Sharks Off to Detroit: The Series Shifts

Sharks fans have a reason to be happy-happy.  Two games and two wins against the deadly Detroit Red Wings who have given the Sharks regular season and playoff fits for 19 years.  The Sharks have played smart.  The Sharks have played within themselves.  The Sharks have played disciplined, yet aggressively hockey.  Detroit has not.  That is the story of the series so far, as the Sharks have been the better hockey team with better individual contributions so far.

Detroit has had their share of problems.  Their top players are getting out played by Thornton, Pavelski, Clowe, Setoguchi, Heatley and Boyle.  Nabokov has been better than Howard.  Todd McLellan has pushed all of the right buttons so far.  However, as Sharks fans should note, it takes four wins to win a series.  Two games does not win the Sharks anything other than the ability to know that they can play with Detroit and they can beat Detroit.

The line of Mitchell/Couture-Thornton-Heatley has shut down Detroit's big guns as Zetterberg and Datsyuk have made little impact on the series so far.  The big and upstart second line of Setoguchi-Pavelski-Clowe has destroyed the Detroit defense, exploited their forwards and made Jimmy Howard sweat bullets.  This is all because of superb line-matching by coach Todd McLellan.  He and his staff should be praised for creating the right match-ups for their players; the players should be praised for exploiting those match-ups.  Home-ice advantage was the last change which was used to perfection by the Sharks coaching staff.

Now the series shifts.  Off to Detroit go the Sharks.  Now Babcock gets last change, and after what he has seen in two games in San Jose he now knows what does and does not work when it comes to match-ups.  He will make the adjustments like he normally does, and, as one of the best coaches in the NHL, you can bet on the Sharks forwards and defense having a little more difficulty in both ends of the ice.  This means that the Sharks forwards and defense need to find an extra gear.  They will not get favorable match-ups in Detroit 80% of the time as Babcock will make sure he has the right lines out there now.  Effort and determination will be needed to push back.  Quick changes to get the right match-up would be ill-advised with the NHL officials now calling too-many-men penalties like they were going out of style (23 so far these playoffs).  Quick changes means more opportunities for those penalties to be called against the Sharks.  McLellan and his staff need to trust their players to push back against Detroit despite possible miss-matches.

The Sharks are in the driver's seat.  They hold their destiny in their hands.  Detroit is going to push back hard after losing the first two, and the Sharks players need to be ready; miss-match or no miss-match.