My Two Cents: No More “Teal Comfort Zone” For San Jose Sharks

Playoffs Are No Fun

Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

One of the biggest take away’s from Kawakami’s May 25th article was that the Sharks have enjoyed a lot of their regular season success from a talented roster.

The problem is that the roster is able to deal with the regular season because of the full houses night in and night out at the Shark Tank. In addition, there is no pressure from the press and the players can basically be assured of not being bothered too much by the local press. However once the post season starts this all changes.

All of a sudden, there comes responsibility with the reward of a postseason spot. With the responsibility comes the pressure to win 16 more games which requires the team to play into June. With the responsibility comes tougher and stiffer competition even from teams they have seen often in the regular season. The Sharks are now having to win four games out of seven against a team which is as talented as they are, which wants what they want just as bad if not worse. During the regular season, the only pressure is to finish in the top eight of the conference. During the playoffs, the pressure and stakes are much greater. There are several teams that are built to handle this. The Sharks quite obviously are not one of those teams. In fact, they aren’t even close.

Hockey stops being fun as it becomes all business. Team Teal stops having fun as their opponents are raising their games to much high levels. The Sharks are not a team that is set to raise their games to high levels which are demanded to be successful in the post season. Because of this they often times get outplayed and ultimately beaten out. The Kings outplayed and ultimately outlasted the Sharks, to the point to where Team Teal winning just one more game became a virtual impossibility.