The Sharks have fought back from 0-2 to tie the series at home, with an overtime win and a close 2-1 win in game 4, all without Martin Havlat, Raffi Torres, and Adam Burish.  With the top Sharks playing the way they are, they look as good as anybody in the NHL playoffs right now.

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The Sharks draw the Kings due to the help from the Red Wings, but L.A. is a formidable opponent, and win 2-0 due to an outstanding performance by Jonathan Quick.  But the real story is about the Raffi Torres hit on Jarret Stoll.  The Dudes discuss the legality of the hit and the possible aftermath of a meeting with Brendan Shanahan.

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The Sharks have managed to stay great a home, and have at the time of recording played themselves into the #5 seed.  But the Dudes have no illusions- there are plenty of good teams around, the Kings among them.  It could come down to the last day of the season as far as seeding goes, but barring a late collapse, the Sharks will be playing in the second season.

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It’s a milestone episode, and the Dudes have to face the fact that the Kings are the Stanley Cup Champions, and the long term de facto Pacific division favorite.  But in Sharks news, Brad Stuart is back, and the Dudes figure out what that means for the rest of the defensive corps.  Finally, Mike and Doug cover the entire Sharks lineup, particularly the RFAs and UFAs, predicting which will be retained, and which will be free to test the market.

Correction: Brad Stuart was a #3 overall pick, not #6 as we said in the podcast. (Matt D’Agostini)

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In the last podcast of this hecto-podcast, Doug and Mike talk about the news of the day, the Stanley Cup finals, and take some listener emails.

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Mike and Doug are back again, talking about the Kings being the favorite to win the Cup, the Devils-Rangers series, and the continuing non-info about the Sharks’ coaching situation.

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The Sharks have made it into the playoff by winning their last four games, the two against the Kings in a wildly entertaining fashion.  But now they face the Blues in the first round, without beating them all year.

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After three good wins, the Sharks manage to lose two critical road games to Anaheim and Phoenix, and they are back out of the playoff picture.  We can go over what they did wrong, how Mike Smith is the second coming of Ken Dryden or whatever, but the fact is this:  if the Sharks can’t beat Dallas and L.A. for the next four games, they don’t deserve to be in the playoffs anyway.  Should they manage to limp in without winning those four games, they will almost certainly get crushed by whomever they face in the first round, playing either St. Louis or Vancouver with no home ice.

The Dudes celebrate the gritty round 1 win against the Kings, with Joe Thornton putting in the game winner.  Mike and Doug identify the series MVP, evaluate Niemi’s performance and prospects, and look forward to either Chicago or Detroit in round 2.

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I was so mad at the Niemi tonight, because he basically gave that game away in the first ten minutes. People might quibble on how responsible he was, but I think he was at least partially to blame on all three.

1. Shot through traffic with a deflection, but he had a pretty narrow butterfly.  A 6’2 butterfly goaltenter should be able to cover the bottom of the net when he goes down, and he didn’t.  This was his ‘best’ goal.
2. Clifford’s goal came because Niemi couldn’t catch the damn biscuit, and left it 2 feet outside of the crease for him to clean up.
3. Penner’s goal was just an outside shot with Niemi too deep.

I knew once the Kings were up 3-0 they wouldn’t make the same mistakes they made in game 3, and sure enough, they sat on it, played the 1-2-2, got two and three guys in the shooting lanes, and pulled it out. But the real story of the night was Jonathan Quick, who made 52 saves, only giving up one goal. I was thinking to myself, how often does a Sharks goalie put up a line like that?

So I decided to invent a new stat, called the Goalie Steal. A goalie steal is when the goaltender gives up 1 goal or less while making 35 or more saves. 35 isn’t particularly significant, but I had to put a cutoff point somewhere. 31 or 32 saves just doesn’t sound that impressive, and somehow, 36 does. I went back and looked at the box score for every playoff game the Sharks have participated in since the lockout. Here are the goalie steals:

Notice anything missing about this list?  Yep, not a single Sharks goaltender has posted a Goalie Steal since the lockout.  Nabby had a 34 save shutout in 2007, so maybe I should give him a freebie.  But anyway, the point is the same- there hasn’t been a dominating goalie performance in the playoffs in a very very long time.

I admit this does certainly have something to do with the Sharks D- if they don’t give up a lot of shots, then the goalie doesn’t have the opportunity to steal a game.  That’s frankly true for most games- the Sharks haven’t given up 35 or more shots in too many playoff games.  But in every damn one of those games, they had to score 3 goals (the ‘magic number’) or more to win, or lost it.