In the first round, the New York Rangers and Los Angeles Kings found themselves down 2-0 and yet, both managed to come out with a series victory.
In the second round, the San Jose Sharks find themselves in a similar predicament as they are down 2-0 to the defending Cup champion Kings, who are finding their stride.
The Sharks not only ran into a hot goaltender in Jonathan Quick but also some bad luck as they allowed two power play goals in the last two minutes of Game 2 to lose 4-3.
But, the Sharks can still find a way to get themselves back into this series. Here is what they need to do:
Stay out of the box
With three minutes left to go in Game 2, the Sharks took two penalties as defenceman Brad Stuart was called for tripping with 2:41 to play and 22 seconds later, defenceman Marc-Edouard Vlasic took a delay-of-game penalty when he shot the puck over the glass.
These are two needless penalties at the end of a hockey game and it cost the Sharks a win and a chance to tie theseries. Hopefully come Game 3, the Sharks will have learned their lesson.
Get Quick off his game
The Sharks started this in Game 2 when they scored three goals but in the end, it was not enough to beat the Kings.
Through two games, the Sharks have just three goals. While there is no doubt that Quick has been excellent in this series, he is still a beatable netminder.
For the Sharks to beat Quick on a more consistent basis, the team needs to create more traffic in front of the net, do a better job of moving the puck around in the offensive zone and they must find way to get Quick out of position.
Quick is a flexible netminder but if a team can move the puck quickly enough, they may be able to catch him out of position.
Ride Patrick Marleau
Patrick Marleau leads the team in goals with five and he clearly has the hot hand for the Sharks.
In the first two games of this series, Marleau has averaged around 21 minutes. If Sharks head coach Todd McLellan can find a way to give him more minutes, he should because goal scoring is going to tough to come by as the Kings look to close out this series as soon as possible.
