Call in the Exorcist; Avalanche need something to shoo the Shark Tank Demons

SAN JOSE, Calif. – From an Avalanche perspective, the record is 2-15-6. From a San Jose Sharks perspective, the record is 21-2-0. Either way for the Avs, the record stinks like a dead skunk in the middle of the road.

The Avs have won two games at the SAP Center, formerly H-P Pavilion, formerly the San Jose Arena, since March of 2009. The record is becoming…a thing. Is it just a fluky thing, or is there really something to this place that gives the Avs the heebie-jeebies and it affects their play? Philipp Grubauer has only experienced three games of those 23 as an Av, and he made it clear he is not a guy who lingers long on previous failures.

“I don’t think any of us is aware of that or any of us is looking at that or anybody cares about that,” Avs goalie Philipp Grubauer said.

The Avs were not a very good team in several of the years since 2009, so they had bad records in a lot of opposing buildings. But two wins in 23 games is…real bad. The Sharks have had a strong home-ice advantage for a long time against many teams, though.

Edmonton coach Ken Hitchcock once said that the SAP Center was the “toughest building to play in” for a visiting team. There are a couple theories as to why: For one thing, the building has a stainless steel interior, so noise ricochets around faster and amplifies noise more.

For another, the Sharks are the team furthest west in the league. So, it takes a long time to get here from most places, and with a late, Western time zone, teams may be just more tired once the games finally start.

But the biggest reason is probably: the Sharks have just had a really good team for, it seems like, forever. Even in the Avs’ glory years from 1995-2002, they had a tough time in this building. The games were always wars, many going to overtime. It’s just a tough, tough place to play wearing a visiting sweater.

But the Avs swear they don’t think about any curse or anything, even the ones who have been here a while.

“I think we’ve played some real good games here actually,” Tyson Barrie said. “We just have to keep grinding and playing our game and put any past stuff behind us.”

Said Grubauer: “In the playoffs, you can’t take one loss too hard. The good thing is, we play another one, and another one, and another one. This group fights through a lot of stuff. We were down a game in Calgary, we were down 2-0 in a couple of games and came back, so it showed the resilience of the team.”

It’s time to fight through whatever this Shark Tank thing is, though. Otherwise, it’ll become an even bigger thing.

OFF-DAY NOTEBOOK

• Jared Bednar mixed up his defensive pairings at practice in San Jose today. Cale Makar was paired with Sam Girard, Ian Cole with Erik Johnson and Tyson Barrie with Nikita Zadorov. After practice, though, Bednar said he was undecided whether the pairings would stay the same, and he also said he may use seven defensemen in Game 2, with Patrik Nemeth maybe getting in.
• Sunday’s game will be at the unusual time of 4:30 local here, 5:30 Denver time. That’s something Grubauer said he doesn’t mind, though. “It’s better than starting games at 8:45 at night,” he said.
• Grubauer said, after watching video as a team, that the Avs made a couple of “simple mistakes, almost lazy mistakes, we need to clean up.”
• Carl Soderberg, on the fact that he has yet to score in the postseason; “I need to score too, if we’re to make a run here. We all do. Am I frustrated? No, not really, just gotta stick with it and it’ll come in a game.”