Now that they’re headed back to the postseason
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San Jose opens its last homestand of 2017-18 on Tuesday night against the Dallas Stars, who have their eyes on playing spoiler down the stretch.
The Sharks secured their 12th playoff appearance in 13 seasons when the Los Angeles Kings defeated the Colorado Avalanche 3-1 on Monday. The win also clinched a spot for the Minnesota Wild.
San Jose (44-25-10) looks to avoid losing its fourth in a row after reeling off a season-high eight straight wins.
“The good news is we’ve set ourselves up to finish this season off with three home games and an opportunity to clinch home-ice advantage, which is something that’s been a goal of ours from Day One,” coach Peter DeBoer said after San Jose’s 3-2 loss to Vegas on Saturday night. “So, we’ll sweep this one under the rug and get ready for the next one.”
Following this game, the Sharks meet Colorado on Thursday before closing the season Saturday against Minnesota. San Jose is in second place in the Pacific Division with narrow leads over the Kings and Anaheim Ducks.
First, the Sharks will focus on the Stars, who handed San Jose a 6-0 defeat behind 26 saves from Ben Bishop on New Year’s Eve in Texas. Six weeks later, DeBoer’s club evened the season series with a 5-2 win on home ice as Mikkel Boedker scored twice.
San Jose is 10-2-1 in its last 13 at home versus the Stars.
The Sharks may be without forward Evander Kane, who missed practice Monday with an undisclosed injury and will be a game-time decision, according to the San Jose Mercury News.
Since coming over from the Buffalo Sabres on Feb. 26, Kane has given the Sharks a boost with nine goals and five assists in 16 games. Only Joe Pavelski has more points since the trade with 17 (six goals
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Pavelski is tied with Brent Burns for the team lead with 63 points, and San Jose’s captain has three goals and three assists in a three-game points streak at home versus Dallas.
Martin Jones needs one win to reach 30 for the third straight season since joining the Sharks in 2015. He’s 2-1-0 with a 2.66 goals-against average in three career home games versus Dallas while with San Jose. Backup Aaron Dell’s only career win over the Stars came in a 29-save effort on March 12, 2017 at SAP Center.
Dallas (40-31-8), which defeated the Wild 4-1 on Saturday, was eliminated from playoff contention when the Ducks rallied with the final three goals in a 4-3 overtime victory against the Avalanche on Sunday.
“The time for reflecting is you got all summer to do that — and it’s not now,” Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said Monday.
Dallas’ fate was sealed with 0-6-2 slide in March, when the club lost 12 of 16 (4-8-4). The Stars have missed the playoffs in eight of the last 10 seasons.
Dallas winds down its season with a three-game trip through California with the chance to play spoiler.
“This is three playoff teams that need points, so we’re going to get a really good test and it starts in San Jose,” Hitchcock said. “We haven’t had a lot of luck there lately and we want to change that.”
Kari Lehtonen, who’s been pressed into service with Bishop (lower body) out for the season, is 0-6-1 with a 3.40 GAA in his last seven road games. He’s also 0-2-2 with a 2.64 GAA in his last five games (four starts) in Northern California.
On Saturday, Tyler Seguin became the third player in Dallas history with 40 goals
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Well, that didn’t last long.
The Los Angeles Rams’ first playoff appearance in 13 seasons came to a quick end Saturday night when the young, upstart team led by the NFL’s youngest coach was schooled by Matt Ryan and the Atlanta Falcons, who won the wild-card game 26-13.
It was the Rams’ first playoff game at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum since 1979 and their first in Southern California since 1986.
Only six Rams players had playoff experience, including left tackle Andrew Whitworth, who went 0-6 with the Cincinnati Bengals.
Whitworth said it was natural that players would be nervous in their first playoff appearance.
However, second-year quarterback Jared Goff downplayed the team’s lack of postseason experience.
”I think they played better than we did,” Goff said. ”Playoff inexperience, I don’t know what that means. Each game’s the same. This one has a little bit more meaning to it, of course. But we did not play well. And if we played like this two weeks ago against the same team, we would have lost as well.”
The Rams fell behind 13-0 thanks to two special teams gaffes by Pro Bowler Pharoh Cooper. Todd Gurley got going too late to help
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Cooper fumbled on a kickoff return late in the first quarter when he was hit by Damontae Kazee, with Kemal Ishmael recovering at the Rams 32.
Devonta Freeman capped the short drive with a 3-yard scoring run to give the Falcons a 13-0 lead.
Matt Bryant kicked field goals of 29 and 51 yards in the first quarter.
The Falcons, who blew a 28-3 lead in last season’s Super Bowl, had their first score set up by a special teams blunder by the Rams that allowed Atlanta to almost completely flip the field.
With the Falcons forced to punt from their 14, Cooper was indecisive and let the ball bounce at about the L.A. 40. It hit off Blake Countess’ foot during a wild scramble that ended with LaRoy Reynolds recovering at the Rams 17.
The Falcons had to settle for Bryant’s 29-yarder. He kicked a 51-yarder on Atlanta’s next possession.
Cooper took the blame for the miscues. He said he should have protected the ball better on the kickoff return. On the punt, he said he needed to take control of the situation by yelling ”Poison,” as in, get away from the ball.
”They’ve been so good for us all year,” Goff said. ”They’ve won so many games for us. You can go look throughout the whole season how many games those guys, in particular Pharoh, have contributed to and put us in good field position. The first one was a freak one and the second one I know he’d like to have back. He’s a Pro Bowl returner and has done such a good job this year. I know we wouldn’t want anyone (else) back there.”
The Rams had gone from 4-12 in 2016
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The Rams were hosting their first playoff game in the Coliseum since Jan. 7, 1979, when they lost 28-0 to the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC championship game. It was their first playoff game in Southern California since Jan. 4, 1986, when they beat the Cowboys 20-0 at Anaheim Stadium.
McVay was born 20 days after that game.
The Rams moved to St. Louis after the 1994 season and won their only Super Bowl after the 1999 season.
They moved back to L.A. prior to the 2016 season.
”It’s hard,” Goff said. ”We didn’t want this to end at all. We’ve got such a special group of dudes in there, coaches and everybody. It’s such a special group. You don’t want it to end this early by any means. But I think we have a good, strong core group we’ve built this year.”
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