May 28, 2016 4 min read

Here’s a name you’re going to get tired of hearing: Marc-Edouard Vlasic. Sidney Crosby is going to be sick of looking at him by 10 p.m. Monday.

He’s the San Jose Sharks’ shutdown defenseman, and boy do the San Jose Sharks like to shut down their opponents’ top scorers. Justin Braun is the other half of that defensive pairing and the two of them have shut down the top scorers for the Los Angeles Kings, Nashville Predators and St. Louis Blues on their way to meeting Crosby and the Penguins in the Stanley Cup Finals.

Tyler Toffoli (Kings), Fillip Foorsberg (Predators) and Vladimir Tarasenko (Blues) combined for one goal, one assist and a minus-18 in 18 combined games against San Jose in the playoffs. All three players scored at least 30 goals in the regular season.

And, as Adam Gretz of CBSSports.com points out, none scored an even-strength goal against Vlasic or Braun.

Throughout this postseason Gretz has been fighting the losing battle of trying to convince fans and media that it’s not unusual for stars to have dry spells in the playoffs.

There were still lots of fans and media questioning Crosby’s ability to play well in big games when he had three game-winning goals in the Eastern Conference Finals against Tampa Bay.

So, maybe everybody should be prepared for Crosby and Evgeni Malkin to be relatively quiet in the Stanley Cup Finals.

Maybe we should also expect some more big goals from the guy who has benefitted most from all the attention given to Crosby and Malkin – Phil Kessell.

• You know the best thing about following or covering a team that makes the Stanley Cup Finals?

Games.

Yeah, games as opposed to news conferences and media availabilities. When the Steelers win their conference championship to go on to the Super Bowl, we get two weeks of sound bites.

The highlight of the two-week break between the conference championships and the championship game in football is media day, which has become media night so it can be shown on TV in prime time.

It’s players saying the same things they’ve been saying for days. The Penguins could play as many as seven games in the next 15 days.

It’s the best tournament in sports.

• It shouldn’t be all that disturbing to fans or media when a big-time goal scorer has stretches of playoff games without a goal.

Crosby had three goals in seven games against the Lightning. A player who scores three goals every seven games in the regular season will finish with 33. Crosby had 36 during the regular season, 28 last season.

Wouldn’t it make sense for the goal scorers’ numbers to go down in the playoffs? The further you go in the playoffs the tougher the competition becomes.

Should a top goal scorer be expected to maintain the same pace in the postseason that he maintained in the regular season?

• The Cincinnati Reds have lost 11 in a row. They’re already 18 games out of first place. It’s sad to see what’s happened to what used to be the best baseball town in America.

• The Baltimore Ravens should just forfeit the entire 2016 season. How can they be competitive now that the NFL has taken a week of OTAs away from them? Their coach, John Harbaugh, and the team were fined because they had rookies in pads for a few minutes.

Actually, every player in the league should be rooting for the Ravens to go undefeated and expose OTAs as being overrated, if not unnecessary.

• There has been a lot of discussion about the Crosby-Malkin Era and whether it has been disappointing. They are playing in their third Stanley Cup Final in 11 years. Mario Lemieux played in two in 17 years.

• Nice to see that Baylor University has taken a dip in the college football cesspool. An investigation showed that lots of football players were accused of varying forms of sexual assaults and the coach, Art Briles, did his best to prevent them from having to face student-conduct procedures or criminal investigation. And if the player wasn’t disciplined by the school or the courts he was cleared to play.

Briles was fired.

But, hey, Baylor won two Big 12 Championships that students and alumni can be proud of for years and there’s that’s brand new stadium that opened in 2014.

John Steigerwald writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter.