Shark-Bitten Again

The San Jose Sharks were the toast of the NHL’s regular season, racking up 53 wins, 18 losses, and 11 OT losses for 117 points—the best record in the league—and accordingly they won the Presidents’ trophy.
Shark-Bitten Again
SHARKS GONE WRONG: Goalie Evgeni Nabokov and the San Jose Sharks fell behind 3–1 in Game 6 on Monday night after Francois Beauchemin’s goal here. (Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
4/28/2009
Updated:
12/30/2023
<a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/sharks_medium.jpg"><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/07/sharks_medium.jpg" alt="SHARKS GONE WRONG: Goalie Evgeni Nabokov and the San Jose Sharks fell behind 3–1 in Game 6 on Monday night after Francois Beauchemin's goal here. (Jeff Gross/Getty Images)" title="SHARKS GONE WRONG: Goalie Evgeni Nabokov and the San Jose Sharks fell behind 3–1 in Game 6 on Monday night after Francois Beauchemin's goal here. (Jeff Gross/Getty Images)" width="300" class="size-medium wp-image-64977"/></a>
SHARKS GONE WRONG: Goalie Evgeni Nabokov and the San Jose Sharks fell behind 3–1 in Game 6 on Monday night after Francois Beauchemin's goal here. (Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
The San Jose Sharks were the toast of the NHL’s regular season, racking up 53 wins, 18 losses, and 11 OT losses for 117 points—the best record in the league—and accordingly they won the Presidents’ trophy.
 
Goalie Evgeni Nabokov was second in the league with 41 wins, the team ranked seventh in scoring (averaging 3.06 goals a game), their regular season power play ranked third (converting on 24.2 percent of its opportunities), and they ranked fifth in penalty killing (killing off 83.3 percent of shorthanded situations). The team had the stats to justify their place in the standings.
 
While San Jose entered the Stanley Cup playoffs as contenders to win it all in the eyes of many, they have once again disappointed after crashing out in the first round.
 
The Sharks drew the Anaheim Ducks as a first-round opponent and while the Ducks were the Western Conference’s eighth seed, barely squeaking in with 91 points, they weren’t a team to take lightly.
 
The Ducks had solid goaltending and relied on physical play, a formula that won them the Cup two years ago.
 
Despite the temporary reprieve that a 3–2 OT win in Game 5 brought them, San Jose still faced the prospect of elimination, down 3–2 in the series going into Game 6 at Anaheim’s Honda Center on Monday night.
 
San Jose’s star center Joe Thornton tried to rise to the occasion by starting a fight with the Ducks’ Ryan Getzlaf right off the opening face-off, but Anaheim would get the last laugh as they knocked San Jose out of the playoffs by a final score of 4–1, winning the series 4–2.

Explanation Needed

 
Questions will be asked and fingers will be pointed when people begin dissecting why the San Jose Sharks will begin prematurely booking tee off times.
 
Bottom line is the Sharks’ best players weren’t at their best while the Ducks’ were.
 
Anaheim netminder Jonas Hiller finished the series with a goals against average of 1.65 and a save percentage of .957 with two shutouts.
 
San Jose’s Nabokov had a 2.82 goals against average, a mediocre .890 save percentage, no shutouts, and he allowed four goals in that sixth and final game.
 
Anaheim center Getzlaf had two goals, six assists for eight points, and was +5 while Thornton had one goal and four assists for five points, and was a -3.

Three of Thornton’s points came in Game 5, meaning he only had one good game out of six.
 
San Jose team captain and center Patrick Marleau had three points in six games while Anaheim captain and defenseman Scott Niedermayer chipped in five points during the series earning a +/- rating of +3.
 
The Sharks’ special teams, so potent during the regular season, sputtered badly in the playoffs with the power play operating at 16.7 percent (4 of 24) and a PK that only operated at 78.3 percent efficiency (18 of 23).
 
Needless to say there were a lot of long faces in the San Jose locker room afterwards.
 
“I don’t know if we say this after each year or not but it’s very disappointing,” a dejected Nabokov said after the game.
 
“With the expectations we had this year, we didn’t come through again.”
 
Sharks defenseman Dan Boyle, who was tied for second in team playoff scoring with four points, said the better team won out in the end.
 
“To a man, they were better,” explained Boyle.
 
“Their goalie was better than ours, their D were better than ours, the forwards were better than ours, so to a man they were better.”
 
“It was certainly a wasted opportunity,” Boyle said.
 
The Ducks face the defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings in the next round, a team they upset on the way to glory in 2007.