San Jose Sharks: 5 Trends That Must Continue Following Win over Avalanche

The San Jose Sharks played one of the biggest regular season games in franchise history on Monday night.

A win over Colorado would put the Sharks into third place and the Pacific Division lead following losses by Dallas and Los Angeles. A regulation loss by San Jose would have them drop to 10th place.

The Sharks have proven to be a team that does not play desperate nearly as often as they should. This has been a major factor in the Sharks descent down the Western Conference standings over the past two months.

However, the Sharks have also shown time and time again to play with a sense of urgency when they have to win. Tonight was one of those games, and San Jose found that desperation.

After an even first period, the Sharks slammed their foot onto the gas, scoring three of four goals in the second before tacking on two more in the third. San Jose ended up winning the game 5-1 over an equally if not more desperate Colorado Avalanche team.

Although this was San Jose's third straight win and their fifth in seven games, this game stood out as the Sharks' best effort since early February. And in order for San Jose to make the playoffs and make noise once they're there, this type of performance must become commonplace.

Asking a team to play this way night in and night out rather than once or twice a month is a tall order. But winning is never easy, and if the Sharks want to win the division and compete for the Cup, the following five things must become standard.

Goaltending Early, Goaltending Often

There's no way around it—Antti Niemi has been pathetic more nights than not since the All-Star break.

Heading into Monday night, Niemi was 9-10-4 since the break, giving up at least three goals in 14 of his 24 starts.

Todd McLellan often talks about "winning the race to three" being the key to his team winning games. It should then be no surprise that the team has only won two of those 14 games in which at least three pucks get by Niemi.

The Sharks' terrible record when Niemi struggles, however, goes beyond the sheer number of goals against. Bad goaltending and soft goals affect how the entire team plays, as well as how the Sharks' opponents play.

When San Jose has momentum and Niemi gives up a soft goal, it demoralizes the team. The players feel that no matter how many more chances they generate, the other team has just as good a chance to score on them because of their goalie. This zaps the team's energy and hinders their aggressiveness.

Conversely, scoring will always give the other team momentum. Once a team has tied up a game once or twice, they won't be fazed even if the Sharks temporarily regain their lead.

Niemi did not allow a soft goal early in Monday night's contest, which allowed the Sharks to build a 2-0 lead. Colorado cut the lead to 2-1 shortly after San Jose's second goal, but Niemi held strong through the temporary momentum shift, re-energizing his team to the tune of three unanswered goals.

The Sharks absolutely need Niemi to be reliable from here on out. If he is, everyone will play better because of it.

Offense from All Four Lines

Don't get me wrong—the Sharks need offense any way they can get it. The team is only 13th in the NHL in goals per game, which is not where a Cup contender wants to be.

If the top line were to get hot and carry the Sharks, that would be better than nothing. But if San Jose wants to make a deep playoff run, they need every line to contribute on the offensive end.

And since the Jamie McGinn trade on February 27, that simply has not been happening. The Sharks have gotten five goals from their third line and zero from their fourth over the 15 games. McGinn has scored eight himself since the trade. The team, as a result, has not once scored four goals since then.

Monday, that trend turned itself on its head. Joe Pavelski opened the scoring early in the second period, but San Jose's third line of Daniel Winnik, Tommy Wingels and Andrew Desjardins had been generating some good chances.

A few minutes later, that line put together the best shift of the entire game, ending with Desardins beating Semyon Varlamov to give the Sharks a 2-0 lead.

Colorado cut the lead in half and seized momentum, but it was energetic, physical, chance-generating shifts from the third and fourth lines that swung the momentum back San Jose's way. Late in the period, the Sharks fourth line of Torrey Mitchell, Michal Handzus and Dominic Moore put together an awesome shift that resulted in a Mitchell goal.

Pavelski scored on the power play early in the third before Ryane Clowe's empty-netter gave all four lines a goal on the night.

The Sharks won't score five goals a night and won't get a goal from every line every game. But if every line plays with the energy, aggressiveness and eagerness to score that they did tonight, the Sharks will break out of their offensive funk.

Winning Board Battles, Loose Pucks and Net-Front Battles

For all of the obvious things going wrong for San Jose lately—soft goals, egregious turnovers, lame penalty killing, missed shots at open nets, etc.—the devil has been where he tends to be.

In the details.

Even then, it isn't hard to notice board battles, races to loose pucks and net-front battles when a team is losing so many of them. And the fact is that whichever team wins these battles tends to win the game, regardless of face-offs, turnovers, or even shots on goal.

On Monday night, the Sharks played with a sense of urgency and with passion. The benefit of this was most apparent in these hustle areas. Three of San Jose's five goals came from a player positioned in front of the net, and two of them (Mitchell, Pavelski) came from a player banging home a rebound.

On the other end, Colorado scored no goals off of sustained pressure, and this was mostly due to San Jose collapsing to the front of the net when Colorado was on the attack, and winning almost every race to every rebound.

The Sharks were excellent on the boards all night, as players such as Patrick Marleau, Joe Pavelski, Martin Havlat, Daniel Winnik, Tommy Wingels, Dominic Moore, Brent Burns and Douglas Murray all used their strength and effort level to give San Jose extra possessions in these sum-zero situations.

Winning board battles and races to loose pucks allow a team to kill an attack, get a line change, continue an attack, create a defensive breakdown, prevent the other team from getting a line change, and keep opponents on their heels. Winning net-front battles allows a team to score off of rebounds and screens while stopping the other team from doing so.

All of these things require skill, but more than that require a whole lot of effort and urgency. If the aforementioned players can keep doing these things, and inspire others (such as Logan Couture and Dan Boyle) to do the same.

Clean Play Through the Neutral Zone

Even during the team's terrible stretch over the last two months, the Sharks tend to outshoot their opponents.

Why, then, do San Jose's opponents tend to outscore them? Besides the aforementioned bad goaltending, neutral zone turnovers are likely the biggest culprit.

A team can put 10 straight shots on net without one going in. In fact, it happens all the time. But if that team proceeds to commit one bad neutral zone turnover, the ensuing odd-man rush will often result in a goal. Don't count on stopping 10 straight odd-man rushes.

Not only does San Jose's sloppy neutral zone play lead to easy goals the other way, but it takes away from the team's own offense. Failing to get the puck deep into the offensive zone limits the Sharks' forecheck and keeps them off of the fast break.

Monday, the Sharks absolutely dominated the middle of the ice. They made the smart play, dumping the puck in or chipping it ahead rather than getting too cute. When they did try to pass the puck tape to tape, their execution was perfect, as it has to be. 

They used positioning and strong sticks to stop Colorado from gliding through the neutral zone, and cycled lines rapidly when the Avalanche tried to take advantage of a change.

There are teams that are better than Colorado in the neutral zone, but there are worse teams as well—and those teams have been beating the Sharks lately. If San Jose can play this way in the neutral zone every night, they will either continue to dominate there—or at least stop getting dominated.

Keeping Their Foot on the Gas

Going into Monday night, the fact that the Sharks had only won seven of 21 games since February 13 is concerning. More concerning was the fact that only four of those wins had come in regulation.

But perhaps the most concerning fact was that all seven wins were either one-goal games or decided in a shootout. In other words, the Sharks hadn't won by two goals in over a quarter of a season.

Now, a win is a win, and a loss is a loss. The Sharks play in the NHL, and beating any team on any given night is tough. Both teams want only one thing—the W—which means ending up on the good side of a one-goal game is nothing to sneeze at.

But seriously, a quarter of a season?

By contrast, the Columbus Blue Jackets had won six of their last 21 games by at least two goals. Even the NHL's worst team has it going some nights.

That's why that number was so indicative of how badly San Jose had been playing. Even on nights where the Sharks could have been the better team—the team with more jump, more explosiveness, more skill—they would always, and I mean literally always, blow leads rather than increasing them.

This trend desperately had to change, and it did Monday night. The Sharks scored first, and kept their foot on the gas to score the first two goals of the game, something they've actually done a few times during this stretch.

But after Colorado quickly cut the lead to 2-1, San Jose scored the next goal to extend their lead again. The Sharks entered the third period up by two goals, but that didn't change the way San Jose played. Rather, they powered through and extended their lead, a very good sign moving forward.

All the Sharks need right now is two points when they, and if they make the playoffs, all they'll need is wins. But taking their foot off the gas doens't always lead to one-goal wins; it often leads to losses. If the Sharks get in the habit of playing with desperation and passion for 60 minutes a night, everything else covered in this article will fall into place.

If they do not, their season will end sooner rather than later.