Spector on Canucks-Sharks: Missing in action

VANCOUVER — Following the San Jose Sharks in the playoffs is like watching the Sedins cycle the puck on the powerplay. You’ve seen it so many times before, and you still can’t believe it ends the same way every time.

The choke is on for San Jose folks, this time against a Vancouver team that’s finding its third opponent of the post-season to be by far its easiest one. The Canucks are up 2-0 against a Sharks team that invented the playoff gag job, and appears to be exercising its patent again this spring.

While the Sedins piled up five points between them in a 7-3 Vancouver win, and Kevin Bieksa starred with a Gordie Howe hat trick on a dazzling night, San Jose players like Dany Heatley, Joe Thornton and Pat Marleau brought nothing to the table.

As usual, we might add.

“There are a few people in our group, and I’m not going to hide them anymore,” said Sharks head coach Todd McLellan, “they have to ask themselves whether or not they want to keep on competing.”

“Who?” McLellan was asked.

“I’ll hide that part,” he said to the media. “You guys get to decide.”

Once again, with the Stanley Cup in sight, Heatley is a fleeting rumour. Marleau admirably showed up for a scrap with Bieksa, took his lumps, then meekly went away. Ryan Clowe, who was supposed to be San Jose’s best player in these playoffs, had best be hurt.

Because if he’s healthy and this is all he’s bringing? Well, maybe he’ll be captain of this sorry ship one day.

Joe Thornton? Another no-show, Joe.

“You can probably point to a lot of individuals right now and that’s a sad thing,” said Clowe, who was informed that people are coming to expect this kind of fold job from the Sharks.

“Well, we have to do something to prove them wrong. Or shut them up if they’re going to say that. But we haven’t,” he said. “We lost last year and we’ve lost the first two this year. We have a lot of work ahead.”

The Canucks don’t look anything like a team that could lose four of the next five games to this sorry Sharks outfit, though is ever the Sharks could man up and play the game like they wanted to win, Game 3 in San Jose Friday will be the time.

All of Vancouver’s best players are playing like just that, with the Sedins finding more space in two games versus San Jose than in the entire Nashville series.

They out played the Sharks, let Ben Eager implode, then systematically devoured San Jose on the powerplay.

“Well, it was a hard fought game. I don’t think the score indicates the play, for the first 40 minutes,” Alex Burrows said. “We stuck with it, maybe a little bit better, and we got on the powerplay and made them pay.”

Eager was a force to be reckoned with – for both teams – Wednesday. You can blame him for his six penalties, but at least he brought it. You wonder how a guy like Heatley can even look Eager in the eye after this game.

“I’ll take Ben Eager’s game – without the penalties – any night,” McLellan said. “He was an honest guy, battled hard, skated, fought through everything.”

When Bieksa beat up Marleau, Eager predictably targeted the first Sedin he saw, drilling Daniel from behind into the boards. When an accomplished fighter beats on a scorer, as Bieksa did, it’s open season on the star players on his team.

That’s the law of the jungle, and Eager – a menace of a fourth-liner – is just the man for the job.

“It’s a penalty,” Eager admitted of his hit from behind on Daniel, “(but) he knows what he’s doing there. He’s turning, He sees me coming.

“I finish all my checks. He turned his back on me.”

Eager expects a call from NHL offices tomorrow. “I’m sure I’ll be getting’ a call. Always do.”

And what did he think about Bieksa fighting Marleau?

“We’ve seen that before with Kevin,” Eager said. “It’s sad, but someone is going to sign him to big money (as a UFA) and, you know, he’s a phony. He goes after our top player – he’s been asked many times before (to fight) by lots of players throughout the league, and he’s declined.”

It’s funny that he would use that word. “Phony.”

Once again, the mighty San Jose Sharks are on the precipice of accomplishing something – at their third Conference Final in seven seasons – and not only did they lose. They didn’t even show up.

San Jose now has an eight-game losing streak going in Round 3, dating back to ’04, and as well as Vancouver played in Games 1 and 2, the wins simply came too easy for this time of year.

“I didn’t play well, the list goes on. It’s embarrassing,” said Logan Couture, the rookie who outplayed all the vets on his team. “You’re in the conference finals and the Stanley Cup playoffs, you put an effort out like that? You can’t feel bad for yourselves, but you feel bad for the fans and the coaching staff that we gave an effort like that tonight.”