Why San Jose Sharks will win the Stanley Cup Championship –NHL Special
When a team that is accustomed to ending a National Hockey League (NHL) regular seasons as one of the top and eliminated twice straight from the Western Conference Finals, fans would expect that it would be different this time around.
Different it certainly is, that is if you are talking about them ending as the eighth seed. Despite the low position going into the 2012 playoffs, San Jose Sharks still have the capability of being a Stanley Cup winning team regardless of their constant
inconsistent playing.
What makes San Jose Sharks still one of the best is their unique combination of scoring and setting up some major plays that makes them different and capable in many different ways. Sharks have one of the best centre players in the league, Joe Thornton,
who picked up 77 points out of which 59 alone were assists and 18 were goals while playing all 82 games.
Thornton has that gift of setting up players like no other and such a talent is always incredibly value in the playoffs with so much pressure and intense competition.
One advantage that San Jose will definitely have in their favour is going up against a playoff rookie team, the St. Louis Blues. St. Louis is making a comeback in the playoff arena after a long time, giving San Jose an ample opportunity to take advantage
of the situation since they have managed to make it to the Western Conference Finals for the past two years
If Brian Elliott is able to perform in net for St. Louis, San Jose’s Antti Niemi will also have to jack up his performance and show aggression towards the opposition. A starting shutout in the series would certainly kill of the Blues momentum and make it
much easier for San Jose as they go along.
What Niemi has under his belt is a Stanley Cup championship which just proves that the 28-year-old knows how to make it to finals and win them. His first and only Stanley Cup came after he led the Chicago Blackhawks to the championship back in 2010 and is
definitely capable of doing it again.
Niemi is not always the most recognisable goalie during the regular season, but as soon as the playoffs kick off, he turns into a totally different player and dominates each and every time.
San Jose is a young team and using that to their advantage will be one of the best ways to get ahead of St. Louis. Sharks have players like Logan Couture, one of the best youngsters in the league, along with Jason Demers, Andrew Desjardins and Tommy Wingels.
The team also consists of some of the league’s top forwards like Joe Pavelski, who has 61 points (31 goals, 30 assists), Patrick Marleau with 64 points (30 goals, 34 assists) and Ryane Clowe with 45 (17 goals, 28 assists).
With a perfect combination of youth and veteran leadership, San Jose certainly has a well-rounded line-up but unfortunately, it will not always remain the same as some shuffling happened during the last offseason with Devin Setoguchi taking off to Minnesota.
San Jose has another chance at making it big and if they just take it game-by-game instead of worrying on the overall picture, chances are that Sharks will manage to finally get past the Western Conference Finals mark and go for that Stanley Cup for the
first time in franchise history.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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