Key Sharks sit out skate

On the morning of what loomed as their last game of the season, the San Jose Sharks held an optional skate Saturday at HP Pavilion -- and Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau opted not to participate.

There are two ways to look at that.

They were just being consistent, since neither had shown up for most of the first four games of their playoff series against the Ducks, which the Ducks led, 3-1.

Or they were falling short at being what Coach Todd McLellan calls a “core player,” a player so important that his success is vital to the team’s success.

Many players choose to rest instead of skate as the season goes on, and Jeremy Roenick, Douglas Murray and Dan Boyle also were absent.

But Marleau is the team captain and Thornton is supposed to be the cornerstone of the franchise and the Sharks were facing elimination. Wouldn’t it have made a statement if they’d gone out even for a few minutes and banged a few shots off the boards just to wake people up?

McLellan cautioned against reading too much into the morning’s events.

“The mood in the morning isn’t the important thing,” he said. “It’s the way they harness that, the way they put their skates on, the way they perform tonight is what counts.”

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Who said what

Sharks defenseman Rob Blake said he didn’t expect his team to be in so precarious a spot.

“We’ve put ourselves in that position. Especially last game, when we talked about what we needed to do to elevate,” he said, referring to the Ducks’ 4-0 victory in Game 4. “If you look at the playoffs, that’s when people elevate. We’ve got a lot in here that we need to elevate.”

That can be a good thing or a bad thing: good in that you believe you have more left to give, or bad in the sense that so few people have elevated their game. Blake said he had the positive viewpoint.

“Optimism in the part that we didn’t play well and we got beat,” he said. “If you play well and you get beat, you come home and it’s ‘What else do we have to do?’ We haven’t played the way we’re supposed to play.”

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Presidential pardon

The Presidents’ Trophy -- named to honor the presidents who ruled the NHL before Gary Bettman took the title of commissioner -- goes to the team with the top regular-season record. But it’s not always a guarantee of success.

Of the 22 times it had been awarded before this season, the winning team went on to win the Cup seven times. The most recent instance was the Detroit Red Wings last season.

Three winners have lost in the first round of the playoffs, and the Sharks could become the fourth. Preceding them in that dubious honor were the 1990-91 Chicago Blackhawks, who lost to the Minnesota North Stars; the 1999-2000 St. Louis Blues, who lost to San Jose; and the 2005-06 Red Wings, who were upset by the Edmonton Oilers.

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Nokelainen news

A Ducks spokesman said center Petteri Nokelainen, who was scratched from the lineup Saturday, had remained in Anaheim because of an upper-body ailment. Nokelainen was replaced by Ryan Carter, as he had been in Game 4.

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helene.elliott@latimes.com