His eyes were red and swollen, but not from a physical altercation, as might have been the case after almost every other hockey game in his life.
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Captain Joe Pavelski scored an early goal, Joel Ward added two of his own and the San Jose Sharks advanced to their first Stanley Cup final in franchise history by beating the St. Louis Blues 5-2 on Wednesday night in Game.
He can have as many hockey sticks as he likes.
“He’s a private person”, said his longtime friend Tony Mohagen, who flew out from Edmonton for the occasion. They kind of flew under the radar. It’s the players and match-ups against the teams they’re playing.
And let’s not smooth this over in these days when casual fans everywhere are grafting themselves on to this hastily constructed bandwagon with claims like “I’ve loved them since 1998”, “I’ve loved them since 1991”, and the new “I’ve loved them since 1967”. I skated with pros in the summertime in Langley and Burnaby and I’d look around the room, like: ‘I can skate like these guys. I’m as big as these guys. “Why can’t I do it?'” (The “It’s not Thornton’s fault” counterargument has itself become an annual tradition; here are versions from 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2016.) Only one member of the Sharks has a Stanley Cup ring – Martin Jones, who got it as a backup to Jonathan Quick in Los Angeles – but even with teammates so desperate to win, reaching the final has got to feel extra sweet for Thornton. “But I think if you’re going to look at one aspect, it’s our inability to close off those first two series and get the rest that San Jose got by closing off LA (in five games in the first round)”. Like Dillon, he wasn’t drafted in the NHL but earned a free-agent contract and worked his way up to the best league in the world. The last time the Blues were in the cup finals were 1970, when Bobby ORR scored the game to give the Boston Bruins the Stanley cup.
“I was hoping for more from the Blues in such a big game”.
“We’ll enjoy it tonight”. Ended up really hurting us in this series overall.
The registers at the Sharks store also were buzzing, and some of the Western Conference Champions merchandise sold out, while the Stanley Cup merchandise was still on its way. Their forwards really worked and put a lot of pressure on us from the backside. With Corey Crawford, Braden Holtby, and Carey Price making up the three goaltenders nominated for the tournament, it’s hard to imagine anything but top-end talent standing in net for the roster this coming September. Thornton’s assist was his 100th career playoff point with the Sharks.
“Taking nothing away from San Jose”.
These Sharks close games out.
This team was truly unlike any Blues team in recent memory; they just came up a bit short. Dallas felt like it would be home.
It doesn’t matter what metric you want to use (analytics, the eye-test, etc.), San Jose was clearly the better team in all aspects of the game. “The core group of guys in here is unbelievable”. The Blues made one change with forward Scottie Upshall coming into the lineup for Magnus Paajarvi.
He admitted he had been trying, with mixed success, to not think past the Blues and the conference final.
How can you not smile thinking what it would mean for players like Joe Thornton and Brent Burns to hoist a Stanley Cup above their heads? “If they can’t, then he won’t”.
Thornton’s shot went wide, but Pavelski picked up the loose puck, came in front and jammed it past Blues goalie Brian Elliott on a second effort. “I talked to Jonesie about it because he won the Cup with the Kings”. Just thinking back to the L.A. series (and the Sharks’ first-round win), that seems like forever ago.
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And it gets better.
