SAN JOSE, Calif. — Every one of us has had our San Jose moment.
The time you went all-in on Sharks in your pool, and watched them blow a 3-0 series lead to the Kings. Or personally, the several times I picked them to come out of the West, then went on the radio and/or television doling out all that Sharks wisdom — like a dummy.
But somehow, as much as this has been a model franchise, it’s 2016 now, and people aren’t into details anymore. So when a team like Washington continually fails, they become “the San Jose Sharks of the East.” As if the Capitals and Alex Ovechkin wouldn’t kill to have had as much playoff success as Joe Thornton’s team.
Today, nobody picks the Sharks to win anything — we’ve all been burned too often. Which means that after all these years, the Sharks have finally jumped the shark.
So isn’t this cool?
On Wednesday night, fate could finally be at Los Tiburones’ door. One win, and all that those soul-crushing losses by veterans Thornton and Patrick Marleau, all that shuffling of the captaincy between those two and Joe Pavelski, could be in the rearview mirror.
“Well, we’re not anywhere near where we want to get to yet. I mean, that’s a long way away,” said head coach Peter DeBoer, spoken like a man who arrived here only last September. “They’re not awarding the Stanley Cup here tomorrow night, or on Thursday or Friday if it takes that long to go back to St. Louis. This is just another step for us.”
Yeah. Just another step. Ask Marleau what it would be like to finally reach a Stanley Cup in San Jose, the only team he’s served through 1,400 NHL games.
“It would be huge. Something I always wanted to do here for the fans, for the Bay Area,” he said. “They’ve been supporting us over the years. They deserve it.”
If you don’t look closely, you might paint these Sharks fans as underserved. Well, look a little more closely:
• Only Detroit has played more playoff rounds (24) than San Jose since 2003-04. The Sharks will tie that mark if they advance to the Final. Meanwhile, San Jose and Detroit are the only teams in the NHL to have made the playoffs in 11 of the past 12 seasons.
• This is San Jose’s third trip to the Conference Finals in the past seven seasons. Only Chicago has played in more (four) over that span. Washington? They haven’t even been out of Rd. 2 in 16 seasons.
Still, there is a sentimentality that surrounds players like Thornton and Marleau, Canadian Olympians who are universally well liked. Two elite players who deserve a turn.
“You can tell within the locker room,” said first-year Sharks defenceman Paul Martin. “Guys that even have been here only for a couple years, how much pressure, they feel to get these veterans to a Stanley Cup.
“I would want nothing more than to have those guys have that opportunity. I think a lot of the younger guys feel exactly the same way. I’m sure the people, the fans, are in the same boat.
“I think if anyone deserves it, they do.”
Thornton, in particular, has worn the lack of true success here. He lost the C, as did Marleau (who was then stripped of his alternate captaincy as well), and whenever a star like Ovechkin fails to advance his team, Thornton’s name is evoked.
The facts are, Thornton has averaged 0.78 points per game in his playoff career, and is nearly a point per game through 1,367 regular season games. At age 36 he runs the best power play left in the NHL playoffs, and still controls the play at crucial times in the game with his amazing reach and body position.
Only the uneducated — and a few oafs out Boston way — will try to convince you that Thornton doesn’t produce in the clutch. It’s the team failures — and inherently insufficient goaltending over the years — over the years, however, that have rubbed off on Jumbo Joe’s reputation:
• In 2006 the top four seeds all went out in the first round. That put the Sharks up against the No. 8 seed Oilers, who beat San Jose in six games.
• In 2009 San Jose was the Presidents’ Trophy winners, drawing eighth seed Anaheim in Round 1. The Ducks knocked them off in six.
• In 2011 San Jose had what is believed to be its strongest edition. The Sharks advanced to their second consecutive Conference final but were beaten by a Cup-bound Vancouver team in five games.
• In 2014 San Jose had finished ahead of the powerhouse L.A. Kings, then scored 17 goals in the first three games to take a commanding 3-0 series lead in Round 1. Then it all fell apart, as the Kings won the next four.
Nobody holds it against a franchise that has competed each spring since the late ‘90s with Patrick Roy’s Colorado Avalanche, Mike Modano’s Dallas Stars, Nick Lidstrom’s Detroit Red Wings, Jonathan Toews’ Chicago Blackhawks or Drew Doughty’s Los Angeles Kings. Those were all formidable teams, most of whom won multiple Stanley Cups.
It’s when the path has opened up, as it has this season, that is when San Jose has been wasteful.
The path is wide open once again, against a fading St. Louis team that itself has not been able to find its way to the Stanley Cup Final since 1970.
The table is set for the Sharks.
It is finally time to feast. Or if not, suffer the biggest choke you could ever imagine.
