Sharks' best is plenty good

By Mark Purdy
Mercury News Sports Columnist

Article Launched: 04/22/2008 10:01:10 PM PDT


All you want is a team's best. Such a modest request. But we all know how hard that has been for the Sharks in elimination games over the years. But the final score Tuesday in Game 7 should pretty much settle the issue of whether the Sharks had it in them.

All you want is a team's best. This is what the scoreboard displayed at the final horn: San Jose 5, Calgary 3. And beneath the scoreboard, a few minutes after that horn, the Sharks lined up to shake the hands of a defeated Calgary team that was a keg of nails for the last two weeks but eventually ran out of enough energy to pound any more hammers.

All you want is a team's best. And with the pressure on, our beloved Los Tiburones gave their howling home horde the best Shark offensive period in HP Pavilion playoff history, scoring four goals and knocking Flames goalie Miikka Kiprusoff onto the bench. There have been other series clinchings in the building. But nothing so sweet as this.

All you want is a team's best. Followers of the Sharks are actually quite reasonable that way. Despite being disparaged in certain (Canadian) quarters as naive, the ticket holders of the Tank have seen enough hockey over the building's 14 years to know the difference between a team playing goodhard-working hockey and a team that's trying to fake it. And there were no fakers Tuesday.

All you want is a team's best. This is angle on the Sharks' playoff disappointment that tends to be missed. It isn't so much that the team has been eliminated early. It's how. In 2006 and 2007, the Sharks led each series that they eventually lost. In 2004, they went to Calgary and swept two games to raise hopes, then never won again. Every year, it was like watching a balloon of hope slowly leak away.

All you want is a team's best. The Sharks could not allow any more balloon leaking to happen Tuesday., could not toss another weak effort onto the rink. The Sharks should have had an edge with Game 7 being played in their home tank. No guarantees, though. "It does benefit us," defenseman Brian Campbell said. "But you've got to take control of it."

All you want is a team's best. The Sharks did take control for most of the first period, winning 13 of the 20 faceoffs, retrieving pucks along the boards, putting 14 shots on goal to Calgary's five. The Sharks scored first to take a 1-0 lead. But the period still ended with the score tied at 1-1, because the Flames' Jarome Iginla was fiercely fighting for his patch of ice in front of the net on a power play and tipped in the puck.

All you want is a team's best. Joe Thornton's reputation was on the line that way Tuesday. He needed to be as fierce at Iginla. Thornton has such a mellow personality, perfect for Northern Calfornia. But people have wondered if Thornton also has the avaricious hunger to pull a team over the barbed wire fence that is the playoffs.

All you want is a team's best. Thornton's goal in the first period was a palpably cathartic release, as in a reverse of the usual order, he took a cross-crease feed from Jonathan Cheechoo and slammed the puck into the upper left corner of the net. Thornton shoved his fists into the air and shouted. He did not look like a surfer dude playing hockey any more. He looked like he had climbed barbed wire.

All you want is a team's best. As long as the Shark franchise exists, their loyalists will talk about the second period of Tuesday's game. After old pal Owen Nolan took advantage of a freaky breakway to put the Flames ahead 2-1, it was as if the Sharks collectively decided that enough was enough. And that is when the best of the Sharks finally surfaced. Finally. Finally.

All you want is a team's best. It took a future Hall of Famer to begin the blitz. Jeremy Roenick, brought to San Jose as someone who could stir some winning fizz into the locker room, showed he was much more than fizz.

All you want is a team's best. Roenick tied the score at 2-2 with a shot through a Devin Setoguchi screen. Roenick than scored on a power play rebound to make it 3-2. Then here came Joe Pavelski on another rebound. And then Setoguchi, with another goal to make it 5-2. The Sharks had never before scored four goals in a playoff period at HP Pavilion. They may never again. But what a night to set the record.

All you want is a team's best. There is a theory that a team which needs seven games to get through the first round spends so much energy, it won't have enough left to reach the Stanley Cup finals. But the Flames themselves proved that theory wrong four years ago, when they needed seven games to beat Vancouver in round one and then plowed through two more series victories and took Tampa Bay to seven games before losing in the finals.

All you want is a team's best. Right now, the Sharks would take the same sort of run that Calgary made in 2004. And right now, the Sharks would take their chances in any Game 7. That's what a night like Tuesday can do for a franchise when it goes well.

All you want is a team's best. Of course, you can't always get what you want. But we always knew that if the Sharks tried sometime, they'd get what they needed. Tuesday, they did. And did. Someone should write a song about it. But if you are a Sharks' fan, after seven grueling and anxious games, you don't care about songs.

Because you got what you wanted.


Copyright 2008 Mercury News