With both teams highly touted to win, the Canucks and Sharks have yet to squash an opponent.
There is still a very good chance that one of either the Vancouver Canucks or San Jose Sharks will emerge as the Stanley Cup champion.
There is also a very good chance that many of the fans that faithfully follow these two teams will jump off a bridge if they don't somehow develop a killer instinct.
Hockey, even at the highest level, is just a game. It's amazing, though, how many people think it is life-or-death when their favorite team wins or loses. Fans take the result of games, particularly in the playoffs, very personally. Thus, fans of the Canucks and Sharks must be fit to be tied.
Based on their President's Trophy title, Vancouver must still be ranked as the favorite to win the Cup. However, with a chance to put away the low-scoring Nashville Predators Saturday night, the Canucks showed yet again they have not learned how to take the easy route to winning a playoff series. Not that the Predators are an easy opponent, but honestly, if the Canucks are to convince us they are championship material, they really must do something about their inability to put an opponent away.
The Canucks stumbled and bumbled their way through the first round, building a 3-0 series lead against Chicago before dropping three straight. It took a dramatic win in Game 7 against their nemesis to advance. Surely they learned something from that experience, right? Wrong! After building a 2-1 first period lead in Game 5 against Nashville Saturday, the Canucks allowed three straight goals in what turned out to be a 4-3 defeat.
Vancouver out-shot Nashville 34-23, but once again its look-alike scoring stars from Sweden were silent. Daniel Sedin had four shots and Henrik three, but neither registered a point. Not that it's entirely their fault the Canucks lost, but the Sedins are supposed to be the leaders of the team, are they not? There are still plenty of questions about their ability to raise the level of their play in the post-season.
One thing is abundantly clear; regardless of their abundance of talent, the Canucks are not yet a team capable of living up to expectations. They don't seem to learn from their mistakes. Losing critical games that would allow them to advance has not hardened them.
The good news is, if they win the series against the Predators, they could be up against a team that similarly doesn't know how to squash an opponent. The Sharks have been Stanley Cup champions in waiting for a couple of seasons, but when the playoffs roll around, they do not look like killers. They play more like Flipper, the lovable dolphin. Surfers need not worry about these Sharks tearing them limb from limb.
The Sharks had a chance to eliminate the battered and bruised Detroit Red Wings Sunday night and blew it. The Red Wings were there for the taking as the game headed to the third period. Holding a 2-1 lead, the Sharks scored 54 seconds into the third, a goal by Logan Couture that should have given them some much-needed breathing room. They had their skate on the throat of the Red Wings, but they didn't step down.
Detroit's Pavel Datsyuk was playing with a bad wrist that prevented him from taking faceoffs. Tomas Holmstrom didn't play in the first seven minutes of the second period and it isn't clear if he was being punished for poor play or if he was ailing. Johan Franzen didn't play in the second half of the game. And yet the Red Wings, a team that understands the sacrifice it takes to win, pressed forward scoring three unanswered goals to force a Game 6. Patrick Marleau was invisible - again! - while the defensive tandem of Ian White and Nick Wallin was a combined minus-6.
At this time of season it is so important for teams to win their series as quickly as they can. Look at the Boston Bruins and Tampa Bay Lightning. Both have key players -Patrice Bergeron for the Bruins and Simon Gagne for the Lightning - who are suffering with concussions and are benefiting from the extra rest derived from winning quickly in Round 2.
The Canucks and the Sharks, meanwhile, continue to make life miserable for themselves. As much as they look like two teams that could win the Cup, you have to wonder if they have the mental makeup to be successful? They have not displayed it to date.
