Surging Sharks feasting on unsuspecting Kings

The Phanatic presents a perspective from the West Coast, for the surprising Western Conference Quarterfinal which pits the Sharks against the stunned Kings, who find themselves down 2-0 heading into tonight's Game 3 in Los Angeles. 

San Jose, CA -- If you predicted that the San Jose Sharks and Los Angeles Kings would play seven low-scoring games in their Western Conference Quarterfinal, many people would have agreed with you.

Of the eight first-round matchups in the 2014 playoffs, this one could have been voted most likely to be close. After all, last year's Western semifinal between the clubs featured only 24 red lights in a seven-game series.

Instead, it began with the Sharks veering wildly off course and defeating the Kings in two surprisingly lopsided home contests. Perhaps it is Los Angeles which went wildly off script, launching into a poorly-planned and even less well-executed improv performance. Either way, it has been a memorable start to the postseason for the South Bay predators.

After a 7-2 rout in Sunday night's Game 2, Sharks head coach Todd McLellan talked about his impressions of the opposition after taking a 2-0 series edge:

"After Game One, I talked about the fact that I don’t think we’ll be in this situation again and we ended up there. I don’t think that this series is going to play out in blowouts like this night after night. They’re a very good hockey club and they’re going to find their game."

In Thursday's opener, the Sharks jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the first two periods. The Kings rallied in the third with three straight markers, but fell 6-3 after a late empty-net goal for the hosts. Three days later, the Kings worked their way to a 2-0 lead in the first despite being outshot 15-10 by the Sharks. The Sharks responded in the second and third periods with seven unanswered goals.

You have to go back to the 2011 playoffs to find more than one game in a series between these teams (playoff or regular season) that ended with a difference of more than two goals. That series included a wild comeback from 0-4 down which eventually ended up as a 6-5 OT win for the Sharks. Now, the teams head south to Los Angeles, where history tells us the Kings will bounce back. That is putting a lot of stock in the past.

Before the series began, neither team expected any surprises. LA ehad coach Darryl Sutter said before the first game:

"What happens in playoff time, a lot of time what separates winner or loser is not the team part of it, it’s the individual part of it. So there’s somebody that steps up and goes to another level or somebody that doesn’t, that’s usually at the end, what … when you call it a surprise or whatever that is, that’s usually what happens."

The first two games have certainly featured some individuals stepping up, and some failing to play their part. The Sharks' fourth line, for example, has been uncommonly productive. That isn’t entirely surprising. As the final pairing up front, they are somewhat overqualified.

That grouping includes Raffi Torres, Andrew Desjardins and Mike Brown. Torres started on the fourth line this season primarily to limit his minutes as he came back from knee surgery. Prior to that, the feisty veteran who is never far from crossing lines of conduct could usually be found among the top six. Desjardins has proven to be more skilled than most grinders -- and showed it on his second-period assists two days prior -- and he's perfectly capable of filling in on other lines in a pinch.

Of the line’s performance in the second game, Torres said:

"I thought Brownie had one of the best games I’ve seen him play, and Desi tonight was great with the puck, you know, getting his head up. I’ve told Desi a bunch of times that he’s got a lot of skill. It shows in practice, he’s been working on it. So it’s good to see those guys get rewarded."

For these unlikely suspects to score two goals in the space of five minutes -- pretty goals even -- looks like a surprise but it was far from improbable.

Sharks rookie Tomas Hertl, freshly back from injury, was supposed to ease his way into the playoffs in a third-line role. It took him four periods to be promoted back to the top line with Joe Thornton, after scoring his first playoff goal in his first playoff game. For him, it was not so much a matter of stepping up as picking up where he left off before being injured by Kings captain Dustin Brown last November.

A second rookie in the Sharks’ playoff lineup is Boston University product Matt Nieto, who stepped in when Hertl was injured and never gave the club a reason to send him back. His tenacious and speedy style earned him a steady spot in the top six. He represents a change in playing style that the Sharks have been working on for some time now. Todd McLellan talked about the team’s emphasis on speed:

"It’s been a focus of our organization over the last few years to up the speed element. The Matt Nietos and those type of players come in, we want to play a fast game. We feel that that’s what we need to do to have success."

While sitting playoff veterans Martin Havlat and Tyler Kennedy, McLellan has used these rookies in the roles those two would normally fill. That will not necessarily be the case throughout the playoffs, but for now the Sharks are in the enviable position of having too many capable players. They are not asking anyone to do more than they have done before, but everyone has shown up ready to play.

Only three Sharks skaters have no points so far: defensemen Jason Demers, Brad Stuart and Scott Hannan. Five skaters have accumulated three-or-more points. Joe Pavelski leads the team with four. The Sharks have allowed five goals in two games. In the first game, the goals against came in a span of less than 12 minutes. In the second game, the goals against came in less than ten minutes. The Sharks have played a tight defensive game, with a few hiccups, so far. 

For the Kings’ part, the individual difference has been worse than failing to go to another level. Too many of their regulars have underperformed badly. The Kings do not have a history of scoring a lot, but timely goals are stock-in-trade and they are supposed to have a formidable defensive game. In the 2013-14 regular season, the Kings averaged  2.05 goals against, the fewest in the league. In these two games that average ballooned to 6.5. 

Despite that, the Kings still have a reputation as a good defensive team. After the second game, Brown alluded to that, saying:

"We have to play solid defense and not let any goals in because we know that they’re capable of not letting that many goals in."

One has to wonder if the club which won the Cup two short years ago can recall all that. They have only played two games, a mathematically insignificant number, unless the goal is to win four.

Of the lopsided scores, McLellan said:

"The scores are irrelevant. They’re over, these could have been two triple overtime wins for us. That’s all you get is a win. You don’t get goals for or goals against that count for anything."

Nonetheless, those goal differentials do tell us something about who has and who has not performed up to par.

In previous meetings, Justin Williams was the Kings’ points leader against the Sharks. The Kings top five in points this season were Anze Kopitar (70), Jeff Carter (50), Justin Williams (43), Mike Richards (41) and Drew Doughty (37). In the first two games, Kopitar, Carter, Jake Muzzin and Trevor Lewis have two points each, Doughty has one, Williams and Richards have none. Just seven Kings have any points, only four have more than one.

Those numbers indicate that the Kings could very well turn this series around quickly. The Sharks expect as much in the next two games at Staples Center. Torres admitted the following:

"We’re kidding ourselves if we think that it’s going to be like this for seven games. We’ve been fortunate the first two games but then we’re really going to find out what kind of team they have going in to LA. It’s tough to win on the road, especially going in to LA."

Flyers looking to break the spell of 13 in San Jose

SAN JOSE, CA -- Thirteen years, one month and 13 days ago, the Flyers defeated the San Jose Sharks by a 4-3 score in Philadelphia.

It was December 21, 2000. Rick Tocchet -- now in his second turn with the franchise -- had the game winner and Roman Cechmanek was in goal for the triumphant hosts. The Orange and Black also won the secondary statistic battle, outshooting San Jose 34-28.

The law of averages says Philadelphia should win on Monday as it closes out a three-game California road trip dubbed the "Triangle of Death," but it also borders on the definition of insanity to think the result will be different after 13 years of the same.

Sharks head coach Todd McLellan said his team isn’t putting any stock in that history:

"We haven’t seen this team for two years, coaches change, players change. In past years we only played them once sometimes, whether it was in our building or their building. There isn’t even a story there as far as I’m concerned."

Asked whether the Flyers gave any thought to the 13-year drought, defenseman Braydon Coburn said:

"No, we play these guys so little. Obviously, they’ve had a lot of good teams here for a lot of years so I think more than … anything, we’re just focused on tonight and trying to get two points."

Ancient history may be irrelevant, but the numbers one and three will be important. Monday’s game could come down to the first and third period scoring habits of the Sharks and the Flyers. The Sharks have scored 56 goals in the game's first 20 minutes, to the Flyers' 37. The Flyers have scored 60 in the third, to the Sharks’ 45. The teams are almost even in the second period.

Every game is a new start. Both teams won their last games. Craig Berube's club walked out of LA with an improbable 2-0 victory, while McLellan's charges took a 2-1 shootout victory against Central Division-leading Chicago. Both of those wins ended troubling losing streaks.

The Sharks are battling for home ice in the playoffs. They have a ten point cushion between them and the next Pacific Division rival, the Kings. That doesn’t mean they are not being pushed by Central Division teams, McLellan said:

"We don’t want to be caught by teams underneath us in the Central Division and we’d like to claw our way ahead of a couple that are within reach. I do believe we’re being pushed, we have to scratch and claw to get those points."

Scoring is one of the things the Sharks have had trouble doing lately. In their last two games, they have scored just one goal in each during regulation. That does not do much to reassure the Sharks -- nine points back of the Anaheim Ducks in the Pacific Division -- that they have their mojo back. They were shut out two games in a row and much of a third before the shootout win last Saturday. Conspicuous among the non-scoring are linemates Joe Thornton and Brent Burns, both pointless in the past four games. Still, McLellan is not too worried:

"I think Joe’s get-going part is going to come off of what the others do, because he’s such a good passer and he sets people up to score. So if they accomplish … the finish part, Jumbo will be on the board quickly.  The power play is a big part of it… last couple of games it’s been very dangerous, provided us with a lot of momentum and we ask that of it. Now it’s the finish part, can we get one or two on it?"

The opposition will do their best to answer that question in the negative. Berube stated of his team’s California trip so far:

"I thought we played our best game in Anaheim, we grinded out two points against LA, and we’re going to have to do the same tonight. I think it’s important to stay out of the penalty box and we have. We’ve done a good job and that has to continue tonight, with this power play. You can’t put yourself in a bad situation."

The Flyers are bouncing in and out of wild-card status, in and out of the playoff picture in a competitive Metropolitan Division.  They are in that position due to a well-documented very poor start to the season. They do not and will not have any breathing room.

These teams don’t know each other very well, in this season’s version or any other. Sharks goaltender Antti Niemi spent some quality time with the Flyers in 2010, but that was a long time ago in a galaxy far away.

Preparing to play each other is a challenge, especially when you average less than one contest per season and haven't seen each other in almost two calendar years. McLellan also stated that the Sharks’ recent wins over Chicago showcased their defense, and that is what they need against Philadelphia as well:

"They have the ability to score in bunches, a number of their forwards are already in double-digit goal scoring, so it can come from anywhere. So we’ll need that commitment level again."

Coburn additionally shared his take on the Sharks after morning practice:

"Obviously they have some really big guys like Marleau and Thornton and Pavelski and Boyle … But the thing about them is they’re a team, they’re a hard-working team, so we’ve got to be sure we match their work ethic and skate with them."

One of the adjustments the Flyers have to make playing the Sharks is the heavy playing style common to teams in the West. They should have made that adjustment by now, after the games in Anaheim and Los Angeles. How different is it? Flyers defenseman Nicklas Grossmann played for six seasons with the Dallas Stars before being traded to Philadelphia. He has played a lot of games on both sides of the Mississippi:

"Hockey-wise I’d say East would be a little more up and down game, maybe a little North-South, kind of chip and chase, grind, a little more hitting I’d say. While the West, I think, would be a little more hold on to the puck, make plays kind of game. I think it changed a little bit over the years … I think they’re kind of flowing together. You see some teams from the West, it feels like playing East teams."

Is it difficult to make the adjustment in one road trip?

"… it’s not really like you’re going into a game and saying ‘well, these guys don’t hit.’ Every team hits, every team plays. It’s just kind of the feeling you get overall from these teams."

While the Flyers need to focus on their own game, some of the players are familiar with each other. Grossmann remembers quite a bit from his time in the West:

"One thing, you go back to the West and you’re kind of familiar with a lot of teams, a lot of  players and you’ve played against them in a lot of games. You kind of know a few tricks here and there that they used to try and pull on you. That’s always good."

The Sharks enter tonight’s game 7-3-0 over their last 10 games. Their home record for the season is 20-3-3, and 6-0-1 since coming out on the wrong end of a 3-1 score against the Flyers on Nov. 5, 1999. The Flyers are 4-4-2 in their last ten games. Their road record this season is 13-13-5. Both teams prosper when they score first. Both teams have dismal stats when they trail going into the third period.

The starting goalies are expected to be Antti Niemi for the Sharks and Steve Mason for the Flyers.

Flyers defenseman Kimmo Timonen will not play for the second consecutive game due to a lower-body injury.

Sharks defenseman Jason Demers will not play due to a lower body injury. Forwards Logan Couture, Raffi Torres and Adam Burish skated this morning with the team but are not expected to play.