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Five things to know about the Sharks
- Updated: May 27, 2016
12:56 PM ET
Pittsburgh Penguins fans knew their team’s opponents in its previous two Stanley Cup finals appearances — the Detroit Red Wings — fairly well. I’m not so sure that many of Pens fans stay up for those 10:30 p.m. ET starts to watch San Jose Sharks home games during the regular season.
So, Penguins fans — and anyone else who needs to get up to speed on the the Western Conference champions — here are five things you may not have known about the Sharks:
Tierney — who has seen his seen his ice time climb almost a minute during the playoffs — has produced five points (four goals, one assist) to go along with a plus-5 rating this postseason Aaron Doster/USA TODAY Sports1. Third-line center Chris Tierney is no slouch
When the Western Conference finals began, a popular narrative — not just among the media (including myself) but with rival scouts as well — was that the St. Louis Blues’ top-nine depth was going to pose a matchup problem for San Jose’s third line. But Tierney, a 21-year-old rookie, was at his best in the Western finals, holding his own defensively and even chipping in two goals and an assist during the final three games. Nobody outside of San Jose knows much about Tierney — who scored 40 goals during his last year of junior hockey in London — but he’s got good hands and is really coming on for the Sharks. People will see a matchup edge for Pittsburgh here where there isn’t one.
2. They’ve been on fire since January
We’ve heard a lot about how the Penguins have been unconscious since midseason. Well, they’re not alone. On the morning of Jan. 9, the Sharks were a mediocre 18-18-2. They routed Toronto 7-0 that night to start a stretch in which they’ve gone a ridiculous 40-18-4 (including the playoffs). Sharks center Joe Thornton thinks his team began to start figuring things out it out in December once they got on the same page with first-year coach Peter DeBoer.
“With the new coaching staff, we needed to realize how we needed to play to win,” Thornton said Wednesday night after the series-clinching, Game 6 win over St. Louis. “That …
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