San Jose Sharks stunned after game five of the Western Conference Finals
It seemed as if San Jose Sharks would take the Western Conference Finals into the sixth game that would have been played at the HP Pavilion Center, but unfortunately for Sharks, the series was concluded in five games with Sharks eliminated from the postseason.
San Jose Sharks’ misfortune was Ryan Kesler’s goal that put the teams on level terms to go into overtime. There were only 13.2 seconds left in the game but Canucks scored and levelled the scores on 2-2 to take the game into overtime.
The game went into two overtimes and Canucks finally scored through Kevin Bieksa to win the game 3-2. The win gives Canucks a 4-1 win in the series and puts them in the Stanley Cup Finals.
Sharks witnessed quite a few players coming up with brilliant performances. Logan Couture was among one of the standout performers for the team during the course of the postseason.
"Obviously, we haven't figured it out," said a visibly-dejected Couture, a finalist for the Calder Trophy as the League's top rookie. "We were good all year. We played 107 games to get to this point. It (stinks). So much hard work went into this year, in
all of our minds this ended way too short. We still a lot to play and a lot to give."
Patrick Marleau and Devin Setoguchi were once again among the brilliant performers during the game.
Both players had a goal each, which on both occasions put the Sharks in lead. Sharks was definitely the team to watch in the first period as they outshot their opponents 15-6.
Sharks’ dominance was witnessed once again in the first overtime when it made 16 shots on goal while Canucks made nine.
This is something that Sharks has been unable to do during the Western Conference Finals series regularly. The reason as to why Sharks is left stunned by this loss is that this happened after probably the best performance they displayed.
"A little bit of both. I think we had our chances to score earlier and we let it slip away", said Marleau.
The big disappointment of the game and the series on a whole was definitely Dany Heatley, who finished with just a single assist.
The series against the Detroit Red Wings certainly showed Sharks’ weaknesses and it couldn’t improve on them which resulted in the series loss.
Now, the Sharks team needs to work on how to get past the Conference Finals for next year, which has haunted them on quite a few occasions now.
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