Tonight on Monday Musings, we have just come home from the San Jose Sharks’ 5-4 victory at the SAP Center over the St. Louis Blues. We’ve written a lot about the Sharks and their struggles, and this game was no different. The Blues scored twice in their first four shots, as San Jose goaltender Yaroslav Askarov continued to struggle, just like his creasemate Alex Nedeljkovic. Tonight, Askarov gave up three soft goals, including one on a St. Louis power play he caused by committing a foolish and petty penalty.

The Sharks had owned a 4-2 lead in the latter stages of the middle period, thanks to brilliant offensive play from star forward Macklin Celebrini and the less-heralded Alex Wennberg. They had two goals apiece, but with just 26 seconds left in the second frame, the Blues scored a power-play goal to make it a 4-3 game heading into the intermission, and you could feel the collective doom hovering in the not-quite-full Shark Tank: barely 16,000 fans were claimed to have been in attendance, but it was much less.

And the inevitable happened when St. Louis scored on the aforementioned Askarov-caused power play. There were seven-plus minutes left in regulation time, but the crowd was way on edge, screaming at every little incident on the ice. When the defense and goaltending rank 29th in a 32-team league for goals allowed, that was the expected and understood mood swing, from unbridled joy to impending disaster (again). San Jose, loser of 14 games over the prior 21 contests, really couldn’t afford another loss here.

The Sharks are fighting still for a playoff spot, but losing so many games recently has hurt them. The team had a six-game losing streak recently, from March 15-26, the sixth defeat coming on the road in St. Louis when the Blues scored in overtime with just three seconds remaining on one of the laziest defensive efforts you’ll ever see from Celebrini. So, to be in this position against the same team, also fighting its postseason life, was just a gut punch for San Jose fans who have endured so much pain since 2019.

Even in that postseason, it was the Blues who eliminated the Sharks in the Western Conference Finals on their way to winning the Cup for the first time ever—a feat that somehow still has escaped the San Jose franchise, which once made the Stanley Cup playoffs 18 times in a 20-season span from 1999-2019 without winning the NHL title. In fact, the team in teal has just one Finals appearance in its 34-season history, despite the two decades’ worth of regular-season success. Yeah, it’s been a hot minute here.

Anyway, all this is prelude to a shocking conclusion to the game tonight against the nemesis Blues, who needed this game even more than the Sharks, trailing them in the standings while also having played an extra game. San Jose seemed to be playing for overtime, the fans somewhat resided to the same. And then out of nowhere, in a way that seems to have happened to the Sharks so often this season, there was a miracle in the final 30 seconds: Adam Gaudette with a game winner like lightning through the heart.

Comparison can be the thief of joy, so perhaps we shouldn’t measure these Sharks against teams past. We need to savor a moment like tonight, which felt a little special—even if a wee lucky. Those are the moments sports fans live for, really, provided it happens for their individual team. It can be a dagger when it happens for the other team, and people can only take so many daggers in the end, obviously—metaphorically as well as physically. Yet when fate delivers kindness, the reminders are clear about life, truly.