Sharks Arrive, if a Little Late

A year and a half ago, while Ron Wilson was between coaching jobs and was commenting on games for Canada’s TSN, he picked the San Jose Sharks to represent the West in the 2003 Stanley Cup finals.

“I hadn’t watched them closely, but it made sense,” Wilson said. “They were a team that improved five years in a row and the time was right for them to take a step forward.”

He found out otherwise when he succeeded Darryl Sutter as the Sharks’ coach on Dec. 4, 2002. He inherited a team that had started slowly because of contract disputes with goalie Evgeni Nabokov and defenseman Brad Stuart and never hit stride, leaving him with a 19-31-7 record and the Sharks in 14th place in the conference.

All of which makes their turnaround this season so remarkable. They had all their players signed before training camp, cleared out veterans to give young players key roles, and built a big, balanced defense. Guided by Wilson and molded by General Manager Doug Wilson -- no relation to Ron -- the Sharks grew stronger as the season progressed, set a club record with 104 points and earned the No. 2 seeding in the West.

Their solid five-game victory over the St. Louis Blues made them the first team to reach the second round of the playoffs, which they’ll start Thursday at home against Calgary.

“This is by far the youngest team I’ve ever had,” said Ron Wilson, who coached the Mighty Ducks to their first playoff appearance, in 1997, but lost a power struggle and lost his job.

He landed a job with the Washington Capitals and coached them to the 1998 finals but was fired after the 2001-02 season.

“These guys get excited to play every game and I have to sometimes tone them down to get them to do the right things,” Wilson added. “But when we faced adversity, it’s been a small bump. It never became something big.”

The makeover began when Owen Nolan was traded and Teemu Selanne and Adam Graves were let go as free agents. Their ice time went to Nils Ekman, who had been ticketed for the minors but won a job in training camp, and to Marco Sturm, Patrick Marleau and Jonathan Cheechoo. Alexander Korolyuk, who had gone home to Russia, returned and scored 19 goals. Marleau and Cheechoo each had 28; Sturm had 21 goals when he was injured.

Marleau and Sturm “were secondary, character-support players and you didn’t know if they could handle the limelight and leadership, but they have,” Wilson said. “In Korolyuk, I saw a one-dimensional player, almost a luxury player you can use only in certain situations, and I don’t like to coach that way. But he earned playing time.

“With Cheechoo, I saw what we had, but I didn’t think he could improve his skating as much as he has. He’s great on the puck. I’m not going to compare him with Luc Robitaille, but today, scoring 28 goals is like 50 was 10 years ago. You always wondered when you watched Luc because he was so awkward but he found a way to put the puck in the net. That’s Jonathan Cheechoo. He has great balance and he loves to score. The guy’s determination is incredible.”

That equals Wilson’s resolve to get his team past the second round, which would be another franchise milestone. And his prediction for the Sharks might actually come true, although a year late.

“Now, I kind of feel OK coaching the Sharks,” he said. “We hated the Sharks when I was with the Ducks. We were mortal enemies. I never liked anything about San Jose. But I really like it now. They’ve got good fans who really give the team an extra boost.”

Reality Check

The NHL’s warnings about impending financial doom apparently had no impact on Gilles Lupien, the agent who represents Florida goalie Roberto Luongo.

Lupien told the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel he wanted the Panthers to rip up the final year of Luongo’s contract because his client was the top goalie in the NHL and “We’d like to be paid like No. 1.”

Luongo will earn about $2.3 million next season. The top salary among goalies this season was Curtis Joseph’s $8 million at Detroit.

Aside from the ethical problems of Luongo’s refusing to honor a valid contract, giving him a raise would put the Panthers -- and every other NHL team -- back on the inflationary merry-go-round that has owners willing to cancel a season in order to get a new labor deal.

And although Luongo set NHL records with 2,303 saves and 2,475 shots faced this season, he’d have to appear in a playoff game and win a few before he could say he was the league’s top goalie.

Slap Shots

It seems crass to criticize the defending champion New Jersey Devils for their first-round exit after Coach Pat Burns disclosed that he had colon cancer and would begin treatment this week. Burns knew of his illness for more than a week but kept it from his players and continued to work, except for two missed practices.

The Devils will get a chance to rebound next season. Or the season after that. Here’s hoping the future is equally unlimited for Burns.

The spunky but too-small and not-deep-enough Nashville Predators acquitted themselves well in taking the Detroit Red Wings to six games.

Without injured defenseman Marek Zidlicky, they scored only once in 29 power plays and were simply outplayed.

The Red Wings were happy: They broke a sweat, Steve Yzerman got into the offensive flow and Steve Thomas revived after a one-game benching. Joseph reclaimed the starting job after Manny Legace faltered, though it’s still a stretch to envision Joseph as a Cup-winning goalie.

Here’s a real upset: Philadelphia Flyer General Manager Bob Clarke built a team with not only muscle but finesse. Clarke showed his smarts a year ago when he dumped goalie Roman Cechmanek on the Kings, then made a flurry of savvy and strategic deals this season to replace injured players.

Center Alexei Zhamnov and defensemen Danny Markov and Vladimir Malakov were vital in the Flyers’ push to finish first in the Atlantic and get the No. 3 seeding in the East, and they filled in admirably when Jeremy Roenick, Keith Primeau and Eric Desjardins were injured.

The Dallas Stars’ first-round loss to the Colorado Avalanche was predictable, even though they seemed to get their act together from mid-January through mid-March. Their top playoff goal scorer was defenseman Chris Therien, with two. Mike Modano and Jason Arnott each had one and Bill Guerin had none.

The Stars made Colorado goalie David Aebischer look like Patrick Roy -- actually, better than Roy, who retired last spring after Colorado squandered a 3-1 series lead and lost to Minnesota in the first round.