"A totally different thing," coach Darryl Sutter said.

"There's a big difference," defenseman Bryan Marchment said. "One trophy everybody gets their name on. The other one is just a small piece of the puzzle. That Presidents' Trophy? You can throw it in the garbage as far as I'm concerned."

Which is pretty much what the St. Louis Blues have in mind for the trophy emblematic of the regular-season championship after No. 8 seed San Jose ended their season. Now the Sharks are faced with a group of guys who got their names on that other trophy after last season. And if Game 1 Friday night was any indication, the Sharks were rudely awakened in a 4-0 mugging by the Dallas Stars.

In other words, Cinderella was a no-show, and she sent the Sharks in her place.

Only this was the San Jose team that barely made the Stanley Cup playoffs with a late-season rush to barely qualify for the playoff field. These were the Sharks of that mid-season funk, after their coach dared to say, "we're not this good," after the best start in franchise history.

This was, frankly, a poor excuse for playoff hockey. Disappointing, in fact.

How bad was it? Glad you asked, sushi breath.

It was so bad the final score actually does the Sharks a favor. They weren't that good.

It was so bad some scouts left the game after two periods, saying they were wasting their time watching it. A wise decision. It went from bad to worse in the third period, when Dallas completed the rout with two more goals.

"I don't think you can evaluate Game 1 from the visiting team's standpoint," said Dallas coach Ken Hitchcock, putting it as politely as he could. "You really have to wait for Game 2, which is always the most vital game for the home team and the one that has always been the toughest for us to win."

Sharks coach Darryl Sutter can only hope those other Sharks show up Sunday for Game 2, that team that seems to embrace the urgency that frightens some others -- like a certain Presidents' Trophy winner we won't mention.

"We were emotionally flat," Sutter said. "It showed up in our execution. We have to understand the urgency as a group, but I think our recent history shows that these guys usually handle it pretty well."

Maybe it's human nature to have such a letdown after the emotionally wrenching seven-game series with the Blues, in which San Jose took a 3-1 lead, squandered it and was forced to win Game 7 in St. Louis only three nights earlier.

"You can talk about reasons, but they're just excuses," said Mike Ricci, Sharks' heart-and-soul forward. "We just came off a hard battle and we should have been ready to battle again. But we didn't play well enough to win and they made us pay."

That execution Sutter complained about? Horrendous. It started early, when the Stars' fourth line pounced on a turnover in the San Jose zone and center Aaron Gavey fired what appeared to be a harmless shot through goalie Steve Shields' pads for a 1-0 lead on Dallas' first shot on goal. And the Stars never looked back. Behind 2-0 in the opening period, San Jose had four great chances to cut their deficit -- and missed the net each time.

Derian Hatcher follows through on a pass, sending it by Owen Nolan.(AP)

Power play goals by Mike Modano and Joe Nieuwendyk, both set up by defenseman Sergei Zubov in his postseason debut after a knee injury, followed the Gavey goal. And rookie Brendan Morrow finished it off with a goal less than two minutes after Nieuwendyk scored, allowing many among the Reunion Arena crowd of 17,001 to start partying with 15 minutes still left to play and both teams quickly losing interest.

Stars goalie Ed Belfour only faced five more shots the rest of the way, finishing the game with 18 saves for his ninth career playoff shutout and second of this postseason.

San Jose earned its way into the second round with a sensational effort that knocked a St. Louis team that earned 114 points right out of the tournament. The Stars? They won that other trophy, the one on which everybody gets his name engraved in silver. And the Sharks have a pretty good idea now that now the champs aren't going to go as quietly.

And certainly not in this round.