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The grim reaper is now 0-2 to the San Jose Sharks in this suddenly fascinating Western Conference first round series, and suddenly the almost unthinkable looks pretty damned doable.
Not entirely, mind you. Few teams can break a heart quite like the Sharks because few teams have been as persistently skilled at doing so, but let’s be honest — four days ago, you’d have sold your kid’s car for a seventh game, and now you’ve got one.
Sunday’s 2-1 double overtime win over the Vegas Golden Knights in Game Six of this Western Conference first-round series was a thing of tense, ragged beauty — tense throughout, ragged on occasion, but ultimately beautiful in that it provides a seventh game when only five looked likely after the fourth. The Sharks were expertly positioned to be booed off their home ice after three miserable performances, but by going to The Strip (where they had been 2-7) and beating the table, they can now return home with their dignity restored and maybe a new chapter of their history to be written, one in which they can be cast as the plucky underdog that doesn’t get eaten in the end.
And better still, they expunged the galling performances of Games 2 through 4 in the most remarkable of ways — with a shorthanded goal by Tomas Hertl 11:17 into the second extra period. Hertl was sprung by Marc-Edouard Vlasic’s disruption in the San Jose end and beat Shea Theodore’s pursuit and Marc-Andre Fleury’s stick side with an ill-mannered 30-footer that completed the comeback that began early in Game 5 and began the all-in phase of a series that was so miserable early, and was largely tilted toward the Knights Sunday (59-29 in shots, 120-69 in shots attempted, 57-44 in faceoffs.
And it put a dent in San Jose’s historical loathing of Game Six — the game that defines the Sharks’ postseason history — seven wins in 26 tries, six of eight in overtime.
There were additional statistical burdens, which included being down 3-2 in a series (chance of victory, 21 percent), being on the road (chance of victory, 43 percent), being both at the same time (chance of winning, 38 percent), playing a team that has been their superior in their first 19 meetings (chance of winning, 37 percent) and playing in a season in which being the lower seed is a positive godsend (chance of winning, 41 percent). Because the Stanley Cup playoffs spit on historical trends, the Sharks did not have to go into the game feeling pre-defeated, but they were among the few who felt good about their chances on the day.
And though the ice often seemed tilted, sometimes subtly, sometimes overwhelmingly, in Vegas’ favor, one defensive play and one smart pass up ice by Vlasic, one player with a stride on the rest of the field and an eye for the hole in Fleury’s shield in Hertl, and the element of surprise that was helped by Barclay Goodrow’s slashing penalty, the Sharks foiled them all . . . and for one night, took goalie Martin Jones off the hot seat that had been glowing red even before Sunday’s game began.
So in the end, well, the end is not yet here. Cheating the reaper, never a club strength, is now Job One, and the Sharks are in a position they could have not have imagined likely after Game Four. They’re in the game again, and that’s almost all a reasonable person could hope to have.
The only question is how “reasonable” is defined.
It’s a stretch to say the better team won Game Six; in a random draw, more people would like Vegas’ chances Tuesday even in San Jose. But in one game on one night, anything is possible and everything is on the table. As Toronto coach Mike Babcock said after being hectored with questions about the Leafs’ sketchy playoff history against the Boston Bruins, the other seventh game in this round, “I’m not a big believer in living in the past. I don’t carry around much stuff from the past at all.”
And for one night, neither will Pete DeBoer or the men who came before him, or Joe Thornton, who has been here seemingly forever, or the other Sharks declared dead and ready for interment as recently as Wednesday morning. This is their history now. This is their season. This is Game Seven, and the numbers are better.
They would have to be, though, wouldn’t they?
