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The Vancouver Canucks (36-23-3) shoot for their fifth-consecutive home ice win tonight when they play host to the San Jose Sharks (31-25-8) at Rogers Arena. The Canucks enter the game five points up on the Sharks in the Pacific Division and hold two games in hand. Tonight marks the start of the stretch run for the Canucks, who have 20 games remaining on their schedule.

Jakob Markstrom makes his first NHL start of the season and sees his first game action since a 2-1 Utica loss to Albany on Saturday February 21. He is 17-7-2 in the AHL this season with a 1.95 GAA and a .932 save percentage. He ranks second in the AHL in goals against average and third in save percentage.

Frank Corrado has been recalled from Utica and will return to the Canucks' line-up for the first time since suffering a mid-body injury against Minnesota on February 1. He takes Alex Biega’s spot in the line-up after Biega was re-assigned to the minors yesterday.

Based on practice Monday, it appears Chris Higgins will join Nick Bonino and Radim Vrbata on the Canucks' second line with Derek Dorsett skating alongside Shawn Matthias and Linden Vey. Matthias and Jannik Hansen have both scored in back-to-back games for the Canucks. Matthias has eight goals in his last 12 games while Hansen has three goals and six helpers in his past nine outings.

Henrik Sedin needs one point to reach 900 in his NHL career. Henrik has four goals and seven assists on a seven-game point streak. Chris Higgins has gone 15 games without a goal and only eight goals in his past 82 games.

The Canucks have not held a first-period lead in their past seven games dating back to Ronalds Kenins's goal to open the scoring in Calgary on February 14. The Canucks, however, are 5-2 in their past seven games.

After Sunday’s wild 6-5 shootout win over St. Louis, the Canucks have won four-straight on home ice (PIT, BOS, MIN & STL) and are 5-1 in their last six games at Rogers Arena. The last visiting team to win here was San Jose, when the Sharks posted a 5-1 victory on February 5.

The Sharks are back in action after a 4-0 win at home over Montreal last night. Alex Stalock made 20 saves for his fourth-career shutout. Ben Smith, acquired earlier in the day from Chicago, flew from the Windy City to the Bay Area, got a police escort from San Francisco International Airport, arrived too late to take part in the warm-up, but scored on his third shift as a Shark and later added an assist.

Patrick Marleau also scored for the Sharks last night and has potted power-play goals in three-straight games. Joe Pavelski, who leads the Sharks in scoring, had a goal and an assist last night and carries a three-game point streak into action tonight. Pavelski’s 32 goals put him fourth in the league in that category behind only Alex Ovechkin, Rick Nash and Steven Stamkos and he’s one of only seven players in the league this season with more than 30 goals.

The Sharks had a disastrous February going 3-8-2 including an 0-6-2 mark on home ice (although one of the losses was to the LA Kings at Levi’s Stadium).

Logan Couture has gone six games without a goal, Joe Thornton has gone eight, Tomas Hertl has gone 10, rookie Melker Karlsson has gone 11 games since scoring in Vancouver on February 5 and Matt Nieto has gone 17 games without a goal.

This is the first of two straight for the Sharks against the Canucks. The Canucks will play in Arizona on Thursday before heading to San Jose for a Saturday night showdown.