It was do or die for the Sharks as they were on the verge of elimination last night in the Western conference finals in the Stanley Cup playoffs. They certainly didn’t have the home advantage as they were playing the Blackhawks in Chicago. Could the regular underachieving playoff team pull off a victory to keep their Stanley Cup dreams alive? Well… I suppose it’s fair to say we all got the result that everyone expected.

San Jose 2 @ Chicago 4 – Well the Sharks were swimming in dangerous waters last night as they entered game 4 with a 3-0 deficit in the series. With they way that the Blackhawks are shutting down the Sharks, it would have taken some sort of drastic change for the team in San Jose to pull off a comeback. The Sharks started off the game fairly strong with a goal by Logan Couture in the first period. That was followed by an early second period goal by Patrick Marleau, who is having a decent goal run lately. However, 3 minutes past the halfway mark, it all came crashing down as the Blackhawks started their offensive break. By the end of the second period, the game was tied thanks to a pair of Chicago goals by Brent Seabrook and Dave Bolland. In the third period, Dany Heatley was called for slashing which led to a costly game winning goal by Dustin Byfuglien. Kris Versteeg just sealed San Jose’s fate late in the game with the empty net goal. Antti Niemi had a fairly shaky night making 16 saves on 18 shots, but that was enough to beat the Sharks as Nabokov only stopped 23 pucks despite being shot at 26 times. Everyone was expecting the Sharks to crash and burn at some point and they pretty much fulfilled everyone’s expectations.
Chicago wins the series 4-0

Three Stars of the Night:
1. Dustin Byfuglien (Chicago) – 1 goal
2. Kris Versteeg (Chicago) – 1 goal, 1 assist
3. Brent Seabrook (Chicago) – 1 goal

Monday’s Schedule:
Montreal at Philadelphia – PHI leads 3-1 (TV: CBC, Versus)