@ 4:30 PST

Over the course of the last three days we've ran through some significant aspects to this series. They are as follows:

• Fourth line Storylines: How Andrew Desjardins and Scott Nichol have fared this season.
• Possession Numbers In The Last 15 Games: How the Blues and Sharks have played heading into the postseason.
• Sharks Performance Against the Western Elite: How the Sharks have played against Vancouver, Detroit, Los Angeles, Chicago, and St. Louis.
• Sharks Forward Lines: How the Sharks forward lines look heading into this series.
• Head To Head Matchups: How the Sharks and Blues will deploy their lines with the last change.
• Keys To The Series: How the Sharks can defeat the Blues.
• Series Predictions: How we see things playing out over the next seven games.

And so it begins.

The time of year when bad Mexican food becomes a blessing as it gives you even more time to fart around on your smartphone at work. The time of year when significant others turn into ghosts, figments of a former life you slowly become unable to recognize. The time of year when looking like a degenerate is not just encouraged, it is celebrated. The more unkempt the more revered. This time of year man.

It's a drug.

Win tonight and you think you have the momentum, lose tonight and you're crunching the numbers over and over and over again trying to find the road map to get to four. And then no matter what happens, no matter how resounding the victory or soul crushing the defeat, in 24 hours it doesn't mean shit. Everything just evaporates and you start anew.

Playoff math. It's how our minds even got here. Sinful math, the ebb and flow that multiplies into something you can't even comprehend.

God save us all.

Prediction: Sharks win 3-1. Goals by Pavelski, Braun, and Couture.