Detroit Red Wings and San Jose Sharks Game 7 Conference Semi-Final Showdown –NHL Playoffs Preview
The Western Conference will be witness to the clash of the titans on Thursday, May 12 when both giants, the Detroit Red Wings and San Jose Sharks, face off for the final time in the playoffs, hoping to advance in the next round.
Game seven of the Western Conference semifinals will surely be a heated and intense matchup after all that anticipation that has been building up since Detroit won game-six at home on Tuesday, forcing a game-seven decider.
The Red Wings have become only the eighth team to ever do so in National Hockey League (NHL) playoff history after being down 3-0 in the series and attempt at becoming only the fourth team to win a series with four consecutive wins.
“We’ve been taking the one-game at-a-time approach since we were down 3-0 and that’s going to be our same approach for Game 7,” Captain Nicklas Lidstrom said. “We’ve just got to go out there and win one game. That’s it. That’s totally our approach. We can’t relax because every game has been so tight and so close. We’re not done yet. That’s going to be the same approach for Game 7.”
The San Jose Sharks had a commanding lead in the first three games as they had won all of them, but followed a horrific collapse, and that too, at a time when each and every single move on the ice has monumental significance. It is a clash of experience and young blood between the two teams that has everyone asking the same question, which of the two will lead to success?
Near the end of the season, NHL teams who have secured a playoff spot do not work hard for playoff positioning without a reason. It is to secure home-ice advantage in an uncertain and sometimes unavoidable game-seven situation. Whichever team has a higher ranking entering the playoffs has the home-ice advantage throughout the series if they are against a team with lower ranking.
Thus, in this case, the Sharks have this to their advantage. Detroit remained the better team throughout the regulation season but San Jose made that extra effort and secured the second seed with 105 points while Detroit fell to third position with 104.
The whole series has been extremely close between the two teams as neither of them has been able to win a single game with a big difference in scoring. There have been two overtime games (Game 1 and Game 3) in the series which San Jose has had the slight advantage of tackling. Winding up in overtime could prove to be difficult for the Red Wings who look to give up when that 20 minute extension is forced.
"It doesn't matter how we got here, whether it was 3-0 or win one, lose one," Sharks Coach Todd McLellan said. "What matters is the input we put into the game tomorrow. That will be the mental approach. Each of those individuals in there should be confident in their skill level and their commitment level. They've proven it before and it's just a matter of bringing it to the rink and putting it on the ice."
The All-Star rookie for San Jose, Logan Couture has shown consistently spectacular performances in the last few games which have really given his team that extra boost. He has six points in this series which include three goals in three games. If Ryane Clowe can return for game seven, then the Sharks will have a team which could launch a full-fledged attack on the Red Wings.
The Sharks and Red Wings will meet on Thursday at the HP Pavilion Centre in San Jose, California. The match is scheduled to start at 9:00pm ET.
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