San Jose Sharks: Why the Sharks Will Lift Lord Stanley's Cup in 2012
We really thought this was going to be the year.
Sitting at 21-24 after six straight losses, the Sharks looked done in mid-January. They responded with the best second half in the league and finished second in the West with 105 points.
Down 4-0 to the L.A. Kings in Game 3, the Sharks looked destined to drop behind 2-1 in the first round. Instead they roared back with a huge 6-5 win and never trailed in a series until the conference finals.
After dropping three straight games in the final period to the Red Wings, the Sharks backs were abruptly shoved against the wall harder than they had been all season, and they responded with the biggest win in franchise history.
And after going down 3-1 to Vancouver in the conference finals, the Sharks yet again responded with a resoundingly positive game, coming within 13 seconds of forcing the series back to San Jose and as the story of the season would have it, to a dramatic seven-game series win and eventually the franchise's first-ever Stanley Cup.
Ryan Kesler tipped the puck in, and in the second OT, Kevin Bieksa scored the flukiest goal of the entire playoffs.
It hurts, doesn't it?
As sad as it is to see the season end when so many of us thought it was "our year," it was aggravating to hear some of the post-game questions for Sharks' players.
Reporters were asking various Sharks if the team's window of opportunity was closing.
Here are the five biggest reasons why the window is not only still wide open but hasn't even finished opening.
The Sharks Are the NHL's Strongest Powerhouse
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Quick: who is the only NHL team to appear in the conference finals two years running? That was easy.
The Red Wings appeared in two straight cups and had a stranglehold on the West, until the San Jose Sharks steamrolled them in 2010 and beat them again in 2011.
The Flyers and Canadiens couldn't repeat their magical runs. The Blackhawks are a shell of their former selves. In this unprecedented time of parity, no team seems to have winning long-term figured out as well as San Jose. The Hawks may have been better last year, but that was unsustainable, and the Canucks will likely lose multiple key cogs this offseason.
Quick: who is the only NHL team to finish first or second in the standings four years running? Maybe you had to think harder for this one, but the answer is the same.
Winning a Stanley Cup is extremely difficult. There is no way for a team to go into a season and know they're going to end up winning the toughest trophy in pro sports. Flaws can be found with each Sharks team over the past two, three, four seasons, but in the end, if you had to choose one team that has winning NHL hockey games (whether regular season or postseason) figured out, how could San Jose not be the first team you mention?
The Sharks will be back next year with changes, like always, but Doug Wilson, Todd McLellan, Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and the most sustainably dominant hockey team in the world is going nowhere.
The Core Will Be Better Than Ever...
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In gut-check time, a team's best players need to carry them to victory. And whether it was Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Ryane Clowe or Antti Niemi, this happened all season for San Jose.
Thornton and Marleau, for some reason, are expected by some to begin declining. I suppose a look at Joe's modest 70 points this season could make one think that but only if they don't know anything about hockey.
Joe Thornton, plain and simple, had the best year of his career. He became a three-zone force and dominated the game at both ends, at even strength, when his team was up a man or down a man and in big moments.
More importantly, Thornton, for the first time, elevated his game to a new level in the postseason. If San Jose had won the cup, he would have been the likely Conn Smythe winner. Quite a step for a famous "playoff choker."
Marleau finished among the league leaders in goals again with 37 in the regular season, including nine game-winners. Marleau's playoff coming out party began last year, but his encore was perhaps more impressive, doing absolutely everything he could to push the Sharks deeper and deeper into the playoffs.
These two are in the prime of their careers and will at the very least be equally as dominant next year.
Ryane Clowe stepped up this season and became a huge leader for this team, both by example and vocally. Clowe, 28, enjoyed a career year with 24 goals, 62 points, a plus-13 rating and 15 points in the playoffs. Once again, how the window is closing for a team with this guy leading the way is perplexing.
Niemi, who finally lost a playoff series after winning his first six, is simply a rare talent. Already a better goalie than Evgeni Nabokov (both due to his resilience after goals and losses as well as his clutch play in big games), Niemi is only 27 years old and will continue to grow in his third season as an NHL goalie.
To say a team's window is closing when they got 10 years younger at Captain and seven years younger at goalie last offseason is beyond me.
...and the Rest of the Team Has Only Scratched the Surface
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It seems as if people look at the Sharks as an older team. This is mainly due to the fact that they've been so good for a bunch of years now. But Doug Wilson is truly that good of a GM. He continues to retool this team, without losing sight of the long term.
Dan Boyle is the key piece who is showing signs of losing a step. The other aging players (Scott Nichol, Jamal Mayers, Niclas Wallin) are decent but very replaceable cogs. The only other key players 30 and over are Joe Thornton (31), Patrick Marleau (31), Douglas Murray and Dany Heatley (30). These guys all have two or three years of their primes left.
In those two or three seasons, their supporting cast will begin to become fellow stars, and by the time Jumbo and Patty lose a step, the current youth will be more than ready to make up the slack.
But forget five years down the line. Antti Niemi (27), Joe Pavelski (26), Torrey Mitchell (26), Devin Setoguchi (24), Marc-Edouard Vlasic (24), Jason Demers (22) and Logan Couture (22) make up the bulk of the remaining important Sharks, and none of them (besides maybe, just maybe, Niemi) have reached their full potential.
Looking ahead three or four years, imagining Vlasic and Demers roam the blue line behind a top line of Couture, Seto and Clowe is nice enough but let's just look ahead to next year. The Sharks have the best forwards in the league, and that core will only improve. The blue line is a question mark with Boyle and Wallin aging, but Vlasic and Demers lead Sharks' D-men in plus/minus this year, and they will both be a whole lot better.
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Experience
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It is difficult to believe that experience will push this team over the edge. Last year, four cup-winning defensemen (Rob Blake, Boyle, Keny Huskins and Wallin) didn't do it. This year, an entire team that went deep last year plus the reigning cup-winning goalie didn't do it.
So it's easy to say experience doesn't matter. But then you look more closely.
Why did Joe Thornton change his entire game? Why did Patrick Marleau win three games in OT? Why did Ryane Clowe call out the team? Hunger and experience.
Would past Sharks' teams respond to a six game losing streak like this one did? Would they come back against L.A? Won 5 of 6 playoff OT games? Beat Detroit after losing three straight? No. The reason why these guys were so good with their backs against the wall is experience: they have learned, starting with the loss to Anaheim in 2009, what it takes to win.
In 2009, the Sharks learned that they had to approach the first round like it was the cup final. They did that in 2010.
In 2010, they learned that you can't quit in a series just because you're down. They did that in 2011.
The lessons learned in 2011 are not quite clear yet, but there are many possibilities. They may have learned that you have to put teams away, because a tiring seven-game series will cost you. Maybe they learned that playing their game is enough to win and that only they can beat themselves. Perhaps they learned that holding third period leads is as important as being able to come back.
Whatever the team learned and whatever the individuals learned, experience is a huge part of hockey, and, being the NHL's only team to make two straight conference finals, the 2012 Sharks will be the hungriest, most ready-for-anything team in the league.
Management & Franchise
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Doug Wilson has put together a cup-worthy hockey team. He has star power to match any, veterans who've won before and a young core that will propel the team forward.
Year in and year out, the Sharks seem to be missing something, and Wilson always delivers.
Dan Boyle. Dany Heatley. Antti Niemi. Kyle Wellwood, Ian White.
In a league with a strict salary cap, constant success is next to impossible. The only way to put a winning team on the ice for years and years is through having one of the league's elite front offices, and Doug Wilson may just be the best in the business.
Todd McLellan has proven to be one of the NHL's best coaches, not only through some amazing winning but through constant improvement.
Winning wise, he's etched himself into coaching history with 150 wins in his first three seasons. Not only that, he's beaten the Detroit Red Wings two years in a row, out-dueling his mentor Mike Babcock, widely considered the best in the business.
More importantly, the young coach is getting better and better. His first year, he raised eyebrows after failing to win a playoff series despite a President's Trophy. He exorcized those demons in year two and led his team to the conference finals. In year three, he faced his first real adversity, as his ultra-talented roster was under-performing.
His boys turned it around in incredible fashion, and despite running out of gas before the cup, they played their best when it mattered. McLellan, without a doubt, has improved eery year as a coach and is ready to win his first cup in 2012.
Finally, the San Jose Sharks are simply one of the greatest franchises in pro sports. They've made the playoffs in 14 of 20 seasons, and in doing so, built up an amazing fanbase. The Bay Area is crazy about the Sharks, and HP Pavilion is the NHL's best home venue. Fan support, facility and location, while none tie directly to on-ice play and decision making, are three of the most important and necessary factors for success.
If any external conditions can lead a team to breakthrough, it's the ones that are present in Northern California.
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