Intensity and animosity are a given in games involving the NHL’s California contingent. That’s undoubtedly true whenever the Sharks and Ducks play, even as their rivalry has flown somewhat under the radar.
San Jose and Anaheim comprised the first pair of California teams to play against one another in the Stanley Cup playoffs in 2009. Then, the eighth-seeded Ducks beat the Sharks, the NHL’s top seed as the season’s President’s Trophy winners, in six games in the first round. The upset, aided by plenty of tension culminating in a fight between Joe Thornton and Ryan Getzlaf two seconds into the decisive Game 6, set the stage for enduring friction.