Down Goes Brown's Weekend Review: Sharks Bite Back against Penguins to Make It a Series

(Editor's note: Sean McIndoe looks back at recent play in the NHL and the league's biggest storylines in his weekend review. You can follow him on Twitter.)

Facing the prospect of falling behind 3-0 in the Stanley Cup Final, the Sharks rallied back to win Saturday's Game 3 in overtime. As per hockey bylaws, we are now legally obligated to inform you that we have ourselves a series.

And that's good news; given the quality of the teams involved and the roads they've travelled to get here, you'd hate to have seen this series over early. And it almost certainly would have been over with a Penguins win. With apologies to Sharks fans having flashbacks to that series, a 3-0 deficit would have been game over—nobody is beating these Penguins in four straight games with the Cup in the building.

So that overtime really did feel like sudden death for the Sharks. And they'll live to fight another day thanks to Joonas Donskoi's winner, called here in typically understated tones by the Finnish broadcast.

And so, yes, we have ourselves a series, although exactly how much of one remains to be seen. Despite the one-goal margins, the three games so far have been shockingly one-sided, with the Penguins dominating for long stretches, while the Sharks have only looked like the team that rolled through the Western Conference for short bursts. Even in Saturday's loss, the Penguins could make a good case that they were the better team, and they still haven't trailed for a second of the series.

Maybe Donskoi's winner is the turning point, the moment that flips the switch and restores the Sharks to what we expected them to be. Or maybe it's just prolonging the inevitable. The story of the series so far has been the Penguins' speed; they seem to be just a half-step ahead of the Sharks at every turn, and it's added up to having the puck on their stick for most of the final. The shot clock isn't everything, but the Penguins are dominating it to a historical degree. And the way this has all played out has to scare you if you're a Sharks fan. After all, you can fix a lot of problems with smart game-planning and better matchups, but speed is speed.

Still, the Sharks are alive, and we have a series. Peter DeBoer and company have their work cut out for them if the series is going to be more than five games long, but thanks to Donskoi, they have a chance.

Celebrating those who've had the best week.

5. Matthew Tkachuk—The NHL combine wrapped up over the weekend, meaning we're officially into that part of the draft lead up where we hear about stocks rising and falling. And nobody seems to be rising more than Tkachuk, the London Knights power forward and son of former NHL star Keith.

For months, the draft has been viewed as having a clear Big Three of Auston Matthews, Patrik Laine and Jesse Puljujarvi in that order, followed by about a half dozen players in the second tier who could go anywhere. But after scoring the Memorial Cup-winning goal last week, Tkachuk seems to have moved to the top of that group, and may even be pushing Puljujarvi for the third spot.

That's obviously good news for him. But it's great news for the Oilers, who seemed like the draft lottery's big losers after dropping down to No. 4 That pick soars in value if the Big Three becomes a Big Four. And given that the team is reportedly looking to trade the pick, the bidding could get very interesting over the next few weeks.

4. Donskoi's goal going in off Matt Murray's face—Seriously, we're all just going to pretend that didn't happen? After the game, I read glowing reports of how Donskoi had skillfully picked the top corner. If he picked anything, it was Murray's left nostril. Still a nice shot, still a clutch goal, but don't show me a Stanley Cup OT winner pinging off a goaltender's cranium and then expect me to unsee it.

better look — Stephanie (@myregularface)June 5, 2016

3. Expansion—Is it possible? Could we actually be getting close to a decision on expansion? Apparently so, with reports that the league's executive committee will finally get serious about the discussion next week, including making a final decision. It sounds more and more like Quebec City won't be happening, but Las Vegas still seems like a decent bet. If so, expect the formal announcement to come when the league arrives in town for the annual awards show on June 22.

2. It's all about the Cap—Speaking of major offseason decisions, the NHL's salary cap debate is about to break out. The cap is tied to league-wide revenue, which means it typically goes up every year. But this could be an exception, as revenues have reportedly been flat and there are now reports that the cap could even drop. That's never happened before, other than after the 2013 lockout when the owners negotiated the players' share down.

Of course, nothing in the NHL can ever be that simple, and here's where the NHLPA's escalator clause kicks in. The players hold the right to boost the cap by up to five percent every year, regardless of where revenues come in. That sounds like a no-brainer—you'd think that more cap space means more money for players. But it doesn't work that way. The cap just determines how much money the owners are allowed to assign to contracts. But the players and owner will always split all revenue 50/50, so if the cap goes up and the owners end up "spending" more than their share, the escrow kicks in and yanks that money back out of the players' pockets. In short, voting for the escalator helps players who need new contracts via free agency or extension, but at a cost to players who already have deals locked in. And as you can imagine, that tends to be a divisive subject.

Most years, we hear plenty of talk about the players not exercising their escalator, followed by them voting to go ahead and do it anyway. With the threat of a cap drop looming, that will probably be the case again this year. But either way, the cap is going to seriously squeeze some teams, even more than usual. And between that and the potential for an incoming expansion draft, hockey fans could be in for a busy month.

(Um, once the Cup final ends, of course. No rush, Pens and Sharks.)

1. The faceoff files—Every Cup final brings along a package of storylines and subplots, and one of this year's has been what goes on in the faceoff dot. We can thank Logan Couture for that; it was his complaint about Sidney Crosby's alleged cheating after Game 2's overtime winner that gave the story its legs.

That was the one in which Crosby seemed to call a set play for his teammates, then win the draw cleanly back to set the winning goal in motion. Crosby downplayed the strategizing, so it was Couture's accusation that stuck. Is the best player in the league gaining an advantage by cheating?

Well, sure. Of course he is. Cheating in sports comes in different flavors, and faceoff-circle cheating belongs in the "everyone does it" variety. Crosby cheats, Evgeni Malkin cheats, Joe Thornton cheats, and Couture does, too—he even admitted as much. Crosby wins so many draws because he cheats better than anyone else. The accusation itself was largely a non-story.

But it did shine a spotlight on the faceoff dot, and that's been a good thing. For all the talk about how important draws are, fans typically don't get much insight into how they work. Thanks to Couture, we've suddenly got analysts breaking down strategies and cameras zooming in on the action. That's a good thing for fans, especially given how many times faceoff percentage is cited these days without any actual context. (For what it's worth, those faceoff percentages probably don't matter as much as you think.)

So, thank you, Logan Couture, even if you didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. If we're going to get caught up in a distraction, at least we wound up with an educational one, instead of another round of beard talk.

A look at the week's underachievers.

5. Combine interviews—One reason that Tkachuk is apparently moving up the draft board is his impressive performance in the combine week interviews with NHL front offices. The Blues even allowed NHL.com to publish a detailed account of their session with Tkachuk. Sadly, none of the questions from that session were "Uh, why is the team with the 28th overall pick wasting everyone's time by interviewing a top four prospect?"

The interviews have always been a strange part of combine week, with many teams seeming to place a heavy emphasis on a prospect's performance. That makes a certain amount of sense; in a league where words like character and compete level are thrown around more than ever, getting some insight into a player's personality can be valuable. On the other hand, you'd think that a player's performance on the ice would be slightly more important than in a boardroom, and teams already have plenty of information about that. And let's not forget that some of these guys can barely even speak English.

So it's hard not to wonder if some teams aren't actually hurting themselves here, as amateur psychology and recency bias combine to overrule a body of work spanning several seasons. We've heard these sorts of stories in the past—Phil Kessel's legendarily disastrous 2006 interviews may have dropped him a few spots, and are tough to revisit even today—and we'll no doubt hear about them again. Even when it comes to something as important as the draft, there is such a thing as overthinking it.

4. Alexander Radulov—Hey, you can't blame a guy for trying, but… yikes. The talented forward put up decent numbers in the NHL years ago, and has been among the KHL's most productive players in recent years. But Vladimir Tarasenko money for a 30-year-old who's played nine NHL games in eight years and has a history of poor off-ice behavior? Hard pass.

3. The ice—It was terrible. Which is what you'd expect, given that this was a game played in California in June. In this case, it was apparently so bad that it forced the Penguins to adjust their strategy.

We've been here before, as we know how the story plays out. The NHL will promise to make things better—maybe professional ice whisperer Dan Craig will be parachuted in—and then it will be even worse on Monday night, with the puck bouncing round like a superball in a bathtub. By Game 6, if there is one, the players will just be running through wet slush, the arena filled with the sound of their skates clanging off the concrete as they go.

And, of course, we'll be reminded that it's the same for both teams. Which it is. It's a problem, but it's one without any realistic solution. Better technology? The league already uses the best available, we're told. A shorter schedule that would wrap up before summertime? Not if it cost anyone revenue. Stanley Cup final games played somewhere cold instead, like Canada? You've seen the rosters up here, right?

So we'll make the best of it, which means pretending not to notice when a game is decided by a puck hopping and skipping at random. There's really nothing else anyone can do.

2. Teal Town, California—Dammit, town formerly known as Pittsburg, we talked about this just last week. No lame changes, we said. We were very polite about it. But no, you had to go and do it anyway.

I demand retaliation from some town in Pennsylvania. Looking in your direction, Burnside, Jonestown and Martinsburg.

1. Roman Polak—It always feels a little cruel to single out a role player who's struggling in the playoffs, which is perhaps why so many of us prefer picking on superstars. But there's really no nice way to say this: Sharks defenseman Roman Polak is having an awful series.

He made the brutal giveaway that led directly to Phil Kessel's opening goal in Game2. He kicked Saturday's opener into his own net off a harmless looking point shot. He and partner Brendan Dillon are getting killed in possession. And it's fair to say that the reviews have not been kind.

All of which adds up to a major concern for the Sharks. Put aside the heavy price the team paid to acquire Polak near the trade deadline, one which raised eyebrows around the league. That's a sunk cost. The Sharks are worried about right now. And right now, against a team that can role three dangerous scoring lines, they can't afford to have one of their defense pairings getting slaughtered out there.

That's especially true when they don't have last change on the road, where the Sharks will have to win at least one game to take this series. No series is ever won or lost solely by one or two players, but with the margin between winning and losing tighter than ever before, a bad performance can certainly tilt the scales. With the Sharks needing all the help they can get, a turnaround from the third pairing starts to look like a must-have.