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Morning Skate: It’s only Game 2 and the Sharks are in must-win territory
The odds of them erasing a 2-0 deficit are slim.
Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
Lace ‘em up. Time for the Morning Skate.
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MUST-WIN FOR SAN JOSE
Hello. Happy Game 2 Day. Please remember to take afternoon naps as necessary, eat a nutritional dinner and keep your seat belts on at all times.
It's hard to understate the urgency for the Sharks tonight. NHL playoff teams have trailed 2-0 in seven-game series 291 times. Only 37 of them (12.7 percent) have come back and won the series. It's only happened four times in the Stanley Cup Final. Oddly enough, the last team to do it was Pittsburgh in 2009.
So, yeah. San Jose should try to win this thing.
Here's some reading material from our Penguins blog and Sharks blog today:
- First of all, no, Patrick Marleau will not be suspended for his hit on Bryan Rust. Considering Rust is questionable for Game 2, Penguins fans are probably mad online about that right now. Steer clear.
- A lot was made about Pittsburgh's speed in Game 1. Pensburgh thinks tactics played a bigger role.
- The best defenseman for the Sharks in Game 1 was ... Paul Martin?
LIGHTNING POST-MORTEM
With the Lightning season behind them, Raw Charge published a thorough and excellent retrospective on a tumultuous season in Tampa Bay. Here's an excerpt on the upcoming Steven Stamkos contract drama:
GM Steve Yzerman got the opportunity to see that his club can indeed succeed without Steven Stamkos in the lineup during the 2016 NHL Playoffs, even if they ultimately fell short of the pinnacle. The team can re-sign captain Stamkos, but it's obvious that Yzerman is not going to over-burden this club with a huge contract that will force the window of contention to close sooner than he'd otherwise like. It's up to Stamkos now; does he want to be a part of this group even if that means signing for a smaller payout?
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YOU MIGHT BE SURPRISED
Should Brendan Gallagher, Mike Hoffman and Tyson Barrie have made Team Canada over Brent Burns, Tyler Seguin and John Tavares? The numbers might indicate so.
NEWS AND NOTES:
- The Cannon has a good breakdown of the important dates of the upcoming offseason.
- The Rangers are saying all the wrong things about the offseason already.
- There's no two ways about it: Wayne Simmonds had the best year of his career.
- Ken Hitchcock has confirmed he's retiring after this season.
- Winnipeg had more than a few World Cup snubs, but that's not a bad thing.
- Dallas needs to retool this offseason, and they have the cap space to make it work.
- So, uh, why the heck does Marian Hossa even want to play in the World Cup?
- The All-Snub Team would tear up the World Cup.
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