Even though the San Jose Sharks came up a little short against the Pittsburgh Penguins, it was still a special year for the organization as they showed their championship window was still open (after it was thought to be closed a couple of years ago) and played in the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in franchise history.
Because they did not win it is going to be easy to forget about what they accomplished this season, not only on a team level, but also on an individual level when it comes to starting goalie Martin Jones and forward Logan Couture.
We should not overlook what those two players did this postseason.
The Stanley Cup Final performance by Jones was nothing short of spectacular as he did everything he could to extend the series as long as possible, with the Game 6 loss being another stellar effort to keep the Sharks in it. In the six games against Pittsburgh, he was by far their best player.
But their best player for the entire postseason going back to the first round against the Los Angeles Kings had to be Couture, and he ended up having one of the best individual performances in recent NHL playoff history.
With his goal on Sunday night, the lone goal in the Sharks' 3-1 loss, he ended up with a league-leading 30 points (10 goals, 20 assists) in the playoffs, six more than any other player this postseason (his teammate, Brent Burns, was second with 24 points).
He had a direct hand (either scoring or assisting) in more than 40 percent of the Sharks' goals this postseason.
Over the past 20 years, only four other players have finished a single postseason with at least 30 points, it is a list that includes only Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Daniel Briere and Joe Sakic.
Couture is now a part of that group.
Perhaps even more impressive is that his six-point lead over Burns was also the second largest gap over that stretch. In 2012-13 Boston Bruins forward David Krejci finished with a seven-point lead over the next leading scorer, while Sakic had a similar lead in 1996.
Those are impressive numbers, and that came at big times for the Sharks as well.
He ended up recording at least one point in 18 of the Sharks' 24 playoff games, including eight multi-point games and four three-point games, all of which came in games where the Sharks were either facing elimination or had the chance to eliminate a team.
It did not end with a Stanley Cup for the Sharks, but Couture had a postseason performance that only a small handful of players over the past two decades can match.
