San Jose Sharks Clinch Playoffs For Sixth Consecutive Season

Coach Todd McLellan said all the right things during the recent losing streak.

He said the team had to play 60 minutes, be smart with the puck, get pucks deep, and be willing to pay the price to make the smart and simple plays. When he was not satisfied with the performances, he stepped up the intensity of practices.

He talked about the process, not making too much of the first couple losses but not shrugging them off or making excuses, either. By the end, he questioned the people saying the adversity would be good for the team, saying you have to emerge from it first and that confidence going into the playoffs would be an issue the longer the streak went on.

He also did not put it all on the players. He changed his forward lines, not just moving one of the the Big Three, but for the first time putting Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, and Dany Heatley on three separate lines at full strength.

All of this appears to have paid dividends, as the team has responded to their longest regulation losing streak in 13 years with two wins, albeit over teams that already had little chance of reaching the playoffs.

And McLellan has been saying the right things after each win, too. After the Sharks won in Minnesota, he said one win does not bring a team out of the woods. After the triumphal return to HP over the Dallas Stars, he said they had found the recipe, and said we would see whether the players had learned their lesson.

By getting the win over Dallas, San Jose clinched its sixth consecutive playoff spot, regained a two-point lead over the Phoenix Coyotes for the Pacific Division with a game in hand, and moved one point ahead of Chicago for the top seed in the West with one more game played.

They reversed their defensive woes (24 goals against in the five regulation losses) by allowing only one goal in the two games, getting Evgeni Nabokov his 50th career shutout and third of the season. They even got the power play going, scoring as many in the first two chances as they had in the previous 27.

But the real test comes in a two-game weekend set vs. Vancouver and Colorado, the top two teams in the Northwest division. If the Sharks can come away with three points, they should be able to hang on to the division and a top-two seed. For a preview of those games, please visit Shark-Infested Blogger.