PITTSBURGH—When you’re playing goal in the Stanley Cup Final and the name Johnny Bower is mentioned in connection with your performance, chances are you’ve done something special.
Particularly when you surpass a Bower effort.
Martin Jones of the San Jose Sharks can say he did just that in Game 5 of the 2016 Stanley Cup Final on Thursday night, ruining the celebration outside the Consol Energy Centre (while perhaps preventing some civic ugliness in the streets) with a spectacular, 44-save performance over an "unsettled" Pittsburgh home team that seemed a little overwhelmed with the expectations placed before them.
Now, Jones is a quiet fellow, not particularly adept at conjuring up colourful adjectives to describe his play, so we’ll have to do it for him, starting with the fact that was the most saves by an NHL goalie in a Cup Final regulation game since Bower made 43 against the Montreal Canadiens in Game 2 of the ’67 Final.
In the opener of that series, the Habs had thumped the Leafs 6-2. Bower replaced Terry Sawchuk for the second game and turned the series around with a 3-0 victory.
The Leafs would have been in a big hole if Bower hadn’t delivered the whitewash, but they wouldn’t have been desperate, with the series heading back to Toronto.
The Sharks, on the other hand, were down to their last swings Thursday night against the Penguins, who had dominated the Western Conference champions for most of the opening four games, and in Game 5, ratcheted up that level again.
Yes, San Jose produced an early 2-0 lead, their first lead of the series. But it was almost immediately wiped out in a 22-second burst by the Pens, and for the rest of the night, this game was a shooting gallery, the ice was tilted, whatever your favourite hockey cliche might be. The Sharks attacked only occasionally, preferring to rely on their "heavy" reputation as the NHL’s best road team – their 34th win in combined regular season and playoffs away from the Shark Tank is an NHL record – and their calm, collected goalie the rest of the way.
"He’s always calm," said Sharks centre Joe Thornton. "Easy does it."
The Pens will surely kick themselves for missing the chance to win this one at home. Bill Mazeroski, 79, whose home run in the 1960 World Series for the Pirates made that team the last Pittsburgh squad to win a major title at home, was in the building. So was the Cup itself. Sidney Crosby and Co. did everything imaginable, but just not quite enough.
Jones was, for the second time in three games, decidedly better than Pittsburgh’s impressive rookie netminder Matt Murray. Murray allowed the first goal to Brent Burns just 64 seconds into the game on a play almost identical to the one Joonas Donskoi used to end Game 3 in overtime.
In other words, Murray played it badly.
The second goal by Logan Couture at 2:53 of the first was a tricky deflection, but the third Sharks goal at 14:47 of the period after the Pens had tied the game 2-2 was an ugly one, a little flip shot in close that went off the top of Murray’s glove and in.
At that point, it looked like we were in for a 7-6 night. But no more Pittsburgh goals were scored over the remaining 54:54, and a Sharks empty netter by Joe Pavelski made it a 4-2 final.
San Jose, you may recall, carried two unfortunate narratives into these playoffs.
First, they always falter well short of the finish line.
Two, their goaltending always wobbled when it matters.
The first storyline ended with a victory in the Western Conference final, and the second with Jones’s Game 5 performance.
However this Final ends – Pittsburgh has two more shots to win it – we can say that these are not the same, old Sharks.
San Jose head coach Peter DeBoer said he first became acquainted with Jones before he was even hired to coach the club.
"I spent a month with him at the world championships last year. He backed up Mike Smith," said DeBoer, an assistant for Team Canada. "It was mostly practices, not games for him. I got to know him as a person, and right away, you recognized his composure, even in that situation.
"The question was, did he have a competitive edge to go with that composure?"
Just after that world championship, DeBoer was named head coach of the Sharks, and slightly over a month later, after Jones had first been traded by the Kings to the Boston Bruins, the Sharks picked him up for a first rounder and a prospect.
Never drafted, Jones was in the Los Angeles organization for six years, and watched Jonathan Quick take the Kings to a pair of Stanley Cup victories.
"We’re pretty different," said Jones. "But I just watched how he competes. He elevated his game in the playoffs, and that’s something I’ve tried to emulate."
He did in Game 5. After Chris Kunitz hit the post and then Phil Kessel rang one off both posts during a Pittsburgh power play shortly after the Pens had tied the game, Pittsburgh couldn’t get a puck behind Jones again. He made brilliant saves all night and fought for loose pucks in his crease. He was particularly tough on Nick Bonino, getting a left toe on a wide open Bonino chance late in the second to keep the Pens at bay.
"We just couldn’t find that third goal," lamented Pittsburgh head coach Mike Sullivan.
It was the most interesting game of the series, and the most entertaining, at least for the first period. We now head back to San Jose and those shark images swimming electronically on the blue ice, not yet convinced the Sharks can actually skate with the Penguins, but fairly convinced they’ve got the better goalie.
Jones has faced 60 more shots than his Pittsburgh counterpart but allowed only two more goals. His save percentage is .933, Murray’s is .916 despite having not faced more than 26 shots in any of the five games.
Pittsburgh held the Sharks to 22 shots, and still couldn’t end the series and make modern franchise history.
"They’re good. We’re good. It’s gonna be tight," said Burns.
If that’s the case, having the better masked man is an advantage you want to have.
