San Jose Sharks: Game 7 Win Huge Boost For Franchise

Not only was last night’s Game 7 victory over the Predators one of the most dominating playoff wins in a long time for the Sharks, it was also one of the most important wins.

The difference between reaching the conference finals versus the second round can be decided by a lucky bounce or call, but the San Jose Sharks avoided that situation in their dominant five-goal victory over the Nashville Predators Thursday night.

Team teal deserves a ton of credit for coming up with the win in an elimination game to advance to their first Western Conference Finals appearance since 2011. They dominated Nashville in every facet of the game and might have saved their best game of the entire season for the most important game of the season. It was the first playoff shutout since 2010 for San Jose against Colorado in the first round.

Yet, if they were to come out flat and lose, such as Nashville did, the outlook on the season would have been completely different. It would have been labeled as ‘just another playoff collapse’ for a team that ‘always chokes in the playoffs’. One game – one win – can be the difference between fans and the league determining if a season was a positive or negative one.

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This was one of the biggest wins in the team’s 25 year history as an NHL franchise. Maybe it was the biggest win.

The 2003-04 Sharks beat the Avalanche in six games to advance to their first conference finals appearance in franchise history. Six years later in 2010, the team broke a four-year playoff streak of losing in the first or second round to advance to their second conference finals in the team’s short-lived history. They would follow that up a year later in 2011 with a Game 7 win over Detroit, making it back-to-back conference finals appearances.

However, the 2004 and 2010 victories that sent the Sharks to the third round were not Game 7’s. Yes, 2011’s win over the Wings was in the seventh game, but the franchise was in great shape at the time, coming off a conference finals showing. Attendance was sixth and fifth in the league, respectively in the years 2010 and 2011, with the Sharks filling up more than 100 percent of the arena both years.

But attendance took a nose dive this season, with an arena just 95.4 percent full on average, 22nd in the league. Some of that may be due to the Warriors’ rise in the Bay Area and the focus on them, but their often disappointing play come spring must be looked at as a factor.

Next: Sharks Thoroughly Dominate Nashville In Game 7

Now, San Jose has a chance to reach their first Stanley Cup Final in franchise history. Following the victory Thursday night, Joe Thornton asked the media frenzy surrounding him, “Where have you guys been?” It doesn’t matter where they’ve been now, because the Sharks are here, and they’re one of the four best teams in hockey with a chance to go the distance.

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