St. Louis Blues players celebrate a goal during Game 7 of the Western Conference semi-finals against the Dallas Stars on Wednesday.LM Otero/The Associated Press
Here comes a series that will redefine a franchise. It has to.
We know that to be true because NHL rules dictate one team has to succeed, within seven games, and move on. Two teams can't both lose in heartbreaking fashion, even if that's what the St. Louis Blues and San Jose Sharks have become known for.
Someone will be a winner. Someone will go to the final, either for the first time (San Jose) or in nearly 50 years (St. Louis). Someone might finally win a Stanley Cup.
And it will be deserved.
Consider that, in the past five years, the Blues have the most points in the NHL during the regular season, playing at a 108-point pace since 2011-12.
Consider, too, that in the past 10 years, the Sharks have the second most points in the NHL (1,001) during the regular season, trailing only Pittsburgh.
By those measures, these two teams have been powerhouses – contenders, year after year, in a league in which a salary cap makes that extremely tough. That they haven't won in the playoffs sits like a stain on the franchise, however, earning the inescapable, ugly label of "chokers" when the games really matter.
That's the binary world we live in, in these days of Donald Trump. There are winners. There are losers. Black, white and no shades of grey.
But the Blues and Sharks are hockey's grey. These are well-run teams. They are filled with star players – Olympians and future Hall of Famers – and smart people in the front office and behind the bench.
They have been good for a long time – and simply managing that, in the NHL, is a feat.
"These guys, even though they haven't won a Cup, are battle-hardened playoff players," Sharks coach Peter DeBoer explained of his team, which he took over last spring when Todd McLellan had had enough misery. "The core group has played a ton of playoff games over the last seven, eight years. They've been in almost every situation over the last seven, eight years – both positive and negative."
"They have chemistry that is so automatic because they've been together for so long," Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said of the Sharks, who have four core players that have been there – and been maligned for it – for a decade.
The NHL has been incredibly lucky the past five or six years to have a massive hockey renaissance in some of its biggest American markets. The Blackhawks came back, this time as a quasi-dynasty, winning three Cups in six years. The Bruins were good. The Rangers and Penguins were, too, and a powerhouse emerged out in Los Angeles, where all things hockey are booming almost 30 years after Wayne Gretzky went south.
That success in the right places drives revenue and TV ratings like you wouldn't believe, and it dwarfs whatever buzz this year's final four are going to produce.
Those sexy markets winning came at the expense of teams such as St. Louis and San Jose. They were right there during those regular seasons and faltered in the spring, often against the eventual champs. In fact, the Kings and Blackhawks eliminated them a combined six times between 2010 and 2014.
What's interesting is that, this time, after abject failures a year ago, management resisted the urge to "blow it up." Both teams stuck with largely the same rosters, opting for tinkering. Then, with L.A. and Chicago diminished by the cap, this time, the Sharks and Blues were able to eliminate them in Round 1.
Suddenly, their paths were wide open – and they stand in each other's way for that first championship.
There's a lesson in that. Maybe, just maybe, the idea that stars such as Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Joe Pavelski, David Backes, Alex Steen and Alex Pietrangelo can't win big games is folly? Perhaps these aren't flawed rosters and flawed athletes, but the teams next in line, waiting for an opening by making the playoffs, year after year?
That's a theory Blues GM Doug Armstrong abides by. Get in often and you often have a chance.
"What this team has done – this group of players that has been here for five years and accumulated the most points in the NHL – it's hard to say that's not good work," he said the other day.
He's right. But whether it gets remembered as such comes down to winning this series.
There is still room for the Blues and Sharks to fail. In fact, it's guaranteed one of them will – and who knows what happens in the final, now that the East has worthy challengers. Based on what we've seen in these playoffs, and all year, however, these are both good teams and good organizations.
Whoever comes out of this series will finally get recognized as such, without the usual caveats.
One of the supposed losers is about to win – and take down a narrative with it.