Straight from the Sports Desk: Don't ease up too much, fellas

Thanks to their unreal play over the last 18 games — 16 wins, zero losses in regulation — the Sharks have wrapped up their third Pacific Division Championship. And since they seem unlikely to catch Detroit, San Jose is all but guaranteed the No. 2 seed when the Stanley Cup Playoffs start in a little more than a week.

Because of that, coach Ron Wilson has announced that several banged-up players may get some rest, and he even gave the team Saturday off from practice after beating the Ducks 3-1 Friday night. And to be sure, some guys — particularly sniper Jonathan Cheechoo — could use some time to let the bruises heal, but they better be careful not to lose this massive wave of momentum they're riding in the process.

Over the past month-plus, the Sharks have been playing some of the best hockey in the team's 16-year history, picking up 34 of 36 possible points since a loss at New Jersey on Feb. 20. And that's a great sign as they pursue their first Cup. If they can win 16 of 18 in the playoffs, well, captain Patrick Marleau will be seen handing the Cup to either Joe Thornton or Evgeni Nabokov in mid-June, hopefully in front of 17,496 members of Team Teal in Silicon Valley. But the last thing they want to do right now is take their foot off the gas.

Momentum is a funny thing. It can slip away just as quickly as it came, and messing with how you approach the game is one of the best ways to lose it. If Cheech or Devin Setoguchi needs a day off to freshen up, fine. But it's critical that whichever 20 guys do suit up for the last four games play like they're fighting for the last playoff spot, which is to say, how they've been playing for the whole month of March.

Perhaps Wilson would do right to get out film of the last week of the NFL regular season and the playoffs. Some teams that let up in week 17 — cough, Tampa Bay, cough — looked out of sorts in the playoffs and consequently got squashed. Other teams — the two that made the Super Bowl, in particular — played hard till the end, even though they had nothing to gain by doing so, at least insofar as the standings were concerned.

And the Sharks should know about this from their own recent history. This is the fourth straight season they've finished the regular season on a hot streak. If you combine the last 13 games of 2004, the last 9 games of 2006, the last 17 games of 2007, and their past 18 games this year, the Sharks are a ridiculous 47-4-6 to finish off those regular seasons. If that pace were stretched to a full 82-game season, San Jose would shatter Detroit's record of 131 points in ’95-’96 by 13.

But in case you hadn't noticed, that has resulted in exactly zero Stanley Cups — yet. In 2004, that extended into the Western Conference Finals — their only venture that deep into the postseason, before they fell to Calgary. But the past two years (there were no playoffs in 2005 because of the lockout), their momentum suddenly vanished early in the second round.

So by all means, Sharkies, let the guys who need to rest get their rest. But the rest of you had better work your fins off.

Straight from the Sports Desk

Observations of three people who have spent years scribbling notes and scrutinizing stats on the sidelines and in the bleachers.

Don't ease up too much, fellas

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