2009 is the year of the Shark

By Matthew Cucuzza

It's finally here.

The Stanley Cup Playoff series Sharks fans have dreamt about for years: San Jose Sharks versus Anaheim Ducks. The festivities begin tonight at HP Pavilion.

It's the first time since 1969 that two California teams met in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It's also the first time the Sharks own the top seed in the NHL, after finishing the regular season with a franchise-record and league-leading 117 points.

For San Jose, memories of Anaheim's Scott Niedermayer and Chris Pronger lifting California's first Stanley Cup in 2007 are all too vivid. It should have been San Jose's celebration that year, save for a nightmare implosion against Detroit in the second round.

For the Ducks, these next few games are a chance to reassert their dominance over the Sharks and spoil Team Teal's would-be dream season. After all, there's nothing quite like dispatching a bitter rival in the first round of the playoffs.

For fans, it's going to be the most amazing hockey you'll ever see.

Anaheim's game plan over the years has been to physically intimidate other teams. The Ducks will try to hit the Sharks until they break, either physically through injuries or mentally through retaliatory penalties. Every Duck from mustached tough guy George Parros to high-scoring winger Ryan Getzlaf will be throwing their weight around at the Sharks.

This would work against San Jose of old, but this year's team is simply too skilled and too tough.

The Sharks power play and penalty kill are both in the top-five in the NHL.

Anchored by newcomers Dan Boyle and Rob Blake on the blue line, the Sharks can strike on special teams with consistency unseen in years past.

Anaheim was the most penalized team in the regular season, and with a penalty kill in the bottom third of the league, the Ducks will give San Jose plenty of opportunities to sway the series with timely special teams goals.

If the Sharks are to shake their title as playoff underachievers, they must convert on their power plays. Special teams mean everything in the playoffs, and the Sharks, on paper, are better than Anaheim in that department.

If Sharks goaltender Evgeni Nabokov plays like his brilliant self and the Sharks avoid the penalty box, Team Teal should be able to nullify Anaheim's physical play.

San Jose will take this one in six brutal and painful games.

But that's only one objective on the path to their ultimate goal -- playing in June.

Here's to a nice, warm spring spent in a freezing ice arena.