SAN JOSE – To borrow a phrase from Chuck Woolery, Todd McLellan was back in two and two.
Saturday's Game 6 between the Sharks and Oilers marked exactly two years and two days since the Sharks-McLellan love connection was broken up, as the coach and his staff were all essentially fired on April 20, 2015. But McLellan and assistants Jim Johnson and Jay Woodcroft quickly resurfaced with the Oilers a few weeks later, and now they're moving on to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs at the expense of their former employer.
At what was his home for seven seasons, McLellan took the press conference podium at SAP Center as the victorious visiting coach after Edmonton's 3-1 win clinched the series in six games. Asked what the moment meant to him, McLellan preferred not to focus on himself or his staff.
"It's not about Todd, it's not about Jay or Jimmy. It's about the Oilers and the group of players there that are growing up in front of us," McLellan said.
"We're part of this team now. I obviously have a soft spot for a lot of the players that are here in San Jose. They gave us a hell of a series. They helped us grow up by pushing us, and we're lucky to get through. That's an important thing for us."
Amazingly, the Oilers managed to prevail with just one even strength point from Connor McDavid, who led the league in scoring in the regular season. That point came with less than a second remaining on the clock on Sunday when McDavid converted on an empty net.
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The focus from the outside, among many of the Edmonton and San Jose media, was that the Sharks were doing an admirable job of defending the 20-year-old, who had 30 goals and 100 points in the regular season. Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Justin Braun, in particular, were keeping McDavid frustrated.
While that may be the case, McLellan said after Game 6 that he had no problem with the McDavid vs. Vlasic showdown. In his view, the Oilers could win the series elsewhere.
"There was a lot of talk in this series about us trying to get Connor away from Vlasic and Braun. Obviously we don't want to talk about it during the series, but we had an eye on [Ryan Nugent-Hopkins] against [Joe Thornton's] line, especially since they put them together. That was a match we were looking for.
"You can't get everything. When you're a coach, the media experts find something and they keep going to it. But coaches have different plans sometimes. Peter [DeBoer] had his plan, we had ours. Ours wasn't about getting Connor away from Vlasic and Braun, ours was getting [Nugent-Hopkins] on the ice against [Joe] Pavelski and Jumbo and Patty Marleau. For the most part, it worked in our favor."
It worked, because as the stars on both teams were essentially neutralized, the Oilers' depth players contributed just a little bit more than the Sharks group did and at more opportune times.
Zack Kassian had a pair of game-winning goals in games two and three; David Desharnais was the Game 5 hero with a game-tying assist and game-winning goal; and Anton Slepyshev posted the game-winner with a breakaway in Game 6. Not exactly big names.
DeBoer was particularly disappointed with Game 3, a 1-0 loss on Kassian's third period goal; and Game 5, in which the Sharks had a 3-1 lead that they couldn't protect. That the Sharks only got one power play goal in 18 chances not counting the Game 4 blowout was also one of the reasons for their downfall.
"If you had told me before the series we would have held McDavid in check, we would have won the special teams battle on paper, I probably would have felt pretty good about our chances," DeBoer said.
Instead, McLellan will take his up-and-coming team to the next round, where it will face off with the Anaheim Ducks.
"For our team, we're watching them grow up right in front of us, which is a great thing," he said.
