NHL1st Round: Pacific (#2) Los Angeles Kings vs Pacific (#3) San Jose Sharks

[hf101]

Congrats @J0e Th0rnton

A great night of hockey last night.  I thought this one would go to OT also, but the Sharks came out and dominated the third.

 

The Kings held the lead for 1.3% of the series against SJ.  4.01 minutes.

A dominant Series for the Sharks.  

Congrats!!  Now the Sharks will get to rest a bit, I thought this would go the full seven.  

[hf101]

[OccamsRazor]

Nice to see the Sharks send then Kings home and Vinny off to retirement.

 

Keep it going.

[yave1964]

Congrats Joe! Your boys finally moved past your white whale! well deserved.

[J0e Th0rnton]

5 hours ago, yave1964 said:

Congrats Joe! Your boys finally moved past your white whale! well deserved.

I dunno if it is a white whale or not. We beat them in 6 games in 2010-11 after all lol.

 

However, they definitely earned a special place of hate in Sharks fans hearts after they beat us the last 2 series in 7 games each time and won the cup both years.

Smashing them in 5 games felt oh so good. I feel like this is the best blueline the sharks have ever iced and I am comfortable with our forward depth at the same time. Goaltending is the part that I am most happy with though. I could see Niemi blowing some of these games while Jones was cool as a cucumber.

 

I even feel if we had an injury or two, we could sustain it so long as it is not a key player like Vlasic again. Burns, Thornton, Pavelski and Vlasic are irreplaceable. Couture seems back to that level as well.

 

The year they reverse swept us, the Vlasic injury killed us. It was a horrid blueline to begin with, and losing the best guy we had was crippling. Dan Boyle was post concussed and has never recovered, and Hannan should have been old yellered a year earlier. Stuart was the guy Wilson was talking about when he said he wants players who want to play here, not just live here and he was awful. Demers sans Vlasic was a 5th Dman, and Irwin was a horrid player to jump up to replace Vlasic.

 

Braun was really all we had.

 

So far, I am beyond happy with the Burns/Martin pairing. Vlasic is having a year worthy of norris votes. Braun is still solid and Polak has been much better than people were expecting. Even the ones who thought he could do good with the sharks. The only guy worrying me at times is Dillon. Demelo was doing so well before the playoffs started I was hoping he might get in the game instead. But at least we know he is solid if one goes down.

 

At forward, if someone went down, we could use Zubrus. Him and Spalling were alternating scratches before the playoffs.

 

Deboer is really letting the lines roll naturally. Not overplaying top guys on the PK, using the bottom 6 as they should be used. Thornton commented largely that his resurgence this year is not only a system that fits his play better, but playing and resting a bit more with line rolling evenly.

 

I feel soooo good going into next round.