Kinda surprised me how the Sharks faded against the Canucks in the third period of Game 1.
I asked Todd McLellan the other day whether the emotional high of a Game 7 win over Detroit simply didn't carry over because his players seemed flat.
He agreed to a point and then on Tuesday admitted he spent most of the morning's video session "massaging the minds" of his players, trying to convince them that what he needs from them tonight in Game 2 is to raise their level of play just a bit.
He gestured inches, not yards.
“At this time of the year, you always hear us talk, the team that loses says, ‘We've got to be better, work harder,’ ” McLellan said. “It's not this much, it's only that much. We've got to convince the players of that.
“We're not asking you to be 10 or 15% better, we're asking you to be 1% better. Sometimes that's all you need.”
Every one of the Sharks' lines needs to pick it up in Game 2. I thought the Canucks badly-outplayed Vancouver in the third period.
Ryane Clowe took a heap of responsibility on that end, saying, he needed to get guys going and didn't.
“We didn’t have a lot of time in their zone,” said Ryane Clowe. “We’d be in there and there were some 50/50 pucks. Foremost, when you get the puck in there, you’ve got to come up with it and win battles.
“That is just upon yourself [to make it happen]. It’s not a system thing. And then, when you get the puck, you make stuff happen, get some movement and running around a bit and they get [Vancouver] tired out. But you’ve got to start with the puck. Offensive zone time is important.”
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Ryan Kesler said at the morning skate he is NOT going to fight during the playoffs and he is not going to fight Joe Thornton.
“Maybe Devin [Setoguchi] wants to; maybe [Kesler] will fight somebody less,” Thornton.
Here's my stories for CSNBayarea.com, as I am assisting them in this series on the Left Coast:
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