Can the San Jose Sharks finally put away the LA Kings in Game 5?
LOS ANGELES – The San Jose Sharks hear about their collapse against the Los Angeles Kings from two years ago during that little sliver of time when reporters enter the locker room to ask them about their current series against LA.
Beyond that, the Sharks have tried to stay loose, businesslike, and not think about how they blew a 3-0 series lead to lose in seven games to the Kings in 2014. San Jose is currently up 3-1 in their first-round series with a chance to punch their ticket to the second-round and exorcise those demons to a degree Friday at Staples Center.
“We don’t think about it or talk about it at all,” forward Matt Nieto said. “A lot of things have changed from two years. We have a new team and a new coaching staff. I think we’ve done a great job so far this series and to close it out would be really nice.”
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The tagline for these Sharks is that this team is different, and in some ways, it is. San Jose added proven veteran playoff performers like Joel Ward and Paul Martin to their roster.
Peter DeBoer, who has gone to a Stanley Cup Final as a head coach, replaced Todd McLellan before the season, and has gotten through to the teams veteran players.
But the core of the group is still the same. Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Logan Couture, Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Brent Burns are still all the top players in the organization – just as they were two years ago.
Last year the team muddled through a season where it didn’t make the playoffs as frayed emotions from the collapse lingered. Thornton was stripped of his captain’s ‘C’ in the summer of 2014 and publicly warred with McLellan and general manager Doug Wilson.
That year and the prior playoffs have set the stage for Friday night’s game for the Sharks. It’ll be a chance for some level of redemption or another example of the Sharks wilting under pressure against a team with a winning pedigree.
Los Angeles has beaten them the last two times they’ve faced each other in the playoffs. The Kings won the Stanley Cup in 2012 and 2014.
“I mean personally that was put to rest once the season ended,” Couture said. “We moved onto the following season which is 2015. I’ve done that every year throughout my career with losses in the playoffs. You move on because the year ends and you’re ready for the next year. It’s a different team. Every year it’s a different team. We’re a different group in here and have a tough task ahead of us.”
In order to beat the Kings, San Jose needs to just keep the same approach. The Sharks have held a lead in this series for 122:17 and the Kings have led for just 4:02. The Sharks have done most of their damage on the power play, but also kept the Kings boxed out around San Jose’s net, not allowing any sort of traffic on goaltender Martin Jones. Though the Kings have said the series is close, with winning margin at one goal for every game so far, the Sharks have been better in LA.
The formula is there for the Sharks and they know what it is – all they have to do is keep it up for one more game and counter any of LA’s changes.
“They’re going to be desperate,” Couture said. “They’re going to throw everything they have at us. So we have to match their desperation and match their intensity. They’re going to want to win in this building. We won the first couple here. They have loud fans and it’s a loud building, so they’ll want to win here.”
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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper
