What happened tonight was the biggest moment in Sharks history. With apologies to Jamie Baker, it was absolutely the most significant elimination victory to date.
Big enough to make me pick them to win the Stanley Cup. Late to the bandwagon, to be sure. But, damn, I needed some proof.
And, tonight, I got it.
The Sharks are finally doing what they’re supposed to do, what they’re built to do. Because unlike ancient history, when Baker scored the winning goal to knock off the Red Wings in 1994, this Sharks team is supposed to be able to come up big. And they’ve all too often come up small.
Not tonight. Not at all.
“We had some individuals heading into the playoffs who had to answer some questions,” Coach Todd McLellan said, providing more evidence of why he’s such an awesome coach. Not only does he make his team better (he was brought in to, generally, improve the team and, specifically,to beat Detroit and he’s done both) he’s not afraid to confront the truth.
And the truth is the Sharks, up until spring of 2010, have been woefully lacking.
Not tonight. Not at all.
The Sharks beat the Red Wings 2-1. They got goals from Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau. They got 33 saves from Evgeni Nabokov.
And they vanquished so many ghosts.
It isn’t just that the three targets of media criticism and fan angst came up huge. It’s that they did it against the Red Wings, the team that has taken up residence inside the Sharks head for so many years.
Last year, when I spoke to truth-teller Jeremy Roenick before a Red Wings game, I was amazed at how honest he was about the Sharks psychological hurdle with Detroit.
“There was definitely a mental block,” Roenick said. “When you can’t beat a team it sticks in your head.”
Roenick didn’t expect that psychological hangover to be so strong when he arrived in the fall of 2007. But there it was, still lingering from that gut-wrenching spring of 2007 second-round loss. The Sharks have had worse postseasons than they had in 2007, but the way they fell to the Red Wings was a signature debacle. The losses since then have only reinforced the lesson of three years ago – that the Sharks weren’t quite good enough, tough enough, hungry enough.
The team has been largely remade since then. But the key players – the Sharks Holy Trinity of hope and horror – from that trainwreck are still on the team. And they – Thornton, Marleau, Nabokov – are the ones who shut the door on the Detroit on Saturday night.
Thornton, in particular, was masterful. He dominated, took charge, barked orders – did all the things that he’s seemed oddly reluctant to do in the past few years. He seems to, finally, have come into his own in the postseason. I’m firmly of the belief that the emergence of Joe Pavelski opened a relief valve – reducing the pressure on Thornton. Just the way Tim Lincecum reduced the pressure on Barry Zito. Thornton suddenly became freer to play to his talents in the postseason.
Now the Sharks can rest. No dreaded trip back to Detroit. Just a relaxing time waiting for Chicago-Vancouver to sort itself out. They should be ready for whoever they get.
They just got over the biggest hurdle.
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