Five years in succession the San Jose Sharks have won their first game of the season; that is a mark no other team in the league can match.
Yet the Sharks have never, ever won their last game of the season; and that mark, too, is theirs alone.
The Sharks have made the play-offs in 17 of the franchise’s 22 seasons. Every play-off campaign has ended in disappointment. (The five times they missed the play-offs, their record in the last game of the regular season is four losses and a tie.)
The nadir came last season, when San Jose had a 3-0 stranglehold on the Los Angeles Kings in the first round of the best-of-seven play-offs, then collapsed. Los Angeles won the next four games and proceeded to capture the Stanley Cup.
After such a fall, what hope can there be for San Jose this year?
Through six games, the Sharks have four wins and two losses. The most instructive game was their first loss, 4-3 to the New York Islanders in a shoot-out.
The game showed the chink in San Jose’s armour. They are soft. The Islanders’ third goal encapsulated the flaw:
As New York’s Cal Clutterbuck has the puck and skates behind the net, the Sharks’ Matt Irwin gives him a fibreglass love tap that does not even slow him. Clutterbuck comes out at the left side of the net and passes to Josh Bailey in the slot. The San Jose players Jason Demers and Joe Thornton, respectively, try to block the shot and poke at the puck, but neither gentleman touches Bailey – Thornton goes out of his way not to make contact – and so Bailey has time to whirl, shoot and score.
The Sharks rank 24th in the league in hits per game, at 18.2. The leaders are Los Angeles at 33.7. Through six games, the Sharks have been out-hit by margins of 30-22, 31-23, 26-13, 32-20, 10-6 and 35-25. That is a formula for play-offs failure. (The point of hitting in hockey is not about hurting the other player. It’s about slowing your opponents and taking away the easy option.)
Two years ago, when England were bounced out of the Euro championships, the BBC played a Linkin Park song as the final credits rolled. It went:
I tried so hard / And got so far / But in the end / It doesn’t even matter
That could be the anthem of the San Jose Sharks. The only way they can rewrite it is to finally reach the Cup final. The team is off to a fair start but as the season progresses the prospect of failure will loom only larger. Their cliff awaits.
rmckenzie@thenational.ae
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