Sharks do their job, get help and eliminate the avalanche of seventh match

It would have been very difficult for long-time carpenter San Jose Sharks to propel himself to the 8th seed in the second round of what could be the biggest NHL playoff of all time. But to their credit, San Jose has recovered from the winner of match 6 Gabriel Landeskog in overtime and got the victory he needed in match 7 against the Avalanche, thanks to the return of Joe Pavelski and some lucky victories in a 3-2 Western Conference Final victory.

It was a tough night for the Avalanche, and the first sign that they could be doomed to appear was when superstar striker Nathan MacKinnon – their best playoff player – appeared. what looked like a shoulder injury in the first two minutes of the game. MacKinnon returned to the bench before the end of the period. Maybe his presence for 14 minutes or more than he would have missed would not even have made a difference. But in the meantime, the Sharks scored two goals: go up 2-0. The second was offered by Tomas Hertl, but the first and most spectacular was an exquisite deviation of Joe Pavelski's stick, giving the captain a goal in his first match since his injury, which reversed the course of match 7 against Vegas in the previous round.

The Avs struggled to stay alive, first with a late goal in Mikko Rantanen's first (which had not scored all the series), then in the second with an apparent equalizer of Colin Wilson. Unfortunately for them, this goal was canceled due to a brutal call to the game that had a negative impact on the line change that had no impact on the game.

Five minutes later, Joonas Donskoi scored to give the Sharks a 3-1 lead. Even if the Avs scored a goal with a start to race in third place, Colorado could not avoid another puck in front of Martin Jones to avoid getting burned. With this victory, the highly favored Sharks escape ridicule and overwhelming disappointment, though their performances throughout the series do not necessarily become Stanley Cup contenders. They will face the St. Louis Blues in a third-round battle against the underdogs, where the two teams will compete for the right to try to win their first league title.