Last summer, the Colorado Avalanche pulled off a major coup by convincing Teemu Selanne and Paul Kariya to sign bargain-basement contracts to reunite and join the team. With Sakic, Forsberg, Tanguay, Hejduk, Selanne, and Kariya, it was thought the team would be unstoppable. The season started on the wrong foot with a .500 record in the first ten games before hitting in back. Injuries caught up with them and the team fell back to earth to start the playoffs. The Avs calmed their fans' fears by defeating the Dallas Stars 4-1 to move on and face the Sharks in the second round. With their utter dominance of the Stars, it was thought they could do the same with the Sharks. However, they got something different coming to them. Endless rounds of golf while their team gets dismantled. Going down 3 games to none proved to be too much as the Sharks won 3-1 last night to move on to the conference finals and face the Flames, one more step away from the Stanley Cup Finals.

It's a reunion of sorts as Calgary is coached by the Sharks' last coach Darryl Sutter. Their goalie is Mikka Kiprusoff, former Sharks goalie who disappointed when he was asked to pick up the slack when Nabokov was in contract talks. Now he's on fire, something that works on a team named the Flames.

But you know what the freaky part about this is? Tim Kawakami of the Mercury News correctly predicted before the game that the Sharks would win 3-1 in Game 6. To quote:

Guarantee No. 1: Sharks 3, Colorado 1 in Game 6.

The Avalanche has all the momentum. The Sharks, after jumping to a three-games-to-none series lead and losing the next two games, are shaking at the prospect of needing a potential Game 7, don't you think?

Maybe. But Colorado played as well as it could (receiving a few fortunate bounces along the way) in Games 4 and 5 and still needed dynamic overtime goals from Joe Sakic to survive.

Patrick Marleau is due to break loose. Mike Rathje will not let Peter Forsberg and Sakic burn him again. Evgeni Nabokov, as he has throughout this postseason, will stone the opposition.

So forget about the 1942 Detroit Red Wings and the 1975 Pittsburgh Penguins, the only two teams in NHL history to lose a series after taking a 3-0 lead. Tuesday, the Sharks will find a way to knock in the first goal (as they did Saturday), and this time they will hold on. Bring on the Calgary Flames!

Indeed, bring them on.