These Sharks not the belly-up kind
It’s safe to start planning your second-round travel schedule
SAN JOSE >> At times like these, it’s tradition to cast doubt on the Sharks.
When the Sharks take a 2-0 lead in a series, as they have against the Anaheim Ducks, it’s time to drag every ghost from playoffs past out of the closet and remind the teal faithful why they’re among the most used and abused fan bases in the NHL.
Bringing up the Sharks 2-0 collapse to the Edmonton Oilers in the 2006 Stanley Cup playoffs is mandatory. The choke job against the Detroit Red Wings in 2007 needs to be in the first three paragraphs, along with the 2009 heartbreak when the Sharks fell to the eighth-seeded Ducks after they won the President’s Trophy.
Failing to mention the reverse
sweep at the hands of the Los Angeles Kings in 2014 is a fireable offense.
Now that I’ve knocked off all the prerequisites, I can tell you why it’s safe to start planning your second round trip to Las Vegas (or maybe Los Angeles), assuming the Sharks don’t suffer any major injuries when the series shifts to San Jose this week.
Let’s start with the matchup. The Ducks squad that will be looking to climb back into the series Monday with a Game 3 win at SAP Center isn’t the team that stormed into the playoffs in 2009 after winning 11 of their last 14 games, just two years removed from capturing the Stanley Cup.
They aren’t the 2007 Red Wings, who went on to win the Cup a year later, either, or the 2014 Kings, who snagged hockey’s top prize twice in a three-year span.
The Ducks team that the Sharks will attempt to sweep this week is hanging onto the last thread of their glory years. They play a slow, antagonistic style of
game when the NHL is getting exponentially faster and more skilled by the day. Most importantly, they’re struggling to fend off the Sharks forecheck with a depleted blue line after losing top defenseman Cam Fowler to a shoulder ailment, Shea Theodore to an expansion draft-related trade and Sami Vatanen in a deal with the New Jersey Devils that brought in center Adam Henrique after Ryan Getzlaf and Ryan Kesler went down with injuries in the first half.
Imagine an NFL team trying to win a playoff game with three major holes on the offensive line, that’s the challenge the Ducks are facing.
Regardless of what the Ducks bring, though, the Sharks are a completely different team under head coach Pete DeBoer than they were during the dark ages from 2006 to 2015. They bucked those monkey off their backs when they reached the Stanley Cup Final in 2016.
“I wasn’t part of that. I know there’s some guys in our room that were, but there’s a lot more that weren’t,” DeBoer said. “It’s not something we even think about or talk about.”
The Sharks are different from those teams in several key ways.
The current team is much deeper. The Sharks of yesteryear depended too much on its stars, such as Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau, for offense, allowing opponents to key in on one or two lines in the playoffs to defang their attack.
This year’s team is more balanced, tying a franchise record set in 1993-94 with 12 different players reaching double digits in goal scoring. Over the first two games of their series with the Ducks, 11 skaters have found the scoresheet.
“That’s what we need. We’ve talked about that since day one. We’re the sum of our parts,” DeBoer said. “We have to get contributions from everybody.”
Resiliency is also embedded in the DNA of the new generation of Sharks. Instead being underachievers, this group is developing a reputation for the opposite.
The team found a way to absorb Marleau’s loss early in the season. Then, it went on a 19-13-3 run to reach the playoffs after Thornton went down with a major-knee injury on Jan. 23.
Time and time again, the Sharks proved that they’ll fight to the final whistle, ranking second in wins when trailing after the first period (10), sixth when their opponent scores first (17) and 11th when trailing after 40 minutes (5). After the Sharks put together a late rally to pull out a comeback win against the Ducks on Feb. 11, Logan Couture suggested the team is too young and stupid to know better.
But the biggest difference between then and now is that the Sharks finally landed a stud goalie, the most important ingredient to playoff success in hockey. Martin Jones proved that he’s one of those guys who’s going to elevate his game in the playoffs during the Sharks run to the final in 2016.
With 28 saves in Game 2, Jones improved his career playoff goals-against average to 1.95 and his postseason save percentage to .928.
Despite all of the above, the Sharks will be facing an uphill climb to return to the Cup final this spring. The Vegas Golden Knights aren’t going to layover if the Sharks meet them in the second round and bridging the gap with the Nashville Predators or the Winnipeg Jets in the Western Conference Final will be more than a challenge.
Nevertheless, I can tell you that it’s safe to start booking rooms for second-round travel even if my confidence in the Sharks’ ability to close out this series breaks a Bay Area tradition.