The Kings scored two goals within 22 seconds to take Game 2 and secure a 2-0 series lead. (Evan Gole/Getty)

If we’ve learned anything from watching hockey this week, it’s this: No lead is safe in the 2013 NHL playoffs.

Three days after the Boston Bruins pulled off a miraculous three-goal Game 7 comeback against the Maple Leafs, the defending champion Los Angeles Kings worked some last-minute magic of their own, scoring two power play goals 22 seconds apart to earn a stunning 4-3 win over the San Jose Sharks.

It’s fair to wonder after this one if the Sharks can recover. The visitors were on the verge of evening up the series, riding three unanswered goals to a 3-2 lead when the thrill ride began. Energetic rookie Tyler Toffoli was hauled down by San Jose’s Brad Stuart while driving the net, drawing a penalty at 17:19 of the third. Seconds later, Marc-Edouard Vlasic joined him in the box after clearing the puck into the crowd, putting the Kings on a five-on-three. And just like that, it was over. Dustin Brown pounced on a rebound of a Mike Richards shot and shoveled it behind Antti Niemi to tie the score. On the next shift, Trevor Lewis drove the net and buried another rebound, this one off a Toffoli shot, to seal the win with just 1:21 remaining.

For Los Angeles, this was a statement game. There’s more than one way the Kings can win.

As for the Sharks? They made a statement, too, only it was less flattering. They were the better team for much of the night. They scored three on Jonathan Quick. But in the end, they let the Kings take it away from them.

And their chance at winning the series may have gone with it.

Here are some more observations from Game 2:

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Sergei Bobrovsky (center) could be a rare winner from a non-playoff team. (Getty/Icon SMI/Getty)

By Allan Muir

The NHL announced on Wednesday morning that Henrik Lundqvist, Sergei Bobrovsky, and Antti Niemi are the three finalists for the Vezina Trophy, awarded “to the goalkeeper adjudged to be the best at his position,” as voted on by the league’s 30 general managers.

It stacks up as an historic group. For the first time, all three finalists are from Europe. But the history isn’t likely to end there.

Six months ago, there wasn’t a pundit, fan or insider who would have predicted Bobrovsky as a finalist, let alone the presumptive favorite. Cast out by the Flyers, he was brought in to Columbus to compete for the starting job with incumbent Steve Mason. But after a slow start — he won just three of his first 12 games — Bobrovsky found his rhythm, carrying the Blue Jackets on an unlikely quest for the playoffs that fell just short on the season’s final night.

MUIR: How “Bob” rediscovered his mojo

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San Jose’s Logan Couture scored two goals and added two assists on Sunday. (Don Smith/Getty Images)

By Allan Muir

Three teams in NHL history have climbed back from a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series in seven games.

It’s a pretty good bet the Vancouver Canucks won’t be the fourth.

The Canucks changed netminders, switched up their defensive pairings and may even have even poured a tiny glass of rum for Jobu. But the same problem that led to losses in the first two games — a pronounced inability to score — was again the prime culprit in a 5-2 Game 3 defeat suffered at the hands of the San Jose Sharks.

Here are some takeaways from a lopsided Sunday night contest that has the third-seeded Canucks on the brink of elimination:

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San Jose’s Raffi Torres (top) provided a noticeable amount of toughness on the forecheck. (Derek Leung/Getty Images)

By Allan Muir

For 40 minutes Wednesday night, the San Jose Sharks and Vancouver Canucks, two ill-tempered veteran sides teetering on the edge of irrelevance, went toe-to-toe in a mean-spirited contest, with both sides looking to exact an early toll in their first-round series. The officials obliged by putting away the whistles and letting the boys play.

What a vicious thrill it was. When the pace finally, mercifully, slowed in the third, the visiting Sharks found the strength to strike twice against surprise Vancouver starter Roberto Luongo, sealing a 3-1 San Jose win.

Here are some quick takeaways from Game 1:

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Goaltender Antti Niemi and the Sharks swept the Canucks, 3-0, in the season series. (Derek Leung/Getty Images)

By Allan Muir

EAST PREVIEWS: Pens-Islanders | Canadiens-Senators | Capitals-Rangers | Bruins-Leafs

WEST PREVIEWS: Hawks-Wild | Ducks-Red Wings | Canucks-Sharks | Blues-Kings

Regular-season recaps

Jan. 27: Sharks 4, Canucks 1

March 5: Sharks 3, Canucks 2 (SO)

April 1: Sharks 3, Canucks 2

Notable injuries

Canucks: G Cory Schneider (body injury, day-to-day); LW David Booth (ankle injury, out indefinitely); D Chris Tanev (lower body, out indefinitely)

Sharks: D Jason Demers (lower body, day-to-day)

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The last time the Hawks met the Sharks, Jonathan Toews and Joe Thornton squared off. (Charles Rex Arbogast/AP)

By Allan Muir

Sharks at Blackhawks: 7:30 CST, NHL Network (US), CSN Chicago, CSN California

The set-up

The Blackhawks can lay claim to the best start in NHL history against the Sharks tonight. Their shootout win over Vancouver on Wednesday gave Chicago a point in 16 straight games and a share of the current mark set in 2006-07 by the Anaheim Ducks. They’ll face a feckless San Jose side that finally snapped a seven-game losing streak with a 2-1 win over St. Louis on Tuesday. After going unbeaten in their first seven games, the Sharks have seen their offense go cold, but they’re coming off two days of practice time that allowed them to work on the power play and at generating chances five-on-five.

This will be the third meeting between these two teams in 18 days, so familiarity may breed contempt. It’ll be worth watching to see if any hostilities carry over from their last get-together, when captains Jonathan Toews and Joe Thornton dropped the gloves.

Keys to the game

• Blackhawks: Get a lead and stomp down hard on the gas pedal. They allowed the Canucks to dictate the pace early on Wednesday, then coasted through the third period after a thoroughly dominant second, ultimately coughing up a point with sloppy play and lazy penalties as the game wore down. They can’t afford to let the Sharks circle and wait for them to let up.

• Sharks: Commit to ugly, goalmouth hockey. There’s no offensive flow on this team right now. They’ve scored two goals or less in regulation in nine of their last 10 games and the power play that propelled their hot start has just two goals to show for its last 42 chances. So forget pretty and fight off the instinct to make that one last pass. Get as many pucks on net as possible and follow them to the crease with grim purpose.

• Probable starting goalies: Ray Emery (6-0-0, 2.27 GAA, .925 save pct.) vs. Antti Niemi (7-2-3, 1.86, .933)

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By Allan Muir

Quick hits — every one of them clean — on Chicago’s 5-3 comeback win in San Jose Tuesday night:

• First, the controversy. If you haven’t seen it, take a look at the play that earned San Jose’s Andrew Desjardins a match penalty for intent to injure.

Here’s the way I see it: Chicago’s Jamal Mayers exposes himself by turning to look for the pass as he’s cutting through the middle. You gotta keep your head up in the trolley tracks. Desjardins leans in with his shoulder and makes primary contact with the shoulder of Mayers, who crumples to the ice.

So it’s not a head shot. But do his feet leave the ice prior to the hit? I don’t think so. His back foot, maybe, but it looked to me like it was in the act of taking a stride, not leaping.

A vicious hit? Definitely. But “contact with the head with intent to injure”? Not a chance. This hit was as clean as they come. So yeah, I think the officials blew the call.

Of course, I’m saying that after having seen multiple angles in repeated viewings, so it’s tough to point fingers on this one. At full speed, it was very, very close and I’m guessing that the violence of the collision and Mayers’ slow recovery led the officials to err on the side of caution.

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Oilers goalie Devan Dubnyk used to get down on himself and stay down. (Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)

By Allan Muir

Looking for an emerging theme as this abbreviated NHL season steams toward the quarter pole?

How about goaltender redemption.

Take Roberto Luongo, the Vancouver stopper who began the year with a For Sale sign draped around his neck. He put the trade talk out of his head, reconnected with his mojo and seized the starting job from Cory Schneider.

Corey Crawford, whose leaky five-hole led to the Blackhawks being dumped in the first round last spring, changed up his pregame routine and has found the consistency that eluded him for painful stretches in the past.

Antti Niemi, held up as hockey’s answer to Trent Dilfer after winning the Stanley Cup with Chicago in 2010, has bounced back from his own soft playoff performance for San Jose to lead the league’s stingiest defense in the early going.

And then there’s Edmonton’s Devan Dubnyk.

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The Blackhawks will go up against former teammate Antti Niemi, who has been stellar this season. (Tony Medina/Icon SMI)

By Allan Muir

It’s a little early to call tonight’s battle between San Jose and Chicago a playoff preview, but it’s never too soon for a gut check.

The NHL’s top two teams will face their stiffest test of the season when they meet in San Jose (7:30 PST, NHL Network in Canada, CSN in San Jose and Chicago). The Sharks and Hawks have just one regulation loss between them after 18 games, but both come into the contest on something of a slide.

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