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Originally Posted by D.J. Fluck
Even if the Sharks manage to get past the avalanche (and the way they are playing right now, it wouldnt suprise me) I think the Sharks have about as much chance of taking the Cup as the chance of George W Bush voting for John Kerry in the upcoming election. The Sharks played in one of the weakest divisions in the NHL, and are still a young team. Seriously, I think the cup is going to stay in the East this year.
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Whether or not they played in a weak division doesn’t matter, and that’s even debatable. They finished with the 3rd best record in the NHL, with the 4th best defense. You may think that doesn’t mean anything either, but they dispatched the Blues in 5 games without much effort and without 2nd line center Alyn McCauley and 3rd line left wing Scott Thornton for the majority of the series. In fact, rookie Marcel Goc (who is exactly 5 days younger than me) playing in his first ever NHL game had an assist on the series clinching goal against the Blues. The Sharks have displayed incredible depth all year, and have relied on 3 rookie defensemen (Rob Davison, Christian Ehrhoff, and Tom Preissing) for the majority of the season. After adding veteran winger/center/everything Curt Brown and journeyman defenseman Jason Marshall (who helped anchor Minnesota’s relatively young defense to the Conference Finals last year) the Sharks have a reasonable chance of getting past either Calgary or Detroit (if they can win 1 of their next 4 games). Even if the Sharks don’t win the cup this year they will, for all intents and purposes, add speedy left wing Marco Sturm for a run at the cup next year (or whenever the lockout ends). The Sharks have built a solid team out of spare parts and cast offs from other teams and even their own (Alex Korolyuk was a regular scratch for Darryl Sutter). They’ve got a good chance this year, and they should be a competitive team for years to come.