I think Vegas has enough speed and applies enough pressure with all four line to make Burns look like the worst possible version of himself. Burns is a key cog for San Jose and he is in now way infallible. Make him play in the defensive zone under relentless for-check and he will make plenty of mistakes.
By the end of Oilers-Sharks series last year Sharks' defense looked completely spent and were not able to deal with Oilers' speed. Have they gotten better since then?
Much better, this is a different team. In pro sports things change year to year. See oilers last year, division favorites who miss the playoffs. Then Sharks who lost Marleau made 0 upgrades were expected to miss playoffs.
Not only did they make it but without Jumbo for half the season. This team this year would have beaten the oilers last year.
Also keep in we just looked dead tired last year from our previous Finals run, this year they look much fresher and have an influx of youth who is contributing to help with that.
It has been talked about on Sharks board but Wilson and Deboer changed there strategy in how they attack and overall game play around December. This is the time when Sharks went to playoff bubble to cementing a playoff spot. Playing a faster transition game, d jumping in and many have had career years along with our defense being top3 5vs5 scoring team.
Now to make these necessary changes you cannot simply just say so, you have to have the personnel and the Sharks do. Sharks lead the league with most players over 30 pts this year i believe 14 or 15. The sharks are deep. They have had big jumps from players like Donskoi, when healthy is a good contributor. Boedker the second half the season was playing as well as any shark and was on a 55 point pace last half, he has bounced back. Meier who has gone to the next level and is a beast possession player driving play, has been our best player on a lot of night. Throw in a 40 point 3 center who has improved his overall game, can cause matchup problems. Players like Fehr, goodrow sorenson who have suprised along with labanc to a lesser degree, still had 40 points this year but most the impact on the pp. Point is our 4th line scored more then the whole ducks team combined.
We have speed from the back and sprinkled in on every line that can come in waves shift after shift.
This while not even talking about Kane Couture Pavs Hertl and potentially Jumbo
Point is much has changed since last season and even in the last couple months, in my mind, this team is better then the one that went to the finals a couple years ago.
That is without Jumbo and Patty, who would have thought?