Spector on Canucks: The Baggage Bowl

VANCOUVER – “The Doctor Is In.”

You have to be of a certain vintage to recall Lucy Van Pelt and her five-cent psychiatric assessments, a fixture in those old Charlie Brown cartoons. But you can hang Lucy’s shingle outside this meeting between two Western Conference powers that haven’t ever won anything, and have the head trash to prove it.

Welcome to the Baggage Bowl. We saved you a place on the couch.

“Well, we’ve both had good regular seasons for a few years now,” began Vancouver’s thoughtful defenceman, Kevin Bieksa. “I’d say the core group on both teams has stayed the same for the last three, four years. We both have similar kind of labels of teams that have had good regular seasons but haven’t been able to make it in the playoffs.”

As San Jose arrived in Vancouver Saturday afternoon for a series that will either launch the Sharks into the first Stanley Cup final in its history, or get Vancouver there for the first time since 1994, the similarities between these two trophy-starved organizations are many.

Vancouver has the Sedin twins, the two reigning Art Ross Trophy winners whose hardware will be long forgotten if they don’t man up and start producing some clutch points in these playoffs. Meanwhile, Sharks veteran leaders Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau are twin poster boys for a franchise that has missed the playoffs once in 13 seasons yet never played in the Cup.

San Jose enters its third Conference Final in seven years – yet has an 0-2 record in Round 3 series’. Vancouver’s core group hasn’t been at it as long as San Jose’s, but the franchise drought is far longer, with zero parades in 40 years.

“For us,” Henrik Sedin said, “this is maybe the first year where we thought we were a contender, really, before we started (the season). We’ve never been this far. They went to the Conference Finals last year. So, they’ve been here.”

Good point by you, Henrik.

“You can’t talk about Vancouver without talking about (the Sedins). There’s a lot of pressure on those (two) guys to come through,” said San Jose’s Dan Boyle, with some bon mots of his own.

“Everybody thinks (Ryan) Kesler is the best player in the world with what he did in the last series, and (Roberto) Luongo is an all-world goalie. So they’ve got something to prove over there, too. We obviously do as well. Both teams have something to prove and that will be the story of the series.”

The NHL’s post-season theme is, “History will be made.”

Let’s face it: In this series, it’s all about history being erased.

“Boyle said it the best,” Bieksa said. “Until you actually win, you’re always going to have that label as an organization. What you have to do is, you’ve got to win.”

One team’s former captain was labeled “gutless” by Versus analyst Jeremy Roenick, the courageous self-promoter who conveniently stepped back from his words the next day – all from a safe 3000 miles from the guy he was sniping, we might add.

The other team, Vancouver, has been dismissed as a club with too much baggage by a guy who spent two seasons inside their dressing room. Kyle Wellwood, the Canuck-turned-Shark, opined loudly on his old club back in March:

“I just feel Vancouver has a few more lessons to learn and I’m glad I’m in San Jose,” Wellwood said a couple of months ago, with both clubs looking solid for a playoff berth. “I just feel (San Jose is) more mature because they’ve lost a few more times.

“They’re not so scared of losing. I think come playoff time this team is going to be better,” he added. “I just feel Vancouver has some more lessons to learn and I’m glad I’m on San Jose, because they’ve been through a lot of hard times together. They are, I think, more prepared.”

Scared of losing?

“I don’t even remember what the weasel said,” said Bieksa, with a smile on his face. “When we had him on our team we were afraid to lose. Smallest third-line centre in the league at that point.”

Finally, both teams came within a whisker of The Big Choke already this spring, with Vancouver oh-so-nearly coughing up Round 1 after having built a 3-0 series lead against Chicago, and San Jose doing likewise against Detroit in Round 2.

But now, of course, it’s all behind them.

Just don’t look in the rearview mirror.