San Jose Sharks Get Up Off the Mat

We needed this.  Oh, boy, we needed this.

When the Sharks lost in the Western Conference Finals to the Calgary Flames before the lockout, they were a young team that no one had expected to win the Pacific Division, much less get past the Colorado Avalanche.  The fact that they gave up an early home game and seemed to run out of gas after game four was understandable.

When they were the top seed left after the first round the year after the lockout, with the top scorer and soon-to-be Hart Trophy winner added to their roster, they went up 2-0 in the series to the Edmonton Oilers.  Then one of their great young players, Milan Michalek, took a hit to the face, inexplicably not called a penalty(oh, wait, that's right--they don't call those things in the playoffs!) from Raffi Torres.

Michalek had been dynamic on the Patrick Marleau line through seven games, but he did not return to the series.  Either did the Sharks, who proceeded to lose that game and the next three.

Maybe you could chalk that up to being a young team and losing one of your top threats.  So the next year, GM Doug Wilson added grit in the personage of Craig Rivet and Bill Guerin.

It made no difference: Patrick Marleau had his worst playoff in this milennium, giving up a goal with the Sharks 35 seconds away from taking a 3-1 lead in the series.  The Detroit Red Wings got the overtime winner and took the next two games, as well.

Three years, three collapses.  They had run out of excuses: this team needed a face lift.

Doug Wilson made few changes, letting the ineffective Guerin go and replacing him with the previously ineffective but much cheaper Jeremy Roenick.  He added toughness with Jody Shelley around the All Star break and made a move to shore up the blue line with puck-moving defenseman Brian Campbell at the trade deadline.

It looked like he had found the missing pieces, but they gave away game one in the first five minutes and gave away a three-goal lead in game three.  Their psyches were hanging by a thread.

They started this game looking to punish the Flames, but that left them out of position, and Jerome Iginla pounced on a San Jose turnover and got his team a 1-0 lead in the first 200 seconds of the game. 

Regardless of whether they were showing the necessary passion to stave off a collapse, they were obviously Sharks out of water.  They can be physical, but they are a skilled, puck-possession team and they were being dominated because the Flames had taken them out of their game.

In the second period, they began to dominate play and tied the score, but giving up a late goal sent them to the dressing room down 2-1 despite giving up only seven shots.  Their season hung in the balance, and we had to ask ourselves, were we about to see Collapse IV: The Final Chapter?

Their play in the third period was solid, but they were having trouble getting one past Miikka Kiprusoff.  Patrick Marleau had a great chance on a one-timer to the open side of the net, but he could not control the puck well enough to get off a strong shot, and Kipper got over to make the save.

Less than nine percent of teams facing a 3-1 deficit in the series come back to win, and the Sharks do not strike one as a team that could beat those odds.  Failure to get past the first round would have signaled a blow-up of the team: the coach and several players, if not also the GM, had their jobs on the line.

In the last six minutes, the Sharks had the Flames on their heels.  They stopped looking for good shots and began to throw the puck on net, a lesson I hope they carry over into game five.

Finally, with under five minutes to go in their lives as a team, Jonathan Cheechoo, who had yet to get a goal in the series, shot from a tough angle and was rewarded.  Outshooting the Flames 25-9 at that point, you had to feel good going into overtime.

But there was no need.  With the clock winding down, Brian Campbell was able to keep the puck in and get it to Ryan Clowe, who had four of the Sharks ten goals to that point.  Clowe got it to the point, where stay-at-home defenseman Douglas Murray, who scored the third and final goal in game three, let a wrister go; Joe Thornton redirected past Kipper with ine seconds to go.

The Sharks had taken the game three dagger out of their hearts and stuck it into the hearts of the Flames.

Game over.  Series not.  See you for game five.