For quite a while, the Nashville Predators had the San Jose Sharks' number. The Predators defeated the Sharks in 15 straight games and fans quietly marked each game against Nashville as an expected loss. Each outing was the hockey equivalent of Sisyphus pushing his boulder up a hill just for it to fall back to the beginning, it felt like there was no progress. Now, the Sharks have won two games against the Predators in a row, and it seems like the curse may have been broken. There were a few moments on Thursday night that certainly made it seem like the curse was real, including Steven Stamkos tying the game with less than a second. In past years, it seemed inevitable that giving up a last second goal would discourage the Sharks and allow the Predators, or any other team for that matter, to steal two points despite San Jose having the better game overall. This year's Sharks are different though, they have a much better mentality and don't panic like they have in past years. Of course, giving a point to a team who will undoubtedly be competing for a Wild Card spot this season is less than ideal, as every point matters in a playoff race, the fact that the Sharks were able to walk away with two points, even if it was in a shootout, is a sign of progress. Realistically, the Predators' winning streak against the Sharks was likely a combination of things. For the most part, outside of a couple years at the beginning of the streak, the Sharks were rebuilding during that time while Nashville looked to compete. Eventually trends also start to get noticed, while players won't publicly admit that they know about something like the losing streak, they surely do and as it grows, it gets harder to break. Now that the Sharks have an abundance of players who weren't here for those losses, it made it inevitable that they'd be able to buck the habit of losing to Nashville and now they've done so a couple of times. They'll host the Predators two more times this season and we'll see if they can start a streak of their own.
