Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 17, 1994 TAG: 9404170117
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Sure, it takes a vivid imagination to actually believe the Sharks, making their first postseason appearance, could get there, but if you're looking for history to support that improbable notion, we have it right here.
Exhibit A: the 1991 Minnesota North Stars.
Exhibit B: the 1982 Vancouver Canucks.
Each team had a losing record in the regular season. Each was expected to be eliminated in the first round. Each advanced to the Stanley Cup finals.
Upsets are rare, but the postseason occasionally is sprinkled with them. The '91 North Stars, who bolted Minnesota for Dallas before this season, and the '82 Canucks are two of 15 teams to reach the final round after finishing the regular season with a losing record. Two others - the 1949 Toronto Maple Leafs and the 1938 Chicago Blackhawks - won the Cup. All of those teams had fewer victories than the Sharks this season.
"There are going to be upsets every year," said Harry Neale, co-coach of the '82 Canucks with Roger Neilson and now a hockey analyst on Canadian television. "But it's like the lottery. You can't win if you don't have a ticket."
The Sharks have one; they're just concerned about getting it punched in the first round by the Detroit Red Wings. But those who have been through all this in the past say the Sharks, the parent club of the ECHL's Roanoke Express, bring some intangibles that won't make them easy marks.
"They're going to find that it's another world, very much unlike the regular season," Neale said. "With the money that players are being paid now, the playoffs are like an amateur season. It isn't necessarily the team with the best players that wins, it's the players with the best team. San Jose appears to be that way now."
But teams with losing records have had little success in the postseason. Since 1990, two of the 10 teams with sub-.500 records that have made the playoffs have won an opening-round series. One of those was the North Stars, who had the fewest victories of the 16 playoff teams that season but defeated regular-season champion Chicago in the first round.
The Sharks, the only team in this year's playoffs with a losing record, know they can draw from that experience. Two of their stars, wings Gaetan Duchesne and Ulf Dahlen, played for the '91 North Stars.
"For sure there are similarities," Dahlen said. "We're playing well going into the playoffs, and we've got 20 guys promising each other to stick 100 percent to the game plan, just like that [Minnesota] team. That's how we can be successful."
Said Duchesne, "The one thing I see is that in Minnesota we peaked at the right time, and this team is peaking now."
The same thing happened to the North Stars, who had 27 victories during the regular season and opened at Chicago, which had won 49. Minnesota took the opener in overtime and won the best-of-seven series in six games.
"If you get that first win, it builds confidence in everybody," said Jon Casey, the goalie on the '91 North Stars who now plays for the Boston Bruins. "But we felt that way at the end of the regular season. The breaks started coming for us; the puck bounced off the boards in our direction. Things happened that hadn't happened all year."
"As I look back now, I think they probably overlooked us," Duchesne said. "But the thing is, when the playoffs start it doesn't matter what you did all year. Anything can happen, and the North Stars proved it."
Minnesota beat St. Louis in the Norris Division finals and Edmonton in the Campbell Conference finals before losing to the Pittsburgh Penguins in six games for the Stanley Cup. But they won the first game of each series.
"One thing you have to have is good special teams," Duchesne said. "Your power-play and penalty-killing have to be good, and your goaltender has to be hot. If you have those, you can go far."
In the postseason, players say, there is no minimizing the importance of a goaltender who's on his game, such as the Sharks' Arturs Irbe.
"It's perception," said Casey, who held opponents to two goals or fewer in 10 of 23 playoff games in '91. "Players feel confident and comfortable with a guy who's hot, and they feel he can save them and keep them in games, so they in turn want to do things for him. I got more consistent in the last third of the season [in '91], and it continued into the playoffs."
by CNB