from Cam Cole of the Vancouver Sun,

Donald Trump’s rally here tonight (Thursday) really ought to be held at the arena emblazoned with SAP, as a beacon to his devotees.

Instead, it’s at the convention centre, a 15-minute stroll away from SAP Center, home of the San Jose Sharks, who wouldn’t mind, while The Donald is making America great again, if he could sprinkle a little of his fairy dust in their direction.

The Sharks, down 0-2 to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Stanley Cup final, badly need to be great again themselves — something more like the squad that dispatched the L.A. Kings in five games and the St. Louis Blues in six — but so far, even pretty good has been out of reach of Los Tiburones, as they are known hereabouts.

Their problem, alas, has a lot to do with Los Pinguinos, who are well on their way to dispelling the accepted wisdom about Eastern teams’ inferiority.

The scoreboard may not reflect it, 3-2 and 2-1 decisions looking less than convincing, but the Sharks are getting trampled by the Penguins’ happy feet.

When they lost to the L.A. Kings in 2013 and ’14 — especially the latter, when they led the first-round series 3-0 and lost the last four, outscored 12-2 in Games 5-7 — it was like being worn down finally by repeated blows from a blunt instrument.

This isn’t like that.

This is the Sharks suffering from a lethal combination of Pittsburgh speed and commitment.

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