Sharks’ lose bite after Detroit grind

Three times in their past four games the San Jose Sharks have had a third-period lead evaporate.

It almost cost them a series they once led 3-0 last go-round; Sunday it cost them Game 1 of the Western Conference final.

It was obvious last night the Sharks were still paying the price for that seven-game grind against Detroit, as if they’d borrowed a bit more money than they could afford to pay past-due bills and now the bank had come calling.

"Sometimes it’s more disappointing if you feel you deserved to win,” said Ryan Clowe. “I don’t know how good we played.

“I know we had the lead, but we played a terrible third. We didn’t have any offence going, any attack."

The major difference between Sunday’s game and the blown third-period leads against Detroit was the Sharks remained on the attack against the Wings.

The Canucks, on the other hand, had them on their heels from a late second-period goal-mouth scrum onward (the scrum itself had more action than the entire Nashville series).

Not that anyone shy of Sharks head coach Todd McLellan was using fatigue as an excuse.

“Vancouver went to seven and the first game against Nashville it looked like they were on fire,” defenceman Marc-Edouard Vlasic said. “It’s not an excuse.

“When you’re on your heels, bad things happen. We wanted to come out strong [in the third] but they were the best team.

“I don’t think it’s fatigue, I think they came out hard and we didn’t.”

McLellan had warned his team before the game that despite all the attention being paid to Ryan Kesler after his outstanding series against the Predators, the Sedin line was still the Canucks’ most dangerous – eventually they proved to be.

Vancouver’s third line also badly outplayed the Sharks’ third line.

And Antti Niemi made some great saves, but also let out some juicy rebounds, and cheated too far to his left on Kevin Bieksa’s goal that made it 2-2 in the third.

"We tried to put on a brave face, we talked of being fresh and mentally ready to go," McLellan said. "Basically what happened, I thought the team that potentially was rusty because they hadn’t played for awhile found their legs while we lost ours."