HP Pavilion is booked this time of year. And the Sharks aren’t the only ones making noise in the building.
The Eagles were scheduled for a back to back concert on April 28th and 29th, causing a two day wait in between games one and two during their second round series with Detroit. The same situation has presented itself tonight, as two separate concerts (Wild Jam on Thursday, Chayanne on Saturday) will be held at HP Pavilion this weekend, making Sunday the start date for a Western Conference Finals matchup with Chicago.
The cause of this lies with the Philadelphia Flyers. Attempting to do what no team has done since 1975, Philadelphia forced a game seven by defeating the Boston Bruins 2-1 in the unhinged insane asylum they call the Wachovia Center. Since the NHL does not allow rounds to overlap during the postseason, choosing to schedule games only after every series has been finished, Friday’s open date at The Tank will go unused.
Sunday’s game will be played at noon Pacific according to James O’Brien of Pro Hockey Talk, an NBC affiliated blog. The Sharks were 2-1 in afternoon games this season.
Philadelphia enters Friday night’s game with an opportunity to do what only two teams have done in NHL history– come back from a 3-0 series deficit to win the series. In 1975 the New York Islanders defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins to advance to the semifinals of the Stanley Cup tournament, and in 1942 the Toronto Maple Leafs came back from a 3-0 deficit to defeat the Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup Finals.
San Jose had their own opportunity for history two years ago after going down 3-0 in their Western Conference semifinal matchup against Dallas. After Joe Pavelski scored his overtime game winner in game five, murmurs of the “33 year rule” began to crop up amongst the fanbase. Those hopes were dashed when Brenden Morrow scored in the fourth overtime to end the Sharks season.
In other NHL news, Montreal shocked the world once again by taking out the Pittsburgh Penguins in the last game ever to be played at Mellon Arena. Jaroslav Halak and the little team that could will face the winner of Boston-Philadelphia in the Eastern Conference Finals. If Philadelphia wins, it might be the first time in modern NHL history that the top two seeds of one Conference and the bottom two of another have emerged from the first two rounds to duke it out for a chance to play for the Stanley Cup.
Safe to say the Western Conference winner will have quite the leg up on it’s Eastern counterpart two weeks from now.
Go Sharks.
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