SAN JOSE, Calif.
— Late at night, at a desperate time of a hockey game, the grizzled old goons from San Jose stared at Colorado and the young Avs backed down, losing 6-5 in overtime.
But it’s too late to turn back the clock.
No matter the outcome of this NHL playoff series, the sport has passed by San Jose, which is desperately, futilely trying to win a championship with your father’s brand of hockey.
The future of this game is the way Colorado plays it. The Avs move with the speed of the Internet.
Old and slow San Jose is rumbling toward extinction like a gas-guzzling, rusting, 1968 Buick.
“It’s a tough pill to swallow,” Avalanche coach Joe Sacco said Friday night, after his team surrendered the tying goal in the final minute of regulation and then fumed as San Jose evened the best-of-seven series 1-1 on a power-play goal by Devin Setoguchi five minutes and 22 seconds into overtime.
Sacco was steaming after the loss, upset that a vicious hit by Rob Blake in the extra period went unpunished.
Better get used to it.
San Jose is going to try to bully its way past Colorado, rough up the Avs and dare them to quit.
“It’s a tough league to sit back and hold onto the lead,” Sacco said.
With a supersized roster, the Sharks leave a carbon footprint the size of Sasquatch.
Joe Thornton is listed at 6-feet-4 and 230 pounds; Dany Heatley goes 6-4, 230, and Patrick Marleau stands 6-2 and tips the scales at 220. Is this the top scoring line for a Stanley Cup contender or the offensive line that protected Bart Starr for Vince Lombardi’s Packers?
So let me apologize for sarcastically referring to the team in teal as the Clown Fish, in reference to their tendency to be a bad joke when the playoffs begin. My bad.
In the name of accuracy, they should be called the San Jose Shreks. These guys are ogres on skates.
In the San Jose locker room on the morning of Game 2, I teased old friend and current Sharks captain Rob Blake that in my book he was the Jennifer Lopez of hockey, with big hips so dangerous they should be registered as weapons.
Rather than hip-checking me into next week, Blake laughed so hard he nearly fell off his seat.
“In any other profession, you wouldn’t want to say you had a big butt, eh?” he replied. “But, in this sport, it’s OK.”
At age 40, Blake is still quick with a quip. But he’s constantly half a stride slow on the ice.
It used to be, back in the days when he played for the Avalanche, that in the time it took an unsuspecting foe to blink, Blake could turn out the lights with a vicious, clean hit.
Against the Avs, Blake lumbers like the last of the dinosaurs.
Chasing Colorado teenager Matt Duchene along the boards, he could only stick in a knee, which made Blake look like a goon. A hip check to TJ Galiardi was executed in such painfully slow motion that it cost San Jose a penalty.
“I don’t know if there are bigger hits in the playoffs than in the regular season, but there’s more contact everywhere,” Blake said. “We hope size changes the game during the course of a series with the wear-downs. But if you’re constantly chasing the puck, it doesn’t matter if you’re quick or you’re big. If you don’t have the puck, you’re going to be in trouble.”
San Jose would be a shoo-in to win the Stanley Cup, if the championship were awarded in the weight room.
In this game, however, the future is speed.
“Given the way the game is played now, I’d rather have speed,” Colorado veteran Milan Hejduk said.
The Avs have it. The Sharks are have- nots.
Question is: Will skill or brute force win?
Mark Kiszla: 303-954-1053 or mkiszla@denverpost.com
