The Sharks are about to begin a final week of the NHL season unlike any in franchise history.
There have been other years when San Jose had to wait until the last three games to learn whether it would make the playoffs. But none of those earlier teams carried the weight of expectation this one does after two consecutive trips to the Western Conference finals.
Make the playoffs and this team still gets to show what it can do when it matters most against the best. Miss the playoffs and every element of the hockey department -- from the front office to the coaching staff to the players -- could go under the microscope of an ownership group looking for flaws.
"Six points that are out there are real important," coach Todd McLellan said in a classic understatement as he shifted the focus from San Jose's just completed 3-0 victory over the Dallas Stars on Saturday night to what lies ahead.
What lies ahead is a rematch with the Stars in Dallas on Tuesday and a home-and-home series with the Los Angeles Kings beginning Thursday night at the Staples Center and ending Saturday night at HP Pavilion.
Those two teams, as well as the Phoenix Coyotes and Colorado Avalanche, are competing with the Sharks for the final three playoff spots in the Western Conference. In addition, each of those teams except Colorado remains in the race for the Pacific Division title and the No. 3 playoff seed that comes with it.
The NHL system that gives one point
to teams that lose in regulation or in overtime makes it difficult to say with certainty exactly how many points will be needed to make the playoffs.
Complicating things further is the NHL tiebreaker system that uses only regulation and overtime victories as the first criteria. For example, San Jose has 40 total wins this season, one more than Los Angeles -- but when shootout wins are excluded, the Kings hold a 33-32 edge.
The Sharks enter the final week occupying the No. 8 seed in the West with 90 points, and prevailing wisdom suggests 94 will be needed to squeeze into the postseason. That means San Jose would need to win two of its final three games -- or conceivably go 1-0-2 -- to qualify.
Everything, of course, also depends on how the four other teams still mathematically eligible fare.
Only the Sharks have all remaining games against teams they are vying with for the third, seventh and eighth playoff seeds. Here's a look at which teams San Jose's competition will face between now and Saturday:
- The Kings (91 points, 33 regulation-overtime wins) play Monday night in Edmonton, then finish the season with those two games against the Sharks.
But the Kings are only 1-2 against the lowly Oilers, though that victory did come on the road at Rexall Place. Los Angeles is 2-1-1 against the Sharks this season, the most recent game being a 5-2 victory at the Staples Center on March 20.
- The Coyotes (91 points, 33 regulation-overtime wins) are home to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday night, then finish with back-to-back games in St. Louis and Minnesota.
The Coyotes, however, are a combined 0-6 against both the cellar-dwelling Blue Jackets and high-flying Blues while 1-1-1 against the Wild. Playing on consecutive nights in cities 460 miles apart also adds to the challenge for Phoenix.
- The Stars (89 points, 35 regulation-overtime wins) might have the toughest schedule, traveling to Nashville on Thursday then facing St. Louis at home on Saturday after playing San Jose on Tuesday night.
The Sharks are 4-0-1 against the Stars, who are have won one of their three games against the Blues and two of three against the Predators. Though both Nashville and St. Louis have clinched playoff spots, both are vying for higher seeds and should be motivated.
- The Avalanche (88 points, 32 regulation-overtime wins) are at a disadvantage with only two games remaining -- Thursday night at home against Columbus, Saturday night in Nashville.
Colorado is 1-1-1 against the Blue Jackets, losing the only game at the Pepsi Center, while 0-1-1 against the Predators, picking up their lone point on the road.
The Sharks, of course, will be paying attention to how the other teams are doing this week, but both McLellan and general manager Doug Wilson stress that it really is all about what San Jose does on the ice, one game at a time.
Win all three games and nothing else matters. But equally important, both stress, is the need to put the last game behind them and focus only on the one coming up next.
"That's what you do in the playoffs, too," Wilson said before the Sharks victory over Dallas on Saturday night. "If you win a game 7-1, you don't get full of yourself. And if you lose a game 7-1, you don't kick yourself in the teeth. You know what you're capable of doing."
For more on the Sharks, see David Pollak's Working the Corners blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/sharks.
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