This has been a series in the making over the past couple of seasons and finally one of the teams who have been contenders for years, will finally make a Stanley Cup Final appearance.
The San Jose Sharks versus the Vancouver Canucks could be the most entertaining series in years. You’ve got everything, great offensive skill, mixed in with great specialty teams, goaltending and better yet, two teams that have nasty SOB’s willing to do anything and everything to win.
Two physical key battles will commence in the this series and most of the battles will take place in front of the net. Ryan Kesler going against Douglas Murray, and Ryane Clowe head to head against Kevin Bieksa. All four players had their way physically in the second round, so seeing these players go against each other is exciting in itself. Both teams for the most part do not a number one line per say. Going into the playoffs that was not the case, but based on playoff performances, the “second lines” have stepped up. The matchup game will be intriguing likely Canuck coach Alain Vigneault will try and get the Sedins against against the Sharks third line centered by Kyle Wellwood, while Shark coach Todd McLellan would prefer to have Joe Thornton head to head versus the Sedins.
Canucks are not as deep up front as they were during the regular season. Manny Maholtra & Mikael Samuelson’s absence will be greatly missed in this series, make no mistake the Sharks are a deeper team up front but only because of the two big injuries. No Vancouver Canuck fan can clearly think that they can beat the Sharks without the Sedin brothers starting to produce on a regular basis. The Canucks scored 14 goals versus Nashville, 11 points from Kesler, the only problem again was others like Mason Raymond, Raffi Torres and Chris Higgins have been inconsistent offensively.
On paper the Canucks have a better looking defense, and have allot more depth if they ran into injuries. The Sharks defense is underrated and on top of that, their defense can move the puck more than other teams.
The goaltending matchup will be intriguing this round, as it is a rematch of last years second round series, Anti Niemi Vs Roberto Luongo. Both have struggled at times so far this year, but at the same time they’ve been good and have made the big saves at the right time. Niemi is the first netminder in NHL history to go 6-0 in his first six rounds of playoff action. The Canucks have to look over last years games vs the Hawks and Niemi and see where they were successful and where they were not. Luongo will need to deal with allot more traffic than what he’s dealt with in the first two rounds. Likely the winner of the series will get the timely goaltending and the timely saves.
Another key component is specialty teams, plus both team will need to be discipline, this will be the most physical series for both teams. This should be a longer drawn out series, it should not be low scoring either. The team that gets more production throughout the lineup will prevail, so that favors the Sharks, the Canucks because of the injuries do not have the depth to toe to toe offensively with the Sharks.
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