NHL Playoffs 2012: Are the San Jose Sharks Going to Play the Role of Spoiler?

To the surprise of many, the San Jose Sharks stole Game 1 from the St. Louis Blues at Scottrade Center, with a 3-2 double-overtime victory on Thursday night.

There's no doubt the Blues have had a great regular season and made significant strides as a franchise, but the Sharks will give them a run for their money in this series.

When the 2011-12 season began, no one thought San Jose would be fighting for their playoff lives during the final games. They reached the conference final for the past two years, and made major moves in the offseason in an attempt to upgrade further. Trading Devin Setoguchi and Dany Heatley to Minnesota for Brent Burns and Martin Havlat made perfect sense...on paper.

But team chemistry is a funny thing.

The trade looked fantastic for Minnesota when they found themselves in first place in the Western Conference in December. But, after a series of injuries and setbacks, the Wild couldn't sustain their momentum and fell well out of the playoff race.

Meanwhile, the Sharks started decently, but went into a funk mid-season—a funk that coincided with a freak injury to Martin Havlat. On December 17, when Havlat tore his hamstring climbing over the boards for a line change, the Sharks were 17-10-3.

Havlat returned on March 15. In his absence, the Sharks went 17-15-7. After his return, they were 9-4-0, their best stretch of the season.

This is worth our scrutiny because Havlat was a stud for the Sharks in their win on Thursday. He scored the first goal and the double-OT winner—productive for 21:30 of ice time in an 83:34 game.

It looks like the Sharks are a very different team with Havlat in the lineup, and if you follow that logic, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that if he hadn't missed those 39 games, the Sharks would easily have picked up the few points they needed to best the Coyotes for the Pacific Division title.

When you consider those optics, the 11-point differential between the Blues and the Sharks starts to shrink a little, doesn't it?

Now, let's add in the fact that St. Louis dramatically exceeded expectations this year.

When Davis Payne was fired with a 6-7 record on November 6, it wasn't because anyone was especially appalled by the team's performance. It was because the Blues saw an opportunity to hire a top NHL coach in Ken Hitchcock, and wanted to snap him up before anyone else did.

The move paid immediate dividends. Under Hitch's tutelage, the Blues went 43-15-11 and climbed to first place in the Western Conference before sliding back to second on the last day of the season. The Blues are primarily a young team, and their young players in particular were able to benefit from Hitchcock's teaching methods.

But in postseason, players need to take their game to the next level, and the Blues may not be in position to do that.

They have a couple of Stanley Cup champs on their roster in Jason Arnott and Jamie Langenbrunner, but most of their squad is lacking in NHL postseason experience. Also, the Blues limped through their last 10 games with just a 4-3-3 record. They were one of the worst of the playoff teams in the West, and they weren't able to deliver the knockout punch required to secure the conference title or the Presidents' Trophy.

St. Louis has come a long way, but they may not have much more gas in the tank. Meanwhile, freed from the burden of high expectations that has weighed on them for the past couple of years, the Sharks are healthy, happy and ready to raise a fuss.

San Jose could well prove to be a first-round spoiler when all is said and done.