It was a closing rush unprecedented in Sharks team history was
Sunday’s improbable 4-3 overtime victory over Pacific Division
rival Los Angeles.
It was a closing rush unprecedented in Sharks team history was Sunday’s improbable 4-3 overtime victory over Pacific Division rival Los Angeles.
Down by a pair of goals with less than 30 seconds to play, San Jose rose from the torpor of a relatively meaningless regular season finale to shock the equally unmotivated but somehow more engaged Kings. Two goals in the final 20 seconds of play by a largely underachieving player – Brad Stuart – tied the game, then Vinnie Damphousse won it in OT.
The victory, despite providing the partisan but mostly disengaged crowd with a thrill that sent the fans into a Stanley Cup playoff-style frenzy, had nothing to do with the Sharks’ playoff positioning.
San Jose had already sealed a first-round playoff meeting with St. Louis beginning on Thursday at HP Pavilion.
But it capped an impressive late-season closing rush over the last month of play for San Jose, one that began with the seemingly devastating season-ending injury to high-scoring Marco Sturm.
And, it is a measure of the amazing turn-of-fortune the Sharks have realized in the past year, indeed the past month, that San Jose coach Ron Wilson was talking about the victory’s significance in relation to his team’s standing in the entire Stanley Cup playoffs.
Not just making the playoffs, mind you, as would certainly have been considered a major feat before this season began.
Not the Sharks’ status as the Pacific Division champion, as would have been considered worthy of a hardy chuckle before the season began.
Not even as one of the top two teams in the Western Conference (the Sharks have the second-best record in the West entering the playoffs), which would have earned anyone a quick trip to the Psych Ward before the season.
No, when Wilson discussed the victory that gave the Sharks a franchise-record 104 points this season, he was talking about his team’s status as the third-best team in the entire NHL.
And, it had the second-year Sharks coach talking really crazy.
“If we’re ever to dream of getting to the Stanley Cup,” Wilson said, “there’s just the top two teams ahead of us. And, if they get knocked off, then we have home ice throughout the playoffs.”
Whaaaaaaa… throughout the playoffs???
This is clearly not the old Sharkies who were just happy to make the playoffs and ecstatic about hosting a first-round playoff series. It’s a whole new day at the old Shark Tank.
Ironically, it was less than a month ago that the Sharks’ season was teetering on disappointment after a truly remarkable performance for much of the season.
It was on March 5 when Sturm went down with a gruesome season-ending injury after crashing into the boards in a 5-1 loss at Colorado.
Sturm, the team’s second-leading scorer at the time, was placed on the IR the next day with a cracked fibula and a dislocated ankle.
The injury was so potentially devastating that one reporter asked Wilson if Sturm’s injury was a “season-breaker.”
Wilson responded angrily, “Yeah, our season is over,” then castigated the reporter for asking the question.
The Sharks also responded … by losing the next two games, including a 4-0 smacking administered by their Pacific Division pursuers, the Dallas Stars.
But, faced with a swift descent into mediocrity, the Sharks fought back, winning nine of their next 11 games, including key victories over Dallas and Los Angeles, to clinch the division and a playoff spot.
However, the Sharks’ biggest performance may have been in one of the two games they didn’t win during that stretch – a 3-3 tie at Dallas.
In that game, the Sharks trailed by three goals in the third period before scoring in triplicate late in the game to salvage a tie.
That tie seemed to fuel the stretch run that moved the Sharks from a desperate battle to hang on to their Pacific Division lead to the top of the conference standings, not to mention the club record for points.
After Sunday’s game, Marco Sturm, hobbling on crutches but with a gleam in his eye, stumping out of the locker room, on his way with his teammates to the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Sharks’ good luck charm born from adversity.
