Getting In Their Heads

Now, the pressure is on the Dallas Stars.

Now it's a series.

Psychology has an enormously important role in ice hockey. This is attested to by old hockey aphorisms like "Never get scored on in the first or last minute of a period" (they all count the same, so why should it matter?), or, most notably, "A two-goal lead is the worst lead in hockey". (This is hokum, of course; a two-goal lead is obviously better than a one-goal lead. But the fact that this old chestnut, and the notion behind it--that a team leading by two goals is excessively relaxed, and therefore vulnerable to giving up a goal and conceding the momentum and beginning to worry, thus leading quickly to the game-tying goal--is so widely repeated amongst hockey people is evidence of a deeper truth).

Right now the Sharks are in the Dallas Stars' heads. Going into this series, Dallas was a lower-seeded team, coming off an impressive upset of the defending champions, playing against one of the favorites to win it all. Were they to lose...nyeh, no big whup. Beat the Ducks, good work, nice run. But now they are a team that has held a 3-0 series lead, and had been less than a period away from finishing off their opponent. Now they must either beat the Sharks tomorrow and sew up the series, or go back to San Jose for Game Seven as potentially the first team in thirty-three years to be on the verge of sweeping and wind up blowing it.

Ya think this is making them grip their sticks a little tighter?

We always talk about teams that make serious Cup runs having to face down adversity, and this is a moment of adversity for the Dallas Stars. They must show mental toughness and disregard the circumstances and muzzle any whispers of doubt they hear in their heads. After all, they have a chance to win the series on home ice, which is a great situation to be in as a lower-seeded team.

The Stars may very well pass this test. But the Sharks have turned a seemingly intractable problem into a solvable one. They're far from out of the chasm into which they fell, but at least they've defeated the Balrog.

(And by the way...from the way Stars fans are reacting to the disallowed goals in Game Five you'd think that an official decision about a controversial goal had never, ever gone their way before...)