San Jose Sharks: 3 keys to victory against the Golden Knights
By Justin Fried
The San Jose Sharks will kick off their playoff series with the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday night. Here are three keys to victory for the team in the upcoming series.
It’s April and the San Jose Sharks are once again back in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. In what has essentially become an annual tradition for the team, the Sharks find themselves very much in contention for the prestigious Stanley Cup.
Only this year they’ll be hoping for better results than in the past.
The Sharks have made the playoffs in 19 of their last 21 seasons but have only reached the Stanley Cup Final once and they didn’t emerge victorious. Given their strong start to the season, expectations were undoubtedly high for the Bay Area’s resident hockey team.
But after a dreadful two-month span to begin 2019, San Jose now limps into the playoffs as the betting underdogs despite being the higher seed. The team did manage to win three of their last five games — including their last two — to end the season, but the momentum they had earlier in the season still hasn’t quite been recovered.
That being said, their opponents, the Vegas Golden Knights, have lost seven of their last eight including an overtime loss to the Sharks a couple of weeks ago so it’s not as if either team is playing their best hockey at the moment.
Still, the Sharks will need to bring their A-game if they want to make it out of the first round. Here are the three keys to victory for the Sharks ahead of their first-round matchup with the Golden Knights.
3. Win the special teams battle
The Sharks have typically been a very solid team with their special teams units, particularly with their penalty kill unit which ranked seventh in the league from 2015-2018. However, during their recent slump, they have seen a sharp decline in their penalty kill production.
As recent as January 15th, the Sharks’ penalty kill was ranked No. 5 in the NHL. Since that date, the team has been one of the three worst in the league on the PK allowing an average of nearly 60 shots on goal per 60 minutes.
Much of this could be blamed on the countless injuries the Sharks have dealt with to the likes of Erik Karlsson, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, and Joe Pavelski among others. Now that the team is mostly healthy, San Jose must capitalize and get their penalty kill back to the level it was at earlier in the year.
Fortunately for them, the Golden Knights do not have the most threatening power play hosting the No. 25 ranked power play in the league. This could serve well for the Sharks who will be looking to rebound on the penalty kill against the subpar Golden Knights power play unit.
San Jose could also have the advantage when they’re a man up as the team is known for being deadly on the power play. They currently rank sixth on the power play and this should only be aided by the returns of Karlsson and Pavelski.
The Sharks certainly have the ability to win the special teams battle in this series. Now, it’s all about executing.