This season, I made a conscious decision not to write about the San Jose Sharks. I live in Chicago and I've witnessed the Blackhawks win two Stanley Cups as an Illinois resident so I've developed a soft spot for the club, I always root for the Montreal Canadiens as my Eastern Conference preference, and I've taken an interest in the emergence of the Blue Jackets, Ducks (blasphemy, I know), Stars, Blues, and Wild. I am a capital-H Hockey fan before any allegiance I may have but when the puck drops on any of the 1230 games in the NHL season, I Bleed Teal when the boys from my hometown are on the ice, without question. Me keeping hushed about the Sharks this year was just a show of some unfounded superstition I had relating to their success.
Well, I'm breaking the silence. We're all allowed to knock our favourite teams when they deserve it and, over the years, my general thought about the Sharks is that they play the most spirited 40 minutes of hockey you will ever see. They've put out a different look every season since I really started following the sport in 2007 but the story has remained the same: they come out strong, they sit back on a lead, they choke. I won't make excuses. It's like that girl that builds up your confidence for a year of cautious optimism and, when you finally ask her out, she just wants to be friends. They show so much promise and, just when you really start to believe that this could truly be the team, they're hitting the links and Pierre McGuire is spouting off about other players' junior teams for a few more weeks.
If anything embodied what I just described, it would be the San Jose Sharks against the Los Angeles Kings in Round 1 of the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs. They entered the postseason in spectacular fashion, going up 3-0 in the series and scoring 17 goals to LA's 8, feasting on an uncoordinated Kings defence and a Jonathan Quick that didn't look like the Jonathan Quick we have all come to begrudgingly acknowledge as an all-world talent.
Then Game 4 happened: Niemi gets pulled, the Kings win by 3. Then Game 5 happened: Niemi gets pulled, the Kings win by 3. Then Game 6 happened: Stalock starts, McLellan can't keep his shit together after a debatable Kings go-ahead-goal sneaks in with under 10 minutes left, the Kings win by 3. The goal-differential is all evened up at 21 a side so we can throw that out the window.
Now the Sharks are sitting on attempt #4 of eliminating their SoCal rivals with now the prospect of themselves hanging up the skates for the summer. But it also leaves that counter-productive identity crisis of a goaltending controversy that shouldn't be there in the first place.
I'll say it now: There is absolutely no reason that you do not start Niemi for Game 7.
We had to hear about it in January, at the end of the Olympic break, and right before the playoffs that Stalock was gunning for the number one job in the San Jose crease. He had a good year, posting a .932 SV% and a 1.87 GAA, but that also came in a 24-game body of work. What's more, he only has a total of 27 games of regular season NHL experience. That's a small sample size if I've ever seen one. I'm all for unproven talent coming in and stealing the show in the playoffs, but San Jose had the flexibility to see if Stalock could breakout in Game 6. It didn't work, we all had a good time, and the most important thing is that we can admit that goaltending is not the issue.
How you don't turn to the guy who has appeared in 80% of the team's regular season games since you acquired him is beyond me. Sure, Niemi has experienced rough patches in his tenure - what elite netminder hasn't? - but as head coach, it's Todd McLellan's job to sit him down and convey that Niemi is and will be the guy that gets them through this test. Enough with the mind games and playing coy, this is an assignment that has to be earned and from where I'm standing, Niemi is the only goaltender currently in the Sharks organisation that has earned a gosh darn thing.
Last season, Chicago backup Ray Emery played to the tune of a 17-1-0 record and posted similar numbers as starter Corey Crawford. Yet, come the playoffs, Emery didn't see a minute of ice time. There was no question as to who would man the crease. Teams that hit the panic button when every game matters don't win the Cup. Justin Bourne wrote a spot-on piece about how Kings head coach Darryl Sutter stuck to the plan despite early-series lapses while McLellan just caused more anxiety and uncertainty for his team with how he handled the situation. Composure is a commodity and, now that the Sharks have tipped their hand, the Kings are poised to call a bluff one more time.
There are two ways to manage a goaltending situation entering the playoffs: you either play to the hot hand, often characteristic of bubble teams that just slip in by starting whoever isn't losing, or you put your best lineup from the past 82 games together and let them carry you. San Jose didn't have to fight for a playoff spot and a lot of that had to do with Antti Niemi going 9-1-2 with a .924 SV% and 1.72 GAA in the month of October (if you aren't familiar with the column, Elliotte Friedman has done some great work on teams outside the playoff picture as early as November 1 and he is a must-read when "30 Thoughts" comes out each week). Sure, the 18 skaters in front of him carried their share of the load in that stretch but now the call comes back around to them to stave off an early off-season.
The 2013-14 version of the San Jose Sharks is probably the deepest team they have iced in their history. It's the only way to explain how a player of Joe Pavelski's caliber is skating on the third line at 5-on-5. Their defence is capable and their goaltending is solid. That said, it all falls apart when they don't stay the course and play as a team. This isn't the time to bench a guy who makes $3.8 million against the cap because the kid on the two-way contract had a good couple of games after a sub-mediocre AHL career. Whatever decision McLellan makes he will have to answer for and, after failing to coach this team to the next step in six seasons, his position is at least worth looking into should they not progress after tonight. If Stalock gets the start and falls short, Sharks fans ask themselves "What if?" all summer. If Niemi gets the nod and falls short, we know exactly what the team is made of.
This is the matchup the Sharks needed to fully round themselves into playoff form. If they come out victorious tonight, there is no limit to what they can achieve.
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