Sharks show lots of bite in thumping Predators 5-1

SAN JOSE — Remember when everyone was asking the San Jose Sharks if that triple overtime loss on Thursday would be too devastating to bounce back from?

And the Sharks kept saying “not at all.” And everyone kept rolling their eyes and whispering, “Yeah, right.” Well, they bounced back. The Sharks are now one game away from bouncing the Nashville Predators right out of the playoffs after a 5-1 home ice victory Saturday that gives them a 3-2 lead in this see-saw Western Conference semifinal.

“It’s never easy,” said Joe Pavelski, who scored twice in the Game 5 win. “But you give it a little bit of time, look at a few highlights, a few clips and you have to move on, that’s the bottom line. It really doesn’t matter anymore.”

The Sharks, showing the same kind of poise and resolve they used to knock off the L.A. Kings, attacked the Predators with ruthless efficiency, with their big guns front and centre in the win. In addition to Pavelski’s two goals, Logan Couture and Patrick Marleau added singles and Joe Thornton chipped in two assists.

“When we’re winning, our best guys are playing their best hockey,” said Couture. “We need all of our top guys to play well, doing what they do best.”

Keeping their cool helps, too. San Jose’s ability to shake off bad games and rise to the occasion in big ones is why they’ve yet to trail in a series.

“It’s a seven-game series, there are a lot of ebbs and flows,” said defenceman Paul Martin. “You need to make sure you keep the energy on the bench, play the right way and eventually you’re going to be successful.”

The home team has won all five games of the series so far, which is good news for the Predators, who’ve also been fairly adept at regaining their balance after a hard knock.

They won Games 5 and 6 after losing three in a row in round one against Anaheim and Games 3 and 4 after losing the first two games of this series.

So it’s a little premature to count them out, either

“You want to win every game, you battle very game and play hard for a win but sometimes it’s not going to happen,” said Preds defenceman Roman Josi. “But you have to make sure that in the playoffs you don’t get too high or too low no matter what happens. The series isn’t over till somebody wins four games so you have to stay with it no matter what happens.”

The series resumes back in Nashville on Monday. So expect another battle.

“There isn’t going to be any domination by one team or another,” said DeBoer. “It’s playoff hockey. That’s not going to happen at this time of year.”