PITTSBURGH - Eventually, the beards will have to go.
When they do, and the San Jose Sharks look in the mirror after shaving off the facial hair they have grown the past two months (or longer, in some cases), they might not be happy with what they see.
A summer of regret could be waiting for Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski and Brent Burns, who once again haven’t come up big when their team has needed them the most.
We tried to avoid writing this type of story. We wanted to believe that Thornton and Pavelski and Burns would re-write the tired narrative that continually said they aren’t big-game players and would eventually step up, just as they had all season and during the first three rounds of the playoffs.