SAN JOSE, Calif. _ The San Jose Sharks were well aware of the simplest and most direct path toward second place in the Pacific Division and home ice advantage for the first round of the NHL playoffs.
But not much has been simple for the Sharks in a season of transition and more than a little bit of upheaval.
The Sharks finished the regular season with 6-3 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Saturday to finish third in the division with 100 points, one point back of Anaheim, which beat Arizona 3-0 earlier Saturday to leapfrog San Jose.
Now, for the third straight season, the Sharks will start the playoffs on the road, with their series against the Ducks likely starting Wednesday or Thursday at Honda Center.
The Sharks could have finished anywhere from second to fourth in the Pacific at the start of Saturday's games, but managed to avoid fourth place a first-round series against division champ Vegas after Los Angeles lost to Dallas. The Kings finished with 98 points.
The Sharks have played the Ducks in the postseason just once, in the first round in 2009, when San Jose won the President's Trophy as the league's top team in the regular season. Anaheim, though, beat the Sharks in six games in one of the biggest playoff disappointments in San Jose franchise history.
This season, the Sharks went 3-0-1 against the Ducks, with two of the three wins coming in shootout fashion.
Against Minnesota, the Sharks got off to an apprehensive start, not registering their first shot on goal until nine minutes had elapsed in the first period and falling behind 2-0 by the 14:52 mark on goals by Jonas Brodin and Matt Cullen.
The first period turned around in a hurry.
Brent Burns' shot got through traffic and found its way past Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk at the 15:28 mark to cut the Sharks' deficit to one. Just 56 seconds later, Joe Pavelski took a pass from Mikkel Boedker _ who stole the puck from Matt Dumba _ and fired a shot past Dubnyk to tie the game.
The Sharks, though, didn't have an answer for the Wild in the second period, as a Mikael Granlund goal was followed by two from Jason Zucker, all in a span of 4:06, to put San Jose in a 5-2 hole.
Evander Kane, injured in the Sharks' game last Saturday against Vegas, rejoined the Sharks' lineup after he missed the last two games. He was back on a line with Pavelski and Joonas Donskoi.
The Sharks would have clinched second place if they earned at least one point against the Wild.
"Our mind doesn't need to go too far away from (winning)," Pavelski said Saturday morning. "Worry about taking care of our business and a lot of stuff gets thrown aside."
The Sharks were going to be a different-looking team in 2017-18 after they lost franchise cornerstone Patrick Marleau to free agency last summer when Marleau signed a three-year contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Younger forwards like Chris Tierney, Timo Meier and Kevin Labanc were going to have to assume a larger role, as questions about how the Sharks were going to produce goals without Marleau persisted.
Things looked bleak in terms of even qualifying for the playoffs after the Sharks lost Joe Thornton to a serious knee injury on Jan. 23. They had a 26-14-7 record with 59 points, just two points more than Minnesota, then the third place team in the race for two wild card positions.
The Sharks played up and down hockey for the next five weeks leading into the NHL's trade deadline on Feb. 26, going 7-7-2 as they clung to a playoff position.
San Jose, though, played its best hockey of the season after acquiring Kane from the Buffalo Sabres at the deadline.
From Feb. 27 to March 27, the Sharks went 11-2-1 to help secure their playoff footing, enough to be able to absorb a recent 0-3-1 spell that left their postseason positioning in question.
Sharks coach Pete DeBoer has admired his team's resiliency though the last six months.
"There's a lot of off-ramps this team could have taken, starting back when Marleau didn't come back and we decided we were going to give young guys some opportunity as opposed to replacing that piece," DeBoer said. "Joe Thornton going down. There's a lot of different times in the year where they could have taken an off ramp and they never did.
"They just kept working and battling, scraping and scratching. You look up at the end of game 82 at the body of work and you're pretty proud of what they accomplished. It's only step one of where we want to go to, but there's a lot of work put into that."
