When the regular season ends and the Stanley Cup Playoffs begin it's like a fresh start with 16 teams battling for one shiny silver prize. Anything can happen, any team can get hot or ride a hot goalie until they end and more often than not it does.
When the puck drops in Edmonton tonight, the San Jose Sharks will be one of the 16 with an eye keenly on that shiny silver prize.
Fresh start, new life and laser focused. Pumped yet? Yeah, me neither. The Edmonton Oilers are a terrible draw for the embattled Sharks. Injuries and age vs. the upstart and very exciting new kids on the block. Last year the Sharks snuck up on the Western Conference with excellent goaltending and clutch performances by a variety of players.
This year everybody is aware of the Sharks and nobody is scared. Why would they be? Certainly the Oilers shouldn't be. These two teams have some history. Past and present history favors the Oilers and their lovable super star Connor McDavid.
The last time the Oilers qualified for the playoffs in 2006 they knocked off the Sharks in six games. Edmonton made it all the way to the Cup Final before succumbing to the Carolina Hurricanes. Yes, a Carolina/Edmonton Cup Final once happened.
The Oilers are as whole have been completely made over and only two Sharks remain from that series (Thornton and Marleau) and that series was over a decade ago and means absolutely nothing.
What we need to look at more closely is how these teams looked heading into the playoffs. The Oilers won 12 of their last 14 games, including two against San Jose. The Sharks looked awful at the end of the season. They lost nine of the their final 13 games and blew a nine point division lead in a couple weeks. Seems pretty clear to me.
Even more discouraging was the Sharks play against the Oilers. McDavid has been brilliant with Four goals and four assists in fives game against the Sharks. Now factor in that both Joe Thornton and Logan Couture and listed as game time decisions for game one and one has to curb any enthusiasm for both the playoffs and this series. My heart wants to hope for the best but my head says to expect the worst. So how can the Sharks possibly win this series?
It won't be easy, but the Sharks can win this series. Here are the three keys to the series for San Jose.
PLAY DEFENSE PLEASE! - Marc-Edourd Vlasic and Justin Braun have been embarrassing and the Oilers top six have been almost unstoppable. Good news is the Sharks defense is deep and they have the edge in experience. Now they need uses that experience to expose the inexperience of the Oilers core.
SPECIAL TEAMS! - Edmonton's power play is head and shoulders above the Sharks. San Jose when 0-for-16 with the man advantage during the regular season series. The Sharks have a decent penalty kill and may have to pull up some the slack left by the powerless play.
HAVE A SHORT MEMORY! - The Sharks can't get discouraged if things don't go as planned in Edmonton. That crowd is going to be bonkers and they are hungry for playoff hockey. Things could get ugly id Edmonton goes ahead early. In addition, the Oilers have Cam Talbot. The Sharks scorers cannot let him get inside their head. He will make several unbelievable stops per game. Just brush it off and try, try again.
Players to Watch:
EDM- Milan Lucic: He pushed the Sharks around in the last meeting and he's an experienced playoff beast.
SAN JOSE - Joel Ward: Following an underwhelming regular season, one off last year's playoff hero(7g 6a) will be expected to chip in when it counts. That is magnified by the possibility of life without playoff heroes Couture and Thornton.
Seems simple right? Let the games begin.
Thanks for reading, Steve