – with all but one of those games occurring on the road – and changed time zones just as many times. While no team will blame the schedule for fatigue or in-game woes, it’s easy to see the toll a schedule like San Jose’s can take.

Now that they spend the week at home, the Sharks can focus all their attention on cleaning up mistakes and improving on the better parts of their game.

“As a staff, we talked about trying to create some energy out there this morning,” head coach Peter DeBoer said Monday morning, acknowledging the team’s schedule has been rough. “It’s a grind, but nothing we haven’t dealt with before and we’ve got to get through it.”

The Pacific Division standings have become a lot more crowded since the Sharks back-to-back against the Canucks and Golden Knights back at the end of November. Headed into the Turkey Day holiday, the top of the standings was a standoff between San Jose and the Calgary Flames with every other team struggling to find consistency.

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Since then, the Edmonton Oilers have cleaned up their act under the direction of a new coach. Vegas got a couple injured players back into their lineup to help push them over the edge. Heck, even the Anaheim Ducks have caught fire, going 8-2-0 in their last 10 contests.

San Jose currently sits tied with Vegas at 35 points -- two points behind Anaheim and five behind Calgary. If they want to stay in the pack -- or better yet, move ahead of it -- they’ll have to establish some key things during this week at home. That means taking the good things they did in their past two road games – yes, even in the loss against the Dallas Stars – and building on them, DeBoer continued.

“We just want to keep building our game,” he said. “We won three of four, (but) we still have things we need to work at."

The Sharks have the opportunity to really take advantage of the teams coming into their building this week. Monday night’s opponent, the New Jersey Devils, gives up the fourth most goals in the league.

Jumping on New Jersey early -- and not letting the defensive blunders creep in – could be the perfect recipe for opening up the two-game homestand on the right foot. Not to mention giving the Sharks a boost ahead of their Thursday night rematch with the Stars, who haven’t been nearly as consistent on the road as they have been at home.

Having two days in between games to practice at home and not have to travel doesn’t hurt either as the Sharks try to string more wins together.

“We’re finding ways to get points and cleaning up some things and just building our game,” DeBoer said. “I think we’ve got about seven games now until Christmas, and we want to try and get on a real run here if we can.”

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