Sharks put themselves in new position

compete for a championship against a team they saw only twice in the regular season and haven’t met since a 5-1 win Dec. 1 at SAP Center in San Jose, Calif.

The Penguins surely are aware, though, that the Sharks are the highest-scoring team in the playoffs, averaging 3.5 goals per game.

In the final, however, San Jose will have to manufacture scoring against an opponent that effectively muzzled the volatile offenses of Washington and Tampa Bay in the past two rounds, and is allowing an average of just 2.39 goals per game.

“They play [defense] well,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said Thursday after the Penguins’ 2-1 victory in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final. “They play hard, and the other thing is they block a lot of shots.

“That was evident the whole series. The amount of shot blocks was just incredible. [We] just couldn’t get them through.”

Still, stifling the San Jose attack might be even more of a challenge than containing the Lightning was.

Sharks center Logan Couture leads the playoffs in points (24) and assists (16). Joe Pavelski tops the goal-scoring race with 13 and ranks second in points with 22. Defenseman Brent Burns is a force all over and has put up 20 points.

“We’re playing a San Jose team that’s really feeling good about themselves,” Penguins left winger Carl Hagelin said.

San Jose not only has speed and skill, but size. The Sharks will bring a physical edge to the series that Tampa Bay, with a few exceptions, did not.

“They’re probably more similar to the way Washington plays, a little heavier type of game,” Hagelin said.

No matter what kind of game the Sharks play — speedy or skilled or physical or all the above — they do it well. But they’ll be facing a team that shares many of their finest qualities.

“It’s a team that’s very well-balanced, similar to us,” Cole said. “And I think it’s a team that’s very dangerous. Similar to us.”