The San Jose Sharks sent the Detroit Red Wings packing with a 2-1 victory Saturday. The victory came on the heals of an embarrassing 7-1 loss to Detroit in game 4 that breathed a bit of life, albeit short lived, into the series.
The Sharks were led by the trio of Patrick Marleau, Joe Thornton and Evqeni Nabokov. Nabokov led the group with 33 saves while Nabokov made the tiebreaking goal thanks to the assist by Thornton, who also added a goal of his own.
"It feels good," said Thornton, who scored the first goal for San Jose. "After kind of embarrassing ourselves with the 7-1 loss in Detroit we just wanted to bounce back. I thought we did a great job."
The series win snaps a string of disappointing postseasons for the Sharks.
The Sharks have had the second-best record in the NHL the past five seasons, but hadn't made it past the second round in that span until now. They had three straight second round exits as well as a first round one last season that caused questions to be raised about the ability of the core members of this group.
This will be San Jose's first trip to the Western Conference finals since 2004, where they lost to the Calgary Flames in six games. They will face either Chicago or Vancouver in the match-up.
Detroit, the only team better than the Sharks in the regular season since 2005, never was able to get their groove going, falling behind 3-0 in the series before getting it together enough to take game 4.
"The Sharks have been a very good team the past few years and they play smart," Detroit forward Henrik Zetterberg said. "Every time you make the playoffs, you learn more and more and eventually you start playing better in the playoffs. They are playing smarter and they are playing more like a team."
