It's objectively funny that Sharks have benefited from three bad calls

Comedy has a rule of threes.

One gag is good, two is better, but three? That’s the right number, for sure. And as far as jokes go, you’d struggle to find one bigger right now than the quality of NHL officiating.

In three separate rather important games, the Sharks have benefited from calls that range from “I can see where they screwed that up but they still screwed it up and that’s bad” to “you gotta be [bleep]ing kidding me bro.”

The one against Vegas that gifted San Jose the five-minute major instead of the deserved two-minute minor was a bad call but an understandable one because blood was on the ice and all that. Then that Landeskog offside call was a BS call but only because the rule is BS and that’s not really on the refs. And the most recent one against St. Louis was the really egregious one because it seems like it should be hard for four guys to miss a hand pass, but also because, again, the rule — this time regarding what can be reviewed in the first place — sucks.

But the fact the Sharks have benefited from three of the four or five worst calls in these playoffs is at this point objectively funny. The team with the loser reputation stretching back years is now not only good enough to win all these games, but they’re doing it in an infuriating, avoidable fashion. Unless you’re a fan of one of the three teams that have caught the short end of those calls, you have to see the comedy here.

I’ve seen people suggest that if the Sharks win the conference final it would, in some way, be tainted. This is a silly idea. The fact is that with the exception of the goal the other night, the refs only put San Jose in a position to win, rather than handing them the result outright.

I know Vegas has every right to be mad about that major, but they also maybe should have tried not-conceding four goals on one power play to blow a three-goal lead almost halfway through the third period of a Game 7. Let’s not forget: That game went to overtime and Vegas could have scored any time in the 18:18 leading up to that point to win it.

Same idea with Colorado in Game 7, except more so. The goal that got waved off came with 12:11 left in the second period and would have only tied the game at 2-2. After it was disallowed, San Jose scored almost immediately, and the Avs went on to lose 3-2 instead. So yes, if that goal had counted, they would have… gotten to overtime if literally nothing else changed. It was a pretty evenly played game throughout but sometimes the more talented team just wins a close game regardless of officiating.

I also can’t be mad at the Sharks for having been beneficiaries of these calls. What are they supposed to do, give the wins back? Do you think if the situations were reversed, the Knights, Avs, or Blues would have any misgivings about advancing to the next round through such an injustice? Grow up.

The thing is, the Sharks are here because they consistently put themselves in a position to win. Due to the fact that they are a good team and, if they’d had even half-decent goaltending all year — which they are certainly getting now, with Martin Jones up to a respectable but not overwhelming .916 since Game 4 against Vegas — they would have walked to the top seed in the West and been rightly seen as being almost on Tampa’s level.

That the Lightning didn’t stick around in this postseason is certainly a shock, but that the Sharks are in the Western Conference final absolutely should not be. If someone came back from the future and said to me, “Martin Jones is over .900 in the playoffs,” I would have assumed that meant the Sharks were just whaling on everyone. As I said when the playoffs started, they didn’t even need him to be good, they just needed him to be not-terrible. On the balance, he hasn’t been, and here we are.

By expected goals, the Sharks were about one worse than Vegas over a seven-game series with multiple overtime periods. They were about 0.8 better than Colorado. So far they’re about 0.2 up on St. Louis. So no, I’m not surprised a team with as much All-Star talent as this is outperforming expected goals by a 1.95 over 17 games.

This is, I guess, a long way of saying you make your own luck in this sport sometimes and when you have as many high-end talents and proven playoff performers as the Sharks do, it’s far easier to manufacture it.

Doesn’t mean the Sharks’ opponents don’t have a right to be aggrieved, and it doesn’t mean the officiating has been anything resembling good. But when things go this right? I dunno. Ya gotta laugh.

Ryan Lambert is a Yahoo! Sports hockey columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

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