Hiller finishes off Sharks

Two seconds into Game 6 between the Anaheim Ducks and the San Jose Sharks, Sharks assistant captain Joe Thornton and Ducks assistant captain Ryan Getzlaf gave it a go. After a long fight which featured many punches landed -- more by Thornton -- the Sharks seemed ready to storm into the Pond and force a Game 7 in San Jose.

It turned out they picked a fight with the wrong team.

Ducks goalie Jonas Hiller was once again phenomenal, stopping 36 of 37 shots, and the Ducks stunned the Sharks 4-1 to advance to the second round of the playoffs.

The Presidents' Trophy winning Sharks seemed poised for a deep run in the playoffs, but they simply could not get the puck past Hiller in the entire series.

In the six games, Hiller stopped 220 out of 230 shots for an unbelievable .957 save percentage.
In comparison, the normally formidable Sharks goalie Evgeni Nabokov had a mediocre .890 save percentage.

The No. 1 key to any series by most experts accounts is the play of the goalie, and Hiller was much better than Nabokov.

However, blaming the whole series on Nabokov would be criminal.

Other than Game 5, Thornton was nonexistent. Similarly, captain Patrick Marleau had just three points in six games. He did score the game-winning goal in the Sharks two wins, but in the other four games, Marleau was a non-factor.

Meanwhile, Corey Perry had three big goals for the Ducks and Bobby Ryan beat Nabokov four times.

On the defensive end, Christian Ehrhoff, Doug Murray and Brag Lukowich had no points in the series and turned the puck over too often. Marc-Edouard Vlasic had a nightmarish series, posting a minus- 6 in five on five action. Rob Blake and Dan Boyle were outplayed throughout the series by Scott Niedermayer and Chris Pronger, shown by a minus-6 combined by the Sharks two-some and a combined plus-9 by the Ducks dynamic duo.

But, if I had to point to one player who dominated this series, it was Ryan Getzlaf. He had two goals, the first sealing Game 1 and the second sealing Game 6, and six assists. His eight points led the series, and his plus-5 was second best.

More importantly, he took it to Joe Thornton repeatedly.

Thornton has a history of poor playoff performances, and Getzlaf never let him get going. And when Thornton finally did dominate a game during Game 5, Getzlaf picked that fight.

Getzlaf may have lost the fight, but he ultimately won the war.