The puck drops on the Blackhawks-Sharks Western Conference finals at 3:00 Eastern on NBC. Before the game, learn yourself something by checking out our Blackhawks blog, Second City Hockey, and our Sharks blog, Fear the Fin.
3:00 P.M.: Blackhawks, Sharks Kick Off Western Conference Finals
Preview courtesy of Sports Network.
The top two seeds in the West will begin their battle for the conference title today, when the San Jose Sharks host the Chicago Blackhawks in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals at HP Pavilion.
The top-seeded Sharks enter this best-of-seven series after an impressive performance in Round 2. San Jose ousted two-time defending conference champion Detroit in five games to deny the Red Wings a fourth straight trip to the West finals.
San Jose, which also beat Colorado in the opening round of this year’s playoffs, is in the conference finals for just the second time in club history. The Sharks lost at this stage to Calgary in the 2004 Western Conference finals.
The Blackhawks, meanwhile, are participating in their second straight conference finals and are hoping to make their first Stanley Cup Finals since 1992. Chicago lost in five games to Detroit in last year’s West finals.
Chicago needed six games to defeat each of its opponents in this year’s postseason. The Blackhawks sent Nashville packing in Round 1 before ousting Vancouver in the conference semifinals for the second straight year.
After allowing the likes of Joe Pavelski and Devin Setoguchi to carry the offensive load in Round 1, the Sharks formidable top line of Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Dany Heatley dominated the Red Wings in the conference semifinals. This was especially true of the centerman Thornton, who had just three assists against the Avalanche, but rebounded with three goals and five assists in the Detroit series.
“I think it’s going to be a great series,” said Thornton abouth the matchup with Chicago. “I think everybody, at least in our locker room, thought it’s going to come down to one of us in the conference final going to the final. It’s just going to be an exciting series. It’s going to be a lot of fun to play in.”
Marleau had two goals and two assists in Round 2 to give him seven points (3 goals, 4 assists) in these playoffs. Heatley has 11 points (2g, 9a) in the 2010 postseason after notching two goals and five helpers in the West semis.
Still, Pavelski is leading all Sharks this postseason in goals (9), points (15) and plus-minus (7).
Although players like Thornton, Heatley, Marleau and Pavelski have grabbed the headlines for San Jose this spring, the club has really shined defensively and in goal during these playoffs. In fact, with an average of 2.54 goals surrendered per game (28 goals in 11 games), the Sharks have been the hardest team to score against in this postseason.
Credit for San Jose's stingy play is shared between goaltender Evgeni Nabokov and a solid defensive corps that includes steady veterans like Dan Boyle and Rob Blake.
After going 2-4 with a 2.82 goals-against average and a dreadful .890 save percentage in last year’s embarrassing first-round exit against Anaheim, Nabokov has rebounded nicely in the spring of 2010. The Russian backstop is 8-3 with a 2.43 GAA and .907 save percentage and was excellent in the Detroit series, playing a key role in all four of his team’s wins -- each of which came by just one goal.
One of the primary strengths of Chicago is the club’s ability to get scoring from all over its roster. The Blackhawks have four players with double-digit point totals during the 12 games in this postseason and 14 different skaters have scored at least one goal for Joel Quenneville’s club.
Chicago's top line may not be as heralded as San Jose's trio of Thornton, Heatley and Marleau, but Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Dustin Byfuglien still make up one of the league's most-feared units.
Toews, Chicago's 22-year-old captain, is having a fantastic postseason with an NHL-leading 20 points (6g, 14a). Although primarily known as a playmaking centerman, Toews showed his goal-scoring skills with a hat trick in Game 4 against the Canucks. He enters the conference finals with points in his last nine games.
Kane is leading the Blackhawks with seven goals in the playoffs and is second to Toews with 15 points.
Chicago's second line features a pair of double-digit playoff scorers in Patrick Sharp and Marian Hossa, who have notched 14 and 10 points, respectively. Of course, Hossa has been on the losing team in each of the last two Stanley Cup Finals, skating with Pittsburgh in 2008 and Detroit in '09.
The Blackhawks also boast tremendous defensive depth with Team Canada members Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook leading the way at the back end.
Seabrook is leading all Chicago blueliners with eight points (2g, 6a) in the postseason, while Keith, who has a goal and five assists, is averaging a team- high 27 minutes, 2 seconds of ice time per game. Keith is also one of three finalists for this year’s Norris Trophy.
Niklas Hjalmarsson, Brian Campbell and Brent Sopel also see considerable ice time on the Chicago blue line.
The Blackhawks' main concern still seems to be in net, but Antti Niemi has gone a long way towards correcting that perception during this postseason.
Niemi entered the 2009-10 season with just three games at the NHL level, but still outplayed Cristobal Huet for the No. 1 job. The Finnish netminder has been able to carry that success into the playoffs so far, going 8-4 with a 2.57 GAA and .909 save percentage in 12 games.
This series will mark the first-ever playoff meeting between the Sharks and Blackhawks, but Chicago had the upper hand in the 2009-10 season series, taking three out of four from San Jose.
Keith had the most points out of any player on either team during the season series between Chicago and the Sharks, posting seven assists. Hossa, Brouwer and Kane each had five points over the four games. Pavelski and Heatley led the Sharks with five points apiece, while Thornton added four.
Huet started all four games against San Jose this year, while Niemi has never seen action against the Sharks. Nabokov was 1-1 with a lofty 3.78 GAA against Chicago this year, but is 14-6-3 with two ties in 26 career appearances against the Blackhawks.
The Sharks have been excellent on home ice all year long, going 5-1 as the host in the playoffs and 27-6-8 at the Shark Tank during the regular season.
Chicago has been better on the road than at home in the postseason, going 5-1 as the guest compared to a 3-3 mark at United Center. The Blackhawks were 23-14-4 away from the Windy City in the regular season.
Game 2 of this series is scheduled for Tuesday in San Jose.
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