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The Sharks learned Monday night that their next obstacle on the road to the Stanley Cup will be Colorado, a team -- like St. Louis -- they have faced twice before in the postseason. On a more personal level, the series pits Avalanche Coach Tony Granato and right wing Teemu Selanne against a franchise they played for in recent years.
Second-round play begins Thursday at HP Pavilion.
The Sharks knew after Saturday's games they would be facing Colorado or Vancouver.
Monday night, the Canucks lost 3-2 to Calgary in overtime in Game 7, pitting
San Jose against a team that, as Sharks captain Patrick Marleau put it, has
two top lines "that are pretty much All-Stars" -- Peter Forsberg,
Joe Sakic, Milan Hejduk and Alex Tanguay among them.
And that's not even mentioning defensemen such as Rob Blake or Adam Foote. Colorado's
biggest playoff question mark had been in goal, but David Aebischer has been
impressive in his first postseason, with a .936 save percentage and a 1.83 goals-against
average.
Had Vancouver beaten Calgary, the well-rested Sharks would have met a Canucks
team emerging from an intensely physical seven-game series that went to triple
overtime in Game 6.
Instead, the Sharks will face a Colorado team that also has had a generous amount
of time off. Both won their first-round series 4-1 -- the Sharks finishing off
St. Louis on Thursday, the Avalanche bouncing Dallas on Saturday afternoon.
San Jose is hoping its week off will provide time for first-round injuries to
forwards Alyn McCauley and Scott Thornton to heal. McCauley, but not Thornton,
skated with the team Monday; Coach Ron Wilson stopped short of saying either
would be ready for Game 1 against Colorado.
Sharks center Mike Ricci also missed practice Monday with what Wilson described
as the flu. Normally that's the punch line to jokes about teams trying to disguise
injuries during the postseason, but Wilson stuck to it.
San Jose finished the regular season with four points more than Colorado, a
team many made the preseason favorite to win the Western Conference. The Sharks
were 1-2-1 against the Avalanche, though Forsberg missed all four games.
Sharks goalie Evgeni Nabokov said it can be dangerous to focus too much on the
Avalanche's big-name forwards.
"They have those three or four top guys where you would think you would
have to concentrate," he said, "but they have so much depth, and their
third and fourth lines are so good you have to be ready for all of them.
"Everybody talks about how Teemu has been struggling, but he can burn you,"
Nabokov said, adding that the same holds true for forwards such as Chris Gratton
and Steve Konowalchuk. Add rookie Marek Svatos to the list as the right wing
has five assists and an overtime goal in the playoffs.
As a Shark, Selanne missed an open net on a wraparound attempt in Game 7 of
the 2002 second-round series won 1-0 by Colorado. The Avalanche also ousted
the Sharks 4-2 in a 1999 first-round series that was delayed by the killings
at Columbine High School.
Last spring, Selanne declined to exercise his option to stay in San Jose. He
and close friend Paul Kariya made headlines in July when the two offered their
services to the Avalanche at a below-market rate. Kariya injured his right ankle
in the final game of the regular season and has not resumed skating.
Sharks players and their coach said they were going to watch Game 7 of the Calgary-Vancouver
series at their own homes rather than gather to find out their next opponent.
"If you have a bunch of people around, you end up talking and miss half
the action," Wilson said. "I go home and I sit on my couch and I TiVo
it back and forth if I miss something to make sure I got it right."