Every sport has those teams who are known to excel in the regular season only to fall short time after time in the postseason. It’s time to forget all playoff history as the Western Conference Final approaches, with the St. Louis Blues and San Jose Sharks set to face-off with a trip to the Stanley Cup Final on the line.
Yes, you read that correctly. The St. Louis Blues and San Jose Sharks, two of the most playoff challenged squads in NHL history, are each a series victory away from reaching hockey’s biggest stage.
No matter who ends up with the Campbell Trophy at the conclusion of this series, it will be an incredibly gratifying moment for the winner, and before we dive into what to expect in this series, now may be a good time to take a walk down playoff memory lane for each team to understand why this chance to advance means so much for the two (Blues and Sharks fans, this is your cue to look away).
The past has been brutal to both the Gateway City and the Silicon Valley. The Blues and Sharks have completed a combined total of 72 seasons in their existences, and none have ever resulted in a championship. St. Louis has not made a Stanley Cup Final appearance since 1970, when Bobby Orr soared after leading Boston to victory.
That was only one of many tumultuous playoff moments to come for St. Louis. In the second round of the 1996 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Steve Yzerman dashed the Blues’ cup aspirations with a blue line laser in double overtime of game seven.
Then came the deja vu stretch from 2013-2015, where St. Louis suffered three consecutive first round exits in six games despite being the higher seeded heavy favorite in all three series.
And as painful as the Blues’ playoff past may be, they are not alone in the torture chamber. San Jose has never made it to the Stanley Cup Final since they were founded in 1991. They’ve made it to the Western Conference Final three times in the past, but have fallen short in all three instances.. Sometimes it has been just the result of incredible bad fortune, such as this 2 OT fluke goal in game five of the 2011 Western Conference Final that sent the Vancouver Canucks to the Stanley Cup Final.
They are also only one of five teams in professional sports history to lose a playoff series after taking a 3-0 lead, doing so against the LA Kings in 2014.
Wipe all of that history aside for now however. The past is the past. All that matter for the Blues and Sharks are the next seven games, with the action set to open up at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis Sunday night.
And who will prevail in the contest of “unusual suspects” is an incredibly difficult call.
Both teams have been dominant in the scoring department entering this series, with San Jose tallying 41 goals over the past two rounds while the St. Louis has also found the back an impressive 44 times, granted the Blues have played in two more contests than the Sharks thus far. Each have multiple goal-scorers with at least six goals – Logan Couture and Joe Pavelski tallying 7 and 9 goals for San Jose, and David Backes and Vladimir Tarasenko hitting the twine 6 and 7 times for St. Louis, respectively. That’s some serious leadership from Backes and Pavelski, the two captains in this series.
The Blues and Sharks have also been propelled by solid goal-tending efforts from players with very little previous playoff success. Brian Elliot, who had only won one playoff series in his career before 2016, has recorded two game seven victories and has posted four efforts of one goal or less, including an overtime shutout in the opening game of round one against Chicago.
San Jose goaltender Martin Jones, who previously served as a back-up for Jonathan Quick in Los Angeles before spending 2015 in Toronto, did not allow more than three goals in any contest during the first round, and shined brighter than ever in his 5-0 game seven shutout against the Predators. Jones however did look vulnerable on the road, allowing 4 goals in all three road losses to the Predators in round two. Overtime has also not been on his side, as the Sharks have dropped all three overtime games they have played in this postseason.
So will it be the Peter DeBoer and the San Jose Sharks or Ken Hitchcock and the the St. Louis Blues punching their ticket to the Stanley Cup Final at the end of the day? (Something that nobody who has lived less than half a century has been able to witness and actually remember). Both coaches have led their squads to the Final in the past. DeBoer did so in his first year with the New Jersey Devils in 2012, and he may very well repeat history in his first season with San Jose. Hitchcock on the other hand led Dallas to their first and only Stanley Cup Championship in 1999, leading them back to the Final the next year in 2000 only to lose to New Jersey.
In the end, this series could go either way. Both squads have looked dominant throughout, though San Jose may have some extra momentum and confidence from easily disposing of the Kings in five games in round one despite being the heavy underdog. St. Louis on the other hand has failed to close out a series while maintaining at least a 3-2 lead in each of the first two rounds, but was able to get the job done in game seven each instance. If St. Louis was to win another game seven this round, they would join the 2014 Kings as the only team in NHL history to win three game sevens en route to the Stanley Cup Final.
I would love to see both teams break through and end their tortured playoff histories once and for all, but that is obviously not possible when the Blues and Sharks play in the same conference. While San Jose can score, so can St. Louis, and Brian Elliot enters the series having played much stronger in net than Martin Jones has thus far. A hot goal-tender can be that x-factor that can single-handedly win a series for any squad of any seed. Combine that with home ice advantage, and St. Louis may pass through the gateway to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in 46 years.
Blues in 7