Momentum often shifts in this year’s postseason

Desperation turns to jubilation in the NHL playoffs when a trailing team manages to score the tying goal late in regulation to force overtime.

That sudden change of emotions would figure to fuel a team’s momentum in overtime. But that’s not always the case, as evidenced for three straight nights when a team that squandered a late lead managed to bounce back in overtime and earn a win.

The Golden Knights and Sharks each experienced both sides of that roller coaster the last two games, with the Golden Knights responding with William Karlsson’s goal in overtime in Game 3 in San Jose.

That came two nights after the Sharks saw Nate Schmidt tie Game 2 with 6:32 left only to end up on the winning side on Logan Couture’s power-play goal in the second overtime.

“You just move on,” Golden Knights coach Gerard Gallant said. “It’s playoff hockey. We were disappointed when they scored with roughly two minutes left in the hockey game. We regrouped in the overtime session between periods and said let’s go out there and get this game.”

This postseason has featured four games in all that went to overtime after one team tied it with less than five minutes to play. The team that blew the lead has come out on top in three of those games, with the Predators doing it to the Jets in Game 2 of their secondround series on Sunday night and the Blue Jackets doing it to the Capitals in Game 2 in the first round.

The Blue Jackets are the only team this postseason to force overtime with a goal in the final five minutes and win, having done it in Game 1 against the Capitals.

For all the talk of lategame momentum, teams scoring those late goals are just 7-8 in overtime the last two postseasons.

“We weren’t too happy with this as a team,” said Knights goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who made Karlsson’s winner possible by robbing Couture earlier in the OT. “But everyone was relaxed between periods. We talked and we knew what we had to do.”

Momentum can be very fleeting in the playoffs whether in a game or a series. In the first five days of the second round, no team has won consecutive games in a series.

The Sharks will try to put the Game 3 loss in the past and continue that pattern to tie their series at two games apiece when they take the ice for Game 4 on Wednesday night.

“It’s easy,” Couture said. “The schedule-makers did a good job of playing games every other day so it’s easy to forget about a game when you’ve got another one (coming).”