Mike Brophy

Veteran hockey columnist Mike Brophy writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday on Sportsnet.ca and appears regularly on Hockeycentral.

Have the San Jose Sharks come to life or have the Detroit Red Wings hit the wall?

Does it really matter?

The Sharks showed great resiliency in registering a come-from-behind 4-3 overtime win against the Red Wings in Hockeytown Tuesday night and could very well be in the midst of finally living up to expectations.

With two rounds of playoffs still to go, we’ll reserve judgment on the latter.

The Red Wings have accomplished many great things the past few years, including winning the Stanley Cup two years ago and making it to the final last season, but now that they are down 3-0 in their Round 2 match-up against the Sharks, it appears highly unlikely they have enough gas in the tank to stage a miraculous comeback.

Back to the Sharks for a moment.

Just when it looked like they might go down to the Red Wings, this team, which is not known for fighting through in the crunch, refused to take one lying down. With the Red Wings holding a comfortable 3-1 lead, the Sharks got goals from Joe Thornton (make that two in two games), rookie Logan Couture and some guy named Patrick Marleau in extra time to win it.

This is the type of win a team could really build on.

The really good news for the Sharks is their so-called big line of Thornton, Marleau and Heatley played a significant role in helping the team win. Until this point, the trio has been mostly silent as Little Joe, Paveksli, that is, Ryane Clowe and Devin Setoguchi carried the bulk of the weight.

To have Thornton, Marleau and Heatley back on board is huge for a team that fully expects to be in the Stanley Cup Final this season, even if its fans have adopted a wait-and-see attitude based on previous playoff flops. A goal and an assist might not seem like much to write home about for a guy who puts up points in his sleep in the regular season, but for Thornton, who has been roasted over the years for his lackluster playoff showings, it is very significant.

His performance wasn’t overwhelming. One shot, one goal. Also, he assisted on the overtime winner. Watching Thornton, you always get the impression he could be an absolute dynamo, given his size (6-foot-4, 230 pounds), if only he exerted himself like the best players in the league, namely Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin. But he has quietly produced points in four straight games including back-to-back two-point efforts. If he were to continue to pile up points at this pace, the Sharks stand a much better chance of achieving success than they did in the past.

A series win over the Red Wings would give this team the credibility it is searching for. Beating Vancouver or Chicago in the second round would have been nice, too, but to send their nemesis packing could be a massive confidence booster.

As for the Red Wings, they have shown over the years they are capable of great things, but this 3-0 hole they are in now looks a little too deep to dig out from. Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg have typically been solid, and veteran defenceman Nicklas Lidstrom has played much better in the playoffs than he did in the regular season, but the team’s supporting cast is not quite what it was in the championship years. That, more than anything, could be the Red Wings undoing.

Where is this team’s grind line? Kris Draper, a charter member of the line, continues to play, but he is pointless in 10 outings. There is no Darren McCarty to go out and shake things up.

What used to separate Detroit from other teams was the skill it had on its third and fourth lines. But with the departure of Mikael Samuelsson to Vancouver as an unrestricted free agent, coupled with the loss of Jiri Hudler, who elected to play in Russia this season, there really isn’t anything special about the team’s depth players.

Try as they might, the likes of Todd Bertuzzi, Justin Abdelkader, Drew Miller, Darren Helm and Patrick Eaves have not been able to supplement the team’s star players.

Finally, after a great coming out season for so-called rookie Jimmy Howard, he has not been able to steal a game for his team in the second round. It’s not that he is playing poorly, but when his team needed him to shut the door on the Sharks, he left it open a crack.

You never know what the future holds, but we could be witnessing the end of one era and the beginning of another.