“Game 7s don’t come often, just enjoy it”.
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Sharks goalie Martin Jones was asked at least a couple times in the minutes after his team s 5-0 win over the Nashville Predators what his thoughts were of facing the St. Louis Blues in the Western Conference Finals.
From the second they got on the ice it was clear the Sharks were the superior team.
This group believes they’ve developed a strong killer instinct. The similarities between the franchises in recent years – strong play in the regular season, not so much in the playoffs – will surely be mentioned frequently as the series gets underway Sunday night.
The St. Louis Blues are headed to the Western Conference Final for the first time since 2001 and will be heading further west as this round progresses.
“Doesn’t mean anything to me”, Couture said. “This isn’t the same team it’s been in the past”.
And one of those teams is the Sharks. Then at the 16:51 mark, Joel Ward forced a Roman Josi turnover, broke in on Rinne and opened him up with a fake to put the game at 2-0. With the puck on his stick in the right circle, Couture coolly flicked past the Nashville goalie, just 36 seconds into the period.
Power forward Joe Thornton had three goals and five points in three games against the Blues while Logan Couture added two goals and three points.
San Jose isn’t in unfamiliar territory here.
PRESIDENT’S TROPHY: The Sharks were the top team in the league in 2008-09 in the first year under coach Todd McLellan and looked poised to make a long playoff run after three straight second-round exits since acquiring Joe Thornton. They’ve refused to completely condemn the house they’ve spent years building, but have consistently stripped it down to its foundation and made improvements in what sometimes seemed to be a futile and misguided attempt to salvage something that wasn’t worth salvaging at all. In Game 6 – which included an overtime session – the Sharks attempted 45 shots.
The Sharks showed some life in Game 3, with Patrick Marleau’s second goal of the game tying it up with 4:23 to play.
Thursday, however, ended in about as happy a fashion as any Shark fans have experienced at SAP, hearkening back to the Game 7 victory over Detroit in 2011. It’s a matter of just finishing.
New narrative: The Sharks are a team that can respond and recoil when they hit a foul-smelling pothole, such as the Game 4 triple-overtime loss in Nashville and a substandard performance in Game 6 that ended in another ugly overtime defeat. The Blues are trying to do this, and one thing we know from our study is that the more games you have to play early, the harder it gets later. Again, the Dallas example is paramount, where having two mediocre goaltenders in Kari Lehtonen and the sainted Antti Niemi combined with the absence of Tyler Seguin to leave the Stars as less than they were, and St. Louis was perfectly positioned and constructed to punish them for it. They kept coming and pushed us right to the limit. They got some great playoff experience. James Neal had three shots on goal, but had six shots blocked. It didn’t happen Thursday. “It’s disappointing for us”.
In the first six games of this Round 2 series, Nashville and San Jose split the games 3-3, with each team winning all of their home games – for only the fourth time in the last 20 years of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Now Jones faces a fully healthy St. Louis team, and his teammates face Blues goalie Brian Elliott, who has been equally exceptional in the postseason with a.929 save percentage and a 2.29 goals against average in 14 games. For one of these teams, it will be a breakthrough: After years of being talked about as a top team, finally getting to the Stanley Cup finals. “We talked after that first series, it was a good win against L.A. It never gets easier”.
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They re just a solid team, they re good everywhere. It feels good but we understand this was a second step. “It’s going to be more good hockey, but we haven’t accomplished anything yet”.
