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Done
No miracles for San Jose in Game 4
If you’re here looking for a game recap,
you’re not going to get one today. For Game 4, I’ve decided to mail
it in. I didn’t even watch Game 4. I heard the Sharks lost, which really
came as no surprise. After the disaster that was Game 3 on Friday night, there
really wasn’t much to look forward to. Overcoming a 3-0 deficit just
wasn’t something this lineup had in them, so why should I bother.
In actuality, I had another commitment, which kept me from parking my self in
front of a television for 3 hours. It was really kind of a god-send, because I
didn’t have to live through the anguish of watching the Sharks jump out to
a 2-0 lead, only to see it vaporize into this air.
I did checkout
highlights when I got home on Sunday night, and immediately grasped onto a
couple of things. First, the Sharks just didn’t get the big goaltending
that they needed in the Blackhawks series. You can’t hang the entire
series on Evgeni Nabokov’s head, but you can put him up their on the list
of reasons why the Sharks couldn’t get it done.
When you look at
each of the Sharks playoff series losses over the past few years, there is
always one constant. The opponent always had stellar goaltending. San Jose just
never seems to be the team that can sustain any consistency between the pipes.
Three-quarters of the league never even heard of Antti Niemi before the start
of the season, yet he was the guy everyone was talking about in this series.
Nabokov just never seems to lock in on the quality of play necessary
to win a championship when the stakes are the highest. It’s not as if the
Blackhawks were throwing tons of rubber his way. They just put timely rubber
past him.
The second glaring observation that I took away from this
series is the sub-par play San Jose turned in on defense. They often looked
lost out there against a team that didn’t even get many goals from their
top scoring tandem of Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. It was the second and
third line guys that were putting pucks past the Nabokov.
Joe Thornton
was on the ice for all four Chicago goals on Sunday. Douglas Murray’s
skating ability was exposed in too many key situations, including the three
times Chicago scored on Friday night. Kent Huskins struggled mightily against
those second and third line guys that seemed to play like first liners. Niklas
Wallin was simply been a certifiable disaster for San Jose .
Add
Wallin to the list of trade-deadline acquisitions that didn’t turn out to
be the missing piece to the puzzle, and that will cost the Sharks this summer
at the NHL Entry Draft. Wallin joins the likes of Bill Guerin, Brian Campbell,
Travis Moen, Bill Lindsay, John MacLean, who all turned out to be rental
players that cost the Sharks draft picks.
On the offensive side of
things, Chicago seemed to get scoring from everywhere, but the Sharks
didn’t. Joe Pavelski, the hero in the Sharks opening round matchup against
Colorado seemed to disappear in the Conference Finals. Devin Setoguchi was
nowhere to be seen, with the exception of his play in the 3rd period on Sunday
when his shot hit Thornton in the stick, before bouncing off the crossbar and
off Niemi before being blindly smothered by the Blackhawks netminder by simply
falling backwards onto the puck.
Granted, Niemi seemed to sell his
soul a bit on that play, in exchange for the save, but it was just another
moment in Sharks playoff history that didn’t turn out in their favor.
It was all too reminiscent of last year’s playoff
series against Anaheim , when all the Sharks mid-level skaters just took the
week off. Without anyone to step it up, the series was over before you could
say Jonas Hiller. Hiller returned to earth this season and had a subpar regular
season, but a year ago, he was the hot netminder that sent the Sharks packing.
The last glaring omission from the Sharks 2010 playoff run, was a
Dustin Byfuglien type player to match, well, Dustin Byfuglien. Check out
Byfuglien’s career numbers, and what you’ll see is a mediocre
forward. He’s a guy that will get you 30 points in the regular season, but
those guys are a dime a dozen.
I’ll go out on a limb and say that
Byfuglien never has a playoffs like he’s having this season. He’s
just getting hot at that one point in his career when it maters most. Like
goaltending, it’s the one thing the Sharks just never seem to have. That
one guy that plays out of his mind for 6 weeks.
So ad another
“what could have been” to the annals of Sharks hockey. Oh, and
don’t forget to send in your season ticket money. Invoices are due on
Tuesday, for those you who are planning ahead for next year’s spring of
discontent.
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What did you
think of this game? Post your comments on the
Feeder Forums |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| SJ |
1 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
| CHI |
0 |
2 |
2 |
4 |
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| 1st period - 1, SJ,
Couture 4 (Setoguchi, Murray), 11:08. |
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| 2nd period - 2, SJ,
Marleau 8 (Vlasic, Pavelski), 7:35, (sh). 3, CHI, Seabrook 3 (Hjalmarsson,
Versteeg), 13:15. 4, CHI, Bolland 5 (Eager, Keith), 18:38. |
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| 3rd period - 5, CHI,
Byfuglien 8 (Kane, Toews), 14:05, (pp). 6, CHI, Verteeg 4 (unassisted), 19:18,
(en). |
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| 1st period - Hendry, CHI
(holding the stick), 5:02. |
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| 2nd period - Setoguchi,
SJ (tripping), 6:45; HEatley, SJ (hooking), 11:55; Toews, CHI (cross checking),
12:48. |
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| 3rd period -
Boyle, SJ (delay of game - puck over glass), 4:27; Clowe, SJ (holding), 9:09;
HEatley, SJ (slashing), 12:12. |
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Shots |
Saves |
| SJ - Nabokov |
26 |
23 |
| SJ - empty net |
1 |
0 |
| CHI - Niemi |
18 |
16 |
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1 |
2 |
3 |
T |
| SJ |
7 |
8 |
3 |
18 |
| CHI |
8 |
10 |
9 |
27 |
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| Referees:
O'Halloran, Peel. Linesmen: Miller, Sharrers. |
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