With the Phoenix Coyotes beating the Minnesota Wild before their game began, the Sharks knew there was no chance to claim a fifth consecutive Pacific Division title Saturday night when they faced the Los Angeles Kings.
But coach Todd McLellan said earlier in the day that his team still had plenty of incentives to turn in a strong performance beyond what ended up being a battle to be the No. 7 seed rather than the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference.
"The concern of our staff is we take a collective sigh of relief as a team and we let our guard down," McLellan said after Saturday's optional morning skate. "We've got to play and we've got to play hard. Our game here sets us up for whatever the adventure going forward is. We want to play hard. We want to play well."
He talked about the need for the Sharks to show more discipline than they did in Thursday night's 6-5 shootout victory over the Kings in which San Jose gave up four power play goals.
"To give up four power play goals and still win the game, I don't know how that happens in today's game," the coach said, "but it did." Aside from honing skills for the postseason, McLellan gave one more motivating factor that should be in play.
"We're playing at home in front of a lot of fans that pay good money to watch us perform," he said, "and that's what we're setting out to do."
Kings coach Darryl Sutter went so far as to say he was thinking more "about the first playoff
game than I am about tonight to be quite honest."
"I want to see us do things better that prepare us for the first game of the playoffs, that we didn't do as well as we should have the last game," he said. "There are habits that creep into your game and you have to get them out in a hurry or otherwise they carry on, carry over." n A former Sharks coach, Sutter indirectly praised San Jose netminder Antti Niemi in drawing a comparison with his own goalie, Jonathan Quick, who is expected to be a Vezina Trophy finalist. The two netminders, of course, gave up a combined 10 regulation goals in Thursday night's shootout.
"It's a big challenge when you play San Jose," Sutter continued. "San Jose has a goaltender that's won a Stanley Cup. He quietly goes about his business and doesn't get much credit, only criticism. And we have one that gets a lot of credit."
- Douglas Murray was back in the lineup after missing the previous four games with a lower body injury while Jason Demers' string of eight consecutive games ended.
Michal Handzus also was back in the lineup after missing five games, replacing Torrey Mitchell who suffered an undisclosed injury during Thursday night's game in Los Angeles.
McLellan said that the fact his four lines have been playing well has kept Handzus out of the lineup, but also gave him time to heal from an earlier injury.
"Now him drawing an assignment tonight does two things," he continued. "It gives us a big body, it gives us a faceoff guy, which we were poor in L.A. for most of the game. It gives us a guy that can penalty kill and play on the power play. And it also gives him an opportunity to get his game together at least once before the playoffs start."
- Ryane Clowe talked with the media and after answering a few questions about tonight's game, someone from Los Angeles finally asked about his decision to extend his stick from the bench and disrupt a Kings rush late in Thursday night's game.
Clowe's explanation didn't vary from the one he gave Friday, when he called it a "brain cramp" that he regretted and that he was happy the officials missed the infraction.
For more on the Sharks, see David Pollak's Working the Corners blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/sharks.
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