The San Francisco 49ers just finished their season on what can be argued was either a high point or a low point. No one expected the NFC Championship Game to be played at Candlestick Park, so even though they lost you can pick your outcome – glass half empty or glass half full. The question is how did a team who couldn’t put together a winning record over the past 8 years make it that far in the playoffs, and how did they do it with basically the same players but a new head coach?

When I asked Coach Curcio who the most talented teams in the NHL were he mentioned a few teams in the East. If the Sharks aren’t the most talented team why are they consistent playoff contenders – the last two Western Conference finals not withstanding? He said talent alone doesn’t win.

‘Talent alone doesn’t win’ certainly applies to the 49ers. The 49ers are definitely a talented team but I don’t think anyone is going to accuse them of being the most talented team in the NFL. Therefore one conclusion is that the 49ers proved to be one of the top 4 teams in the NFL because of their hard work and team effort.

Here we sit at the NHL All-Star break and the Sharks sit at 13th overall against all teams. They sit first in the weakest division in hockey. Dropping out of first place in the division drops you to 7th in the West. The team is 17th on the power play, 28th on the penalty kill, and 13th in scoring. In the one category where ‘last is best’, the Sharks have played the fewest games in the NHL (47) and have, on average, 3 games ‘in hand’ against the top 8 of the teams in the Western Conference.

In other words, the team is average.

If you watch the team on any regular basis can you honestly say everyone on the team is working hard and the team as a whole is putting forth that great team effort? Is this a team that could achieve more with more work and more effort? If not then we’re in trouble, because I don’t think what we have can go deep in the playoffs – the team feels ‘shallow’ to me. I don’t know if we could outwork another top 8 team over a 7-game series.

The Sharks have key injuries. One could argue that not all of their summertime acquisitions are working out as hoped. But what happened to General Manager Doug Wilson’s statement that he wouldn’t wait until this late in the season to make moves if the team wasn’t performing up to par? Is the fact that we’re division leader despite our average performance good enough to keep moving forward with what we have? Have we ‘maxed out all our credit cards’ and just can’t afford to trade away anymore high draft picks and/or prospects to shore up the team? Have we already traded away too much?

If the playoffs are ‘the grind’ then the Sharks are about to embark on ‘the grind before the grind’. During the last 6 weeks of the season (starting mid-February) the Sharks will only have a two-day break only twice. The rest of the time it’s either every-other night or back-to-back games.

And if you’re interested in asking Coach Curcio your own questions the San Francisco Bulls are running another ‘night out with the coach’ contest. Just one favor, if you win tell him I sent you!

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For context I grew up watching the San Francisco 49ers starting back when they were 2-12 the first year after they hired Bill Walsh. For the next 17 years I watched them win 5 championships. But after recent years of futility and searching for a winner I found I sought out the San Jose Sharks.

The hardest thing about embracing hockey after years of a football-only lifestyle is adapting to the seven-game playoff format. ‘Pittpen’, a former contributor to The ‘Net, was also a football convert and echoed the same sentiment. I used to shun the best-of-seven series as a technique the ‘other’ sports used to generated revenue, that a true playoff is one where you either bring it or you go home. Pro football, college football and March Madness all use the one game format and because of such, I would argue, they generate the most fan excitement. The exception of course is the ‘Game 7’ scenario which, I again argue, is the same as just having on one game playoff.

I’m getting distracted.

The problem with converting from one game playoff to a best of seven is the emotional roller coaster. When you watch football the gratification is instant. If you win you celebrate, if you lose you begin to grieve and find closure. The thrill of victory is really high and the disappointment of losing is incredibly low. The emotional ‘swing’ spans a very wide chasm.

The first year I started watching hockey I took that emotional swing into the playoffs. It was an incredibly exhausting and frustrating experience because I would grieve as if my season was over if the Sharks lost a game, and I would be equally excited when they won. Back and forth, day in and day out. It was tough.

But after several years of San Jose Sharks playoff hockey I’ve managed to temper my emotions within the context of a seven game series. I’ve learned to enjoy the playoff atmosphere as part of the experience.

And now the 49ers are back. We’ve won just one playoff game and we’re just one win away from the Super Bowl…two wins away from a 6th Super Bowl championship. I’m not saying they’re as good as won it all, I’m just saying that I can’t wrap my head around just how close we are after just one playoff game. I now find myself UNDERESTIMATING the significance of each 49er playoff game. I even forgot that you don’t make plans on the weekends when the playoffs start. I had to listen to the 4th quarter of the 49ers game because I was driving to an event, and I’ll be in the car driving once again next Sunday because of previous plans.

Super Bowl Sunday is February 5th, I need to keep that date open if we beat the New York Football Giants…

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Believe it or not I - The Ref - won a contest to go to tomorrow’s San Jose Sharks game with the coach of the Bulls Pat Curcio! Interestingly enough he’s also the team’s President and General Manager. We’ll be out there sporting our San Francisco Bulls swag promoting the new team and I’ll be asking a ton of questions of Coach/President/GM Curcio about managing and coaching a hockey team.

One problem - Coach Curcio is friends with the coach of the Washington Capitals so for him it’s ‘Go Caps Go!’. Best way to quiet a Capitals fan is a Sharks win!

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The good news is the Sharks have played the fewest games in the NHL with 35 and have anywhere from 3 to 6 games in hand on the top 8 teams in the Western Conference.

The bad news is they make up those games in a hellacious March where the Sharks only have one 2-day break, play back-to-back nights three times and play every other day the rest of the month. Throw in the last half of February and that changes to just two 2-day breaks, play back-to-back nights four times and play every other day the rest of the time.

One story floating around last season was the Sharks were tired entering the playoffs because they had to push hard to at the end of the season to get a high seed in the playoffs. This year, seeding notwithstanding, the Sharks are probably going to be tired just by the nature of the schedule.

Right now would be a great time to pull off one of those monumental runs where the Sharks win or get points in 18 or 19 of the next 20 games as they need to be able to rest some guys entering the last third of the season. The Sharks have shown over the last 4 years that such things are not out of reach but the inconsistent play this year suggests such a feat less likely than possible.

Does anyone else think the last 6 weeks of the season combined with the extended seasons the last two years is going to take a physical toll on this team, a toll they might not be able to overcome?

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Feb. 28, Flyers at Sharks:

While the first half of the season will have plenty of major home matchups featuring prominent Western Conference teams, the Sharks will have lots of opportunities to play with the best teams in the East in the second half. One such game will be against Philly to wrap up the month of February, a game that will show a lot about how good the Sharks actually are as we head down the home stretch.

Mar. 1, Sabres at Sharks:

The Buffalo Sabres once again have one of the stronger teams in the league this year, and the Sharks will be really tested after a physical matchup with the Flyers just a couple days earlier.

Mar. 22, Bruins at Sharks:

A late-season matchup featuring the defending champion Bruins and the Sharks will be enough get Sharks fans off their couch. Can the Sharks consistently beat some of the better teams in the league?

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One of the things he addresssed was the Sharks slow start to the 2010-2011 season. After watching the Sharks struggle for two months through December it wasn’t until January that Wilson started making moves to improve the areas of the team he felt were lacking. After those moves, sometime in January and definitely after the All-Star break, the Sharks got back to their winning ways and made a strong push to the playoffs. However Wilson felt it may have been that strong push that wore down the Sharks and contributed to their running out of gas in the Conference Finals. If faced with the same situation again, where the team was struggling early, Wilson indicated he wouldn’t wait that long again to make the tough moves to improve the team.

So my questions are what is Wilson’s definition of a struggling team and how much sooner is ’sooner’? The San Jose Sharks haven’t exactly been lighting it up lately and they sit 11 points out of first place in the Western Conference. And it’s mid December. For reference the Sharks have a record of 15-10-2 with 32 points through 27 games. This time last year the Sharks were 14-9-4 with 32 points through 27 games.

Maybe Mr. Wilson is working the phones as we speak?

And has anyone given any thought to the idea that, as ‘genius’ as it is that Wilson is able to sign players like Patrick Marleau, Joe Thronton, Brent Burns and Joe Pavelski to short term deals with home town discounts, it also makes those players easier to trade? Not saying it’s going to happen, but then again look at what happened to Devin Setoguchi.

The next few weeks will be interesting. Hopefully the Sharks will go on another one of their locally infamous 15-20 game runs and propel themselves back into the top of the Western Conference. Nothing silences speculation like winning…

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The first time I heard the word ‘parity’ I hated it. For me parity was the league’s way of trying to spin the idea that mediocrity was a good thing. What?!? A little history…

I was a San Francisco 49er fanatic during the 80’s and 90’s which meant I watched my team dominate for 15 years - a true dynasty in the sports sense of the word. The team’s owner Eddie DeBartolo spent whatever it took to acquire talent and win championships. In reaction to Eddie’s spending ways the NFL instituted a salary cap – also known as ‘The Eddie DeBartolo Rule’. This meant that talent could not be hoarded and talent was distributed amongst all the teams. The NFL pitched the salary cap as a way of promoting parity. My recollection of the time was that the quality of play initially suffered. I hated ‘parity’ because it was obvious play was suffering and the salary cap meant owners were guaranteed certain revenue. I felt like I was being sold on bad play and more profits.
I now feel that what I was watching was the league adapting. Because players moved around and couldn’t be kept for years on end, many teams’ systems no longer worked. You couldn’t have an offensive and defensive system that took weeks to learn because you didn’t have that kind of time to develop a player. Eventually teams created systems where players could easily be replaced – an adaptation to the new reality. And that new reality was that offensively and defensively most teams played basically the same 2 or 3 schemes with individual twists put in here and there. The quality of play then got better and parity, which used to be a marketing spin for mediocrity, now evolved into the true reality.

Once the league matured under the new system you have more competition, tighter playoff races and faster franchise turnarounds. Take the aforementioned 49ers. In one year, this year, the team went from afterthoughts to playoff contenders. With true parity it no longer takes years to rebuild, it can happen in a season or two. Unfortunately there are some detractors from the idea of parity, and that usually comes from fans whose teams dominated under the old system (like say, myself). But in the end you build history of different champions from year to year, spreading the sports love around the league and bringing more hope to fans in every corner of the league.

When it came to the discussion on the radio this morning the question ‘do you like the style of play in today’s game’ stems from the idea that most teams run the same system. If you look at hockey it has gone through the same kind of evolution. The lock out, the salary cap, the adjustment and now parity. How else do you explain Minnesota, St. Louis, Toronto and Florida sitting in the top of their conferences after failing to make the playoffs last year? If you think about it even further the same pattern occurred in the NBA and in college football (after they limited the number of scholarships a university can offer).

When I decided to write this post my topic was going to be how San Jose Sharks went from 3rd in the Western Conference to 9th in a period of one week. The answer is parity, and it took me 500+ words to get here.

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Devin Setoguchi Returns To HP Pavillion

First let me make it perfectly clear that I’m not an overly emotional person to start and I completely understand the business of sports. I wear a sweater with my name and number on it because I know players come and players go and I’m not one to collect $100+ jerseys every year to keep up with roster.

But watching Setoguchi come out for the warm up skate definitely felt funny – nay emotional – to say the least. Over the years I’ve gone done to ice level to watch the boys warm up before the game. Mostly I do it for the kids, trying to build that connection between the players and my nephew - no other sport provides an up-close and personal experience like hockey does. I never pay too much attention to it.

But watching Setoguchi warm up last night I realized a visible difference in his routine. I could actually see something of a difference in his body language that wasn’t quite as confident and felt a little shy. Not so much with Heatley but he’s gone through this before.

So what was the crowd reaction? During the announcement of the Wild’s starting line-up Setoguchi got a big cheer and Heatley got a combination of cheers and jeers. And the final confirmation of the mood at the Shark Tank was when they continually booed Heatley whenever he had a puck during a 3rd period power play.

All I can say is this, just like I know players come and players go and that’s the business of sports – we may not have seen the last of Setoguchi in a Sharks sweater.

Dany Heatley as a Minnesota Wild

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And speaking of home I’m now experiencing some of the dynamics of being full season ticket holder. First is the ‘what could have been’ factor. When the schedule came out tonight’s hockey game conflicted with another event so I sold the tickets. And since Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin were both out at the beginning of the season I felt giving up this game was not too big of a deal. Well that event I had scheduled got cancelled and the Pittsburgh Penguins are 8-3-2 so there’s certainly a bit of ‘what could have been’ creeping into my mind.

I am however going to three of the 6 games during this home stand and it would really disappoint if they lost on the nights I went but won on the nights I don’t. I’m not trying to be a Negative Nancy here but I think it only natural that my conversion to full season ticket holder come with such thoughts. I am curious to see how it feels to go to three games in 10 days – since I live an hour away from HP Pavilion every game is like a road game for me…

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It’s not easy to watch your hockey players run into each other and pass the puck to the other team. The good news is, unfortunately, I’ve seen these guys play like this before so I know this ‘ship can be righted’. It’s just a matter of sooner rather than later.

On the upside I really like the effort of Torrey Mitchell and Tommy Wingels, however their lack of size seems to cancel out their speed and push. I also like consistent effort of Michal Handzus and I wouldn’t be surprised if he moved up a line or two.

And if Handzus did move up a line or two it might be because of the somewhat disappointing play of Ryane Clowe and Logan Couture. Clowe looks like he’s off to another slow start similar to two seasons ago, and really I didn’t expect Couture to come out and repeat his feats from last year. Clowe doesn’t seem to have is physical game and Couture seems to be one second behind.

Can someone answer me this: Is Brent Burns trying too hard or is that just his game? I like that he’s always handling the puck and taking shots – almost like he wants the puck and wants the shot – but is that ‘leadership’ or just ‘trying to impress’? I wish I could watch video of him in Minnesota.

But not to fear as the Sharks are now off on a two week 6-game trip to the east coast. I don’t know what it is but hockey players always talk about how road trips help the team come together. I don’t know if I like the idea that, despite all the skill, stats and physics, the success of a team sometimes comes down to a fraternity-like road trip. But if the team doesn’t win more games than it loses on this trip I’m curious to see just what action General Manager Doug Wilson takes. It was he that said the team would take swifter action than it did last season should the team start to fall behind.

But then again we are behind, is 4 games too soon?

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1. Full season tickets: CHECK
2. Sweaters washed: CHECK
3. 10-Pack: CHECK
4. Extra games for sale: CHECK
5. Found places to park for free near the arena: CHECK
6. Found an independent way to get to the arena on public transportation: CHECK
7. Identified all the new food vendors including ice cream locations: CHECK
8. Emotional fortitude to withstand another playoff run: WORK IN PROGRESS

From what I could see way up in the roof of the building Thomas Greiss looks really good.  He definitely has quick legs - the quickest I’ve seen of any goalie in a quite some time (he’s young and well rested but, whatever).  The defense also looks much more ’solid’ which it should given the trades made this year. Hopefully this means we’re going to ‘get’ exactly what we traded for - shut down defense when needed.  And offense looks good but is really going to require some younger guys to step up if we want the kind of depth we had last year (but that’s stating the obvious).  I feel like Jamie McGinn has to make his mark this year as he’s spent the better part of the last two years doing the Worcester shuffle, and Tommy Wingles is showing some serious speed which could be helpful.

And speaking of speed - Martin Havlat was missing again last night (he was also missing from the ‘Teal & White’ event).  I’ve been anxious to see if this guy is as fast as advertised by haven’t seen hide nor hair of him.  Injured?

It also got really chippy last night.  There were 3 fights and a pair of un-sportsman-like conduct penalties all within the last 3 minutes of the second period.  It looked like some kind of mma workout program out there last night!

I sat there during the pre-game and looked at all those ‘Pacific Division Champion’ banners and asked myself when we’re going to stop collecting just PDCs and start collecting shiny silver things.  Maybe this year!

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The autograph session is very interesting.  The arena opens at 5:00pm but people start lining up outside at 4:00pm.  Insider the arena the players are set up in groups of about 5 or 6.  When the arena opens you get a list of what players are sitting where and you can go, get in line and get an autograph.  For example I went straight for the Joe Thornton table where he, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Benn Ferriero and a few others were seated.  After getting my mini-helmet signed by Thornton and Vlasic I rushed over to the line where Dan Boyle, Jason Demers and Doug Murray were signing. Because the autographs only go until 6:10pm I got cut of just before the front of the line!  My girlfriend managed to get through the Ryane Clowe/Antti Niemi table AND the Joe Thornton table…she’s much faster than me.

Many of the players appeared shy and/or uncomfortable at the event.  I’m sure meeting fans, especially en-masse, has got to be a strange experience if you’re not used to it.  Think about it.  As a fan I watch, read and talk about the players all the time.  Over the years you get a sense that you know these guys.  When you finally meet them in person there’s this assumption on my end that we kind of know each other when really Joe Thornton has no clue who I am.  As a player you’re meeting all these people who talk to you like they know you and really, what would you say to someone like that?  It’s actually kind of creepy…in like stalker creepy.

You want to know which player seemed to be having the best time of them all?  Ryane Clowe!  He was smiling with everyone, making eye contact, engaging the fans - while right next to him Niemi just kind of nodded hello to everyone.

Then there was the scrimmage.  You get to file into the arena and sit anywhere.  First let me tell you - whoever owns Section 215, Row 16, Seats 1-3, your seats are AWESOME!  My seats are in Section 209, Row 16 - you can touch the roof of the building from up there!  Anyway we watched the game where the team was split into two squads - Teal (home) and White (away).  It’s a much more fun game to watch then I thought it would be.  I thought it would be like the All-Star game where everyone pretty much never puts their head down and contact is non-existent - wrong.  They do go at it pretty hard, especially the ‘rookies’ who are trying to make the team.

Team Teal beat Team White 5-4.  What’s interesting about that is 4 of the 5 Team Teal goals game from Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Joe Pavelski.  There’s your offense Sharks fans.

After the scrimmage you can take your skates and ice skate in the arena if you so desire, however I can’t skate so we skipped that part of the event.

I really enjoyed the event and must say the Sharks organization really does a good job of making their fans feel connected to the team.  I have yet to have a bad experience as a partial or full season ticket holder.  And Mr./Mrs. Section 215 Row 16 Seats 1-3, when my dot.com goes public I’m gunning for your seats!

Team Teal

Team White

Face-off! I love a can't lose situation

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Last year, as a result of my partial season ticket ownership, I got to purchase tickets for the first home game in Round 1, the second home game in Round 2, the third home game in Round 3 and the first home game in The Finals.  That’s a great deal because you pay face value for the tickets and you don’t have to pay Ticketmaster fees and all that other stuff they charge you.  However I ended up going to just about every playoff game I could and the tickets I got through Ticketmaster cost over twice as much as the one’s I got as a season ticket holder. It was getting really expensive!

Then when the Sharks were going to play the Detroit Red Wings in Game 7 of the Western Conference Semi-Finals we were able to get a pair of tickets from friends who are full season ticket holders.  The tickets were all the way up in the second to last row of the upper deck on the end where the Sharks attack twice.  Granted they were way up there but the pair of tickets cost less than (I think) $70.  Think about that, $70 for two tickets to a Game 7 against the Red Wings!

So it turned out that a pair of full season tickets opened up in that very same section right next to our friends who sold us those Game 7 tickets - so my girlfriend and jumped on them!  Now we’re the proud owner of full season tickets and nervous as hell about how we’re going to get to so many games during the season.  We’ve already managed to sell some of them on StubHub but we still have a lot of games to either go to, sell or give away.

But whatever money we might lose on unused tickets will definitely be made up in the money we save on playoff tickets.

Which takes me to another issue.  Now I understand why it’s so important to go deep in the playoffs.  MANY season ticket holders do so for access to playoff tickets - not all, but many.  I’m counting on the Sharks to make another deep run in the playoffs to justify my purchase of these tickets.  The reality is that it’s not exactly going to be easy to make it to at least the Western Conference Finals 3 years in a row.  But hey, you gotta have faith that this is the year!

The Sharks organization do a really great job with their season ticket holders, both partial and full.  Everyone in the organization that I’ve spoken to - my 10-pack rep, my full season rep and the group sales rep - are all really great and take good care of you.  In fact we got to attend a great season ticket holder event called ‘Teal & White’, which was supposed to be the topic of this post but I’ll save it that for tomorrow!

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Since we last spoke the San Jose Sharks were eliminated from the playoffs by the Vancouver Canucks. I won’t go into detail about everything that has transpired since then, however I will re-state that I sit in the camp where I want the team that beats MY team to lose – I want their fans to feel more pain than myself. So on that front I’m very happy about the Boston Bruins Game 7 victory, however to all my Boston/New England friends – enough with the titles already…

More recently the Sharks have made significant personnel changes, the most ‘drastic’ we’ve seen in a few years. Trading Devin Setoguchi is a tough one but I’ve always thought that the team wasn’t completely sold on him. Since the team only signed him to a one year deal before the start of last season, whilst inking multi-year deals for Joe Pavelski and Patrick Marleau, I felt like the team was sending him a message. Setoguchi’s body language during interviews gave me the impression that he was more about himself than the team and/or the fans. It’s all a moot point now since he’s now a Minnesota Wild. All I can say is that we’re fortunate that we have enough talent on the team to be able to trade an skilled player like Setoguchi and (hopefully) not take too much of a hit on offense.

And once again referring to my uneducated hockey instinct I always felt that, when being interviewed during our last playoff run, whenever Joe Thornton said that there were ‘guys who can step up and do more’ I thought one of the guys he was talking about was Dany Heatley. I’m actually not sad to see him go. Often injured and sucking down huge cap money I never thought we’d get him off our books. Well, somehow Sharks General Manager Doug Wilson managed to pull it off and relieve our books of that burden.

Speaking of burden, I think Martin Havlat must have become a burden to Minnesota because I don’t see how an even trade of Heatley for Havlat makes any sense for Minnesota unless Havlat wanted out.

With the signing of Brent Burns and Jim Vandermeer we have acquired a second defensive pairing to that of Dan Boyle and Douglas Murray. Throw in our third line of Jason Demers and Marc-Edouard Vlasic and we can actually roll defensive lines just as easily as our offensive lines. And with Antti Niemi and Antero Niittymaki in goal I like what I’m seeing on defense.

After reaching the Western Conference Finals two seasons in a row the objective opinion would be that it’s going to be tough for the Sharks to get there for a third season in a row. Having acquired full season tickets for the upcoming season, with the explicit intent being access to inexpensive playoff tickets, it’s imperative that the Sharks go deep into April, May and (hopefully) June for this investment to pay off for me. I wasn’t so sure about the prospects, but after seeing the moves Wilson has made I have renewed hope that the team will once again make a deep push into the playoffs, after all we still haven’t really won but half the games it takes to win the Stanley Cup despite being in the conference finals two seasons in a row.

Two and a half months until the pre-season starts!

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On a bleaker note the Sharks Nation is down to its last loss of the season. Sports lore is filled with stories of overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles, heroic comebacks of epic proportions and the ever-popular tale of David slaying Goliath. For the San Jose Sharks, however, such tales have yet to be written. Will this be the year? At least now the future of the season is crystal clear. Lose and go home.

On another note I’m curious what you folks think. Is it possible that, despite whatever happens this year, the Sharks are capable of getting to the Western Conference Finals again next year? To do so would make it three years in a row and I’m not sure how often that happens in hockey in general let alone have it happen to the Sharks.

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It took me many years before I not only understood but accepted that I’m a glass half-empty kind of guy. But the good news is that I’ve been trying for a while now to turn that around. I wouldn’t say I’m a glass half-full kind of guy but I think I’m more of a ‘it-is-neither-empty-nor-full’ kind of guy. Progress right?

When the Sharks failed to close out the Detroit Red Wings in 6 games a sense of calm came over me. It was kind of creepy actually. At that time I figured that calm feeling was because I was in familiar territory. I can deal with a Game 7. I know how to cope with ‘win or go home’ games – I grew up an NFL fan and that’s how they roll in the playoffs. But in the back of my head I had another thought.

They say at this level (the NHL), and especially at this time of year, there’s very little that separates one team from another. I buy that. So when the Sharks had to play that one extra game to get past the Red Wings I thought it was the end for more than just the semi-finals. It was like that last piece of candy in Monty Python. Now after going down 2 games to the Canucks it’s easy to come out and say such a thing, but really back when I felt it I tried to put on my ‘neither-half-empty-nor-half-full’ hat and attribute my gut feeling to my “Negative Nancy” tendencies. Unfortunately another one of my character traits is an absolute love for being right, and if the Sharks collapse against the Canucks at least I’ll have been right – which is just so wrong.

The Sharks have to win 4 out of the next 5 games if they want to move on to the Stanley Cup Finals. Such is a task that isn’t completely out of the realm of possibilities but it is most likely outside the realm of probability. Why oh why does this keep happening to us? It’s not so much that it keeps happening but it’s all the other hockey fans who keep pointing their collective fingers at us, laughing as they scream “See! You guys just can’t get it done in the playoffs!” I’ve never wanted to ‘silence the critics’ so much in my life. I’ve also never wanted to be so wrong…

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I was listening to NHL Home Ice this morning and the words ‘emotionally fragile’ and ‘choke’ were words still being thrown around about the Sharks. If you believe what you hear the Sharks avoided choking by winning Game 7 against the Detroit Red Wings and they showed how they’re emotionally fragile losing 3-in-a-row against said Red Wings.

But at the same time they keep praising the Detroit Red Wings for their repeated ability to win in situations where others would fold because, as they like to say - they ARE the Detroit Red Wings.

Those two things can’t exist at the same time - it’s like matter and anti-matter. If the Sharks almost choked away their series because they’re emotionally fragile, then you can’t talk about the Red Wings being a juggernaut. It makes no sense to me to praise the Red Wings for pushing to Game 7 while simultaneously blaming the Sharks for giving them a Game 7. I think most Sharks fans know this team is not the same team even compared to last year. Hopefully the talk of ‘fragility’ and ‘chokeability’ will be motivating!

Rally towel from Game 7 San Jose Sharks vs Detroit Red Wings

San Jose Sharks - Detroit Red Wings Game 7 Handshake

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I was lucky – not only was I there but the game was an ‘easy’ one to watch. Of the previous 6 games, 4 of them were won by one goal and the other two were two goal games.

I’m lucky again – I get to go back for the second home playoff Game 7 in San Jose Sharks history. Thing is I don’t feel very lucky right now. In fact I’ve been feeling like a complete basket case for the last 5 days. Pittpen and I used to have this common phenomenon of not being able to handle 7-game series’ very well. We both started out as football fans and in the NFL, it’s win or go home. Although you do have an emotional swing, it’s not the roller coaster you get in hockey. The transition can sometimes be very difficult.

Maybe that’s why I’m feeling better about tonight’s game than I did about Games 4, 5 and 6. It’s not that I have any better sense about the Sharks’ ability to beat the Red Wings, but since it is Game 7 it is a ‘win or go home’ game. I know that after tonight, no matter what the outcome, it’ll be an emotionally familiar place.

The national news has been putting it out there that, at the end of the day, a Game 7 between these two teams is exactly what you would have predicted at the on-set. And if it’s reasonable to accept that the Sharks could win 3 in a row against the Red Wings it is also reasonable to accept that the Red Wings could win 3 in a row against the Sharks. I asked Canucklehead how he handled his Game 7 against the Chicago Blackhawks after his Vancouver Canucks also squandered a 3-games-to-none lead.

“I know how you feel watching you team give up a lead it’s very frustrating. I think the Sharks are the better team this season but from a playoff perspective the Wings have more experience.”

Agreed, but if you look over the last 3 years the Sharks and Red Wings have had about the same amount of playoff experience.

I expect a close game again. The Red Wings strategy seems to be to keep the game close then, when the Sharks are tired and have played themselves out – strike and strike fast. In order to win I think the Sharks will need a 3 or 4 goal lead going into the 3rd period, and I expect the Red Wings to put up at least 2 in the final 10 minutes of the game. Hopefully being on the road the late start by Central Time standards will take just enough out of the Red Wings to give the Sharks the advantage in the final 5 minutes of the game, but then again these are the Red Wings and they ‘will not stop ever until you are’ done.

For context - it was Monday May 7, 2007. It was Round 2, Game 6 against the Detroit Red Wings. Detroit won 2-0 and won the series 4 games to 2. I took my then 9-year old nephew to the game because I knew if the Sharks lost at least I’d have his ‘I’m just happy to be here’ attitude to help even out my feelings. Tonight I’ll be taking my girlfriend who texted me after Game 6 ‘I may retire after this. This fanship business is emotionally taxing. I’ve become too emotionally attached.’ I don’t think she’ll have the same ‘just happy to be here’ attitude as my nephew.

GO SHARKS!!!!!!!

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I was listening to the first periods of the game on the radio. On the radio broadcast they interviewed two hockey reporters during each intermission. The first intermission was a reporter from Ottawa reporting for a Canadian print news network. The second intermission was Pierre LeBrun from ESPN. Both of them, separate from each other, said that this series is the one everyone wanted to see. Pierre LeBrun said he felt the winner of this series will be the head-on favorite to win The Cup because, as he put it, ‘…the East is really weak’.

Some things my un-educated eyes have noticed. Has Marc-Edouard Vlassic turned into a ‘punchy’ force of a defenseman since the playoffs started?! I don’t think I’ve ever seen him play quite as aggressively as he has since The Grind started. Am I the only one who is eternally grateful for the change in goal tender? Doesn’t it seem like we don’t have 3 lines of forward, but more like 3 waves that have to be defended with equal vigor and vigilance? LeBrun pointed out if your third line is centered by Joe Pavelski you’ve got a lot of depth - a LOT of depth. And am I noticing and incredible dedication to team defense?

It’s good to be a Sharks fan right now. They mentioned on the radio that Red Wings Coach Mike Babcock said if you go down 3-0 in the playoffs you’re done (eluding to that after going up 3-0 against Phoenix), so hopefully he’s right. If the Sharks win on Friday I’ll be happy about moving on and the team getting some rest. If they lose I’ll be happy cause we’re planning to go to the game on Sunday. I love no-lose situations…

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The Detroit Red Wings fall into Bucket 2 (note: I use the word ‘hate’ in the sports definition of the word, it’s not like I wish their entire team would get hit by a bus).
The Chicago Blackhawks also fall into Bucket 2.

However when they were playing the Vancouver Canucks the Blackhawks moved from Bucket 2 to Bucket 3. Somewhat conversely the Vancouver Canucks, who usually reside in Bucket 4, moved to Bucket 2. In my world teams can move from bucket to bucket and they can do so almost on a daily basis. Nothing would bring me more joy that to make it to the Finals after going through Chicago and Detroit (if, for nothing else, but the street cred). The caveat was I wanted that journey to be in that exact order. I felt that being swept by the Blackhawks last season would be a great motivator for the Sharks this year. I also felt that all those hockey axioms – ‘having to shake off the rust after several days between games’ and ‘losing that rhythm’ – do NOT apply to the Red Wings. Those were my emotional reasons for moving the Blackhawks from Bucket 2 to Bucket 3. My pragmatic reason was if the Blackhawks beat the Canucks the Sharks would move up to top seed in the West.

You know yesterday was a great day. I was a better employee, the sun was shinier, my car got better gas mileage – all because the stress was finally off and we were simply sitting around waiting to see who the Sharks would play next.

Then we found out we get the Red Wings.

Today the sun isn’t as shiny and I want to buy a new car (I’ll keep my job though).

I suppose if you’re going to be in the Western Conference the road to the promised land will almost always go through Detroit, kind of like the road to the Super Bowl always ran through Candlestick Park. Hopefully in Detroit they’re thinking the same thing – the road to the promised land runs through San Jose. I doubt that’s what they’re thinking.

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I knew going into the first round of the playoffs that I would not be able to watch Game 3 and Game 4 between the San Jose Sharks and the Los Angeles Kings. I have commitments on Tuesday nights and Thursday I’ll be travelling. As such I got tickets to both Game 1 and Game 2 and went from overtime hysteria (Game 1) to shut out Armageddon (Game 2). Since everyone on Planet Hockey (and many from the distant World of Sports) already knows what happened in Game 3 let me recap how things went for me.

I was at an event from 7:30 so the only access I had to the game was to check scores on my phone. At about 7:45 my app hadn’t even updated to show that the game had started.

At 7:50 I get a text message from my Los Angeles friend.

torturedkingsfan: ‘Uh oh’

‘What?!?’ I replied.

torturedkingsfan: ‘2-0 in 2 minutes’

I checked my phone and saw that the Kings were indeed up two goals before everyone at Staples Center could get to their seats. At this point I have that old ‘What have you (the San Jose Sharks) done for me in the playoffs lately?’ feeling. We’ve given up 6 unanswered goals in 4 periods of hockey.

I reply: ‘Congratulations, you’ve just won Lord Stanley’s Cup’

About a half an hour later:

torturedkingsfan: ‘3-0’

Me: ‘I’m looking for a blow torch to burn my season tickets’

At this point I’ve decided the Sharks being bounced in the first round isn’t so bad – the money I would have spent on playoff tickets can go to better uses…like an iPad 2.

torturedkingsfan: ‘4-0 Bye-bye Niemi’

Later that evening:

torturedkingsfan: ‘Okay so it’s a game now 4-1’

Later I check my phone and see that the score is 4-2.

I walk across the street to my car and it’s now 5-3.

Two blocks from my house I’m listening to the radio and hear the Sharks score to make it 5-4.

I pull into my driveway and hear the Sharks score another one making it 5-5.

Radio silence from torturedkingsfan.

After that I was in front of the TV for the 3^rd period and overtime and – well – everyone knows what happened next.

At 7:50PM I was ready to dump my season ticket plans for next year and ponder what it will be like to watch years of .500 hockey after the Sharks dismantle the club following another playoff failure. At 10:50 I’m trying to figure out how I can ensure securing seats to all home games to the Stanley Cup Finals.

This victory may be the piece the Sharks had been missing to get them ‘over the hump’. First it was get guys who’ve been there and won it all before. Did that. Then it was get that shot from the blue line. Got that (although it has since left). Then it was get gritty. Did that too. Maybe, finally, we have that ‘never give up – remember Game 3’ piece, that playoff experience (‘experience’ as in ‘event’) needed to remove all doubt from the Sharks’ collective being.

Finally on NHL Home Ice an L.A. blogger was pointing out that the Kings’ fans frustration hinges on the fact that this series could easily be 3-0. That’s VERY true. But having been on the short side of that conversation many times the explanation had always been ‘that’s the difference between a very good hockey team and a championship caliber hockey team’. It’s finally…FINALLY…nice to be on the ‘championship’ (metaphor) side of that argument.

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Joe Pavelski (Getty Images)

Tonight will be the last non-Pacific Division opponent for the San Jose Sharks. After the game with the Calgary Flames the Sharks have 8 games against divisional opponents: 2 games against the Los Angeles Kings, 3 games against the Phoenix Coyotes, 1 game against the Dallas Stars (Elbowgate 2), and 2 games against the Anaheim Ducks.

One thing I tried to calculate was the minimum number of Sharks wins against which opponent needed to guarantee another Pacific Division banner. I found that - since everyone in the Pacific is playing everyone else - it’s pretty much impossible to calculate. However because I need to keep things very Rain Man-like I’ve decided that, at a minimum, the Sharks need to accomplish the following:

1. Beat Calgary tonight (not just for the points but because I’ll be at the game and it’s been a while since I’ve been in the building when they’ve won).
2. Beat each divisional opponent once.
3. Beat Phoenix one additional time.

That would give the Sharks a 6-3 record to wind out the season and SHOULD give them the Pacific crown. And if anything I think the Sharks should concede the Western Conference second seed to the Detroit Red Wings because they have at least 4 of their remaining 9 games against teams that are pretty much out of the playoffs, whereas the Sharks are playing teams that are not only in the hunt for a playoff spot but competing with each other for said spots.

I want all 5 Pacific Division teams in the playoffs. First it a matter of the ‘devil you know’ versus the ‘devil you don’t know’, and the travel is easier. My friend torturedkingsfan wants the entire Pacific in the playoffs…except the Ducks. Any other opinions?

NOTES: Scott Nichol might be back tonight, and Logan Couture’s injury is apparently not as bad as it looked. Joe Pavelski was the NHL’s ‘First Star of the Week’ for last week’s 8 assist, 3 goal output.

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First let me make one thing clear, I don’t really care about winning or losing in a shoot out. I do care about the points but I’m more interested in how the team plays during the actual game than their performance in the skills competition. Last night was one of the best regular season games I’ve seen (in person) since the San Jose Sharks played the Detroit Red Wings in January of 2009.

My seats were smack dab in the middle of the Vancouver Canucks section, about 1/5 of our section were Vancouver fans. But the banter back and forth was actually fun and entertaining. And I hate to say this (rockandrollnobody), but Red Wing fans are SO obnoxious and seem to start more trouble than any other visiting fan, whereas the Canucks fans seemed to just want to have fun with the whole situation. You can imagine what the last three minutes of regulation were like - given the 3 back-and-forth goals scored within that time period.

And when watching the replay of Torrey Mitchell’s game-tying goal, the one where he skated through 4 Canucks on his way to the goalie, I was reminded of unrulytravllr’s love for Mr. Mitchell, and how eerily skillful that shot was to this one:

And finally, to everyone who turned me down when I called to see if they wanted to go to the game with me - Son of OT, Tbuddha, Eman - was the game just as awesomely epic on TV as it was to be there? I think NOT!

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Whatever the case the Sharks have won 9 out of their last 10 games. What irritates me about that is the only loss, Saturday to the Dallas Stars, was the game I went to. So Tuesday I went out and got tickets to tonight’s game with the explicit hopes of 1) watching the Sharks win and 2) watching a the Sharks win during one of those epic games. But at the end of it all, it is more about the two points separating the 3rd place Sharks and the 2nd place Detroit Red Wings than it is about closing that 11 point gap.

I really want to see a winner tonight - it’s been a while…

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But that’s besides the point.

The real point here is that the Sharks have an opportunity to close the gap and make a serious run at second place in the Western Conference, a feat seen as almost impossible just 2 months ago in the NHL Betting. Just 4 points separate the Sharks and the Red Wings, and if anything I would expect tomorrow night’s game to be a high scoring affair. My reason?

Average Goals For:
San Jose - 2.8 (14th)
Detroit - 3.3 (1st)

Shots On Goal:
San Jose - 34 (1st)
Detroit - 33 (2nd)

Power Play Percentage:
San Jose - 22% (3rd)
Detroit - 21% (5th)

Penalty Kill Percentage:
San Jose - 81.6% (18th)
Detroit - 81.7% (16th)

With 18 games left and 36 points up for grabs is it possible the Sharks can still go after the top seed? The Vancouver Canucks are 9 points ahead and the Sharks would have to put up at least a 12-7 record while the red hot Canucks would have to start slumping and finish out with a record somewhere around 7-12. I think I’d prefer the Sharks make a strong push to hold down the second seed and not so much that they spend all their energy trying to catch Vancouver. I’d hate to see the Sharks burn up all their energy to make top seed then run out of gas during the playoffs. Holding on to second place should keep them on their toes mentally without all the burnout that a run at the top might incur.

But first things first, I’d love the Sharks to defend home ice tomorrow night - but does that mean I need to stay away from Red Wings games?

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But then Dan Rusinowski saved the day. Sometime around November or December Rusinowski, the San Jose Sharks radio ‘color’ personality, said that Niemi was by far the hardest worker during practice. When I heard that I decided to just sit before I started ranting.

Two months later it looks like all that hard work in practice is paying off. And today the Sharks proved once again why they’re the best run sports franchise in the San Francisco Bay Area and one of the best managed teams in the NHL. The Sharks signed Niemi to a 4-year, $15.2 million dollar contract. I don’t know about you but I feel like we’re getting a much better goalie at $3.8 million a year than we had with Nabokov at $6+ million per year. So ‘Wooooooo hoooooo!’

Sharks General Manager Doug Wilson has never been shy about saying he’s trying to build a franchise that wins multiple championships. Over the last few years I started to wonder if we blew our window and, with aging stars like Thronton and Marleau, just how we planned to sustain things going forward. The signing of Joe Pavelski, the rise of Logan Couture and the contract to Niemi give insight on what that future will look like. And if you’re wondering what the future holds for the Sharks this season, there’s an interesting article over at The Bleacher Report on why it’s possible, just possible, that this is the year the San Jose Sharks win the Stanley Cup.

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The streak is/was/will be (depending upon what happens next) winning 14 out of 17 games and taking 29 out of a possible 34 points. They have now taken over the lead in the Pacific Division and are now within striking distance of the Western Conference lead. Now granted history dictates that these ‘Shark Attacks’ usually go 20+ games this one, at just 17 games, couldn’t have come at a better time. This one is even better (I dare say) than the 18 out of 20 streak to end the 2007-2008 season propelling them into the playoffs.

Every season has a story and this season is no different. This season is shaping up to be the year where the Sharks can go from zero to hero if they keep up their ‘assault’ and get the job done in the playoffs. I know there’s a lot of hockey left and I’m not making any conclusions, it’s just that a month ago we were wondering if this team could beat Northern Idaho State* let alone make the playoffs. Were Doug Wilson’s trades the right elixir at the right time? Will we ever know what went on in the locker room to get the boys to get it together? However the story finishes I’m just beside myself that I missed Devin Setoguchi’s hat trick, the second win against the Washington Capitals, the back-and-forth game against the Detroit Red Wings and the overtime win against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Memo to self - under no circumstance shall I travel out of the country for work between the months of September through May…

*I made up ‘Northern Idaho State’ to make a point but if you do exist - my apologies, I didn’t mean to insult your hockey program!

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So then I thought - do I know what I’m talking about?  On one hand a blog is not supposed to be a news source but a place to voice an opinion, and therefore factual knowledge of anything is not a requirement.  On another hand if the blogger offers his or her opinion as expertise then the criticism is valid.

The whole point of this blog was not to offer opinion based on any hockey expertise but offer opinion from the perspective of a hockey fanatic.  However the process of blogging is far more difficult than one would image especially if you’re someone who is trying to publish a diverse range of opinion.  In my quest for new topics to write about I find myself trying to analyze the on-ice nuances of a sport that 1) I have never myself played and 2) only became a serious fan less than 10 years ago.

Since I started watching the San Jose Sharks the goalie had always been Evgeni Nabokov.  What I learned in the early days, at least in our temperate sports climate, is that absent any gross misconduct you don’t touch the goalie, either physically during a game or emotionally in the media.  At the end of his tenure with the Sharks there were ’soft’ conversations about how he seemed to be letting us down as our primary netminder.

Anyway - the only prespective I had on how a goalie should perform was Nabokov.  Now that he’s gone and I have had a chance to watch Antii Niemi work the pipes day in and day out I feel like I have some new perspective on what a goaltender should look like.

And so I don’t sound like one of those bloggers who don’t know what they’re talking about, I’m going to say that these are the things I THINK and not the things I KNOW.

First I always felt that stopping a hockey puck has as much to do with luck as with skill.  I find it hard to believe that you can stop something that small moving that fast with that many people in front of you based on cat-like reflexes.  I still think that’s true but from watching Niemi that ‘luck’ is actually positioning, and Niemi seems to put himself in better position faster and more often that Nabokov did at the end if his Sharkdom.  I have also come to appreciate what appears to be great leg work and lower body conditioning.  Nabokov quite often looked like a fish flopping around on the ice during a scramble, whereas Niemi seems to be in as much control of his body when he’s down on the ice as when he’s standing on it.

The final test will be watching Niemi in the playoffs, assuming we get there.  Near the end it seemed like Nabokov couldn’t come up with the big save when the Sharks needed it, and my hope is that Niemi is a guy who can.

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While winning 9 out of their last 10, and grabbing 19 of 20 available points in the process, the Sharks have been able to take advantage of parity (read: mediocrity?) in the Western Conference and ride out what is/was their worst start in half a decade. It’s not the end of the road by any means, only six points separate the Sharks from 11th place in the West, but at least the boys have shown some moxie, coming back from multi-goal deficits instead of blowing multi-goal leads.

And the additions of Ben Eager and Kyle Wellwood continue, in my uneducated opinion, to pay huge dividends. It just FEELS better to have some veteran skaters supporting the lower lines and their hard work does not go unnoticed.

The continuing injury to Antero Niittymaki is of some concern, he’s probably the best backup the Sharks have had in a long time and hopefully the Sharks are just being extremely cautious with his return rather than it being a case of a severe injury.

I’ll be out of the country for the next 10 days so my access to games will be limited. I’m going to have to work it out the way ‘unrulytraveller’ does, the road games will start for me at 5:30 in the morning, home games around 9:00 in the morning.

By the way, do any of you know of a PicApp alternative? We’re looking for another free source of relevant, royalty free images.

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With playoff seeding on the line, if not a playoff position entirely, this road trip may not have come at a worse time. History is no help as the Sharks have a record of 4-2, 1-4 and 4-3 over this stretch during the last three seasons respectively.

Canucklehead posted a theory that Mike Gillis may have jinxed his team during an interview. Similarly, I would like to suggest that the acquisitions of Ben Eager and Kyle Wellwood may have un-jinxed the Sharks. The Sharks are 3-1 since the acquisitions and I don’t know about you but it feels a lot better seeing tried-and-true names out there on the ice instead of the ‘Best of the Worcester Sharks’. Personally I can’t wait until Scott Nichol is back, it’s going to be very interesting to see Nichol and Eager take turns sanding down the opposition.

With 31 games left in the season we have 3 more games with the Dallas Stars and 3 more games with the Anaheim Ducks. Regaining control of the Pacific Division appears as a real possibility, but I’m not so sure about closing the 15 point gap and jumping over the 7 teams needed to take over the West.

But if we acquire just the right defenseman…..

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Such is the State of the San Jose Sharks. The team, which statistically is having it’s worst season in 6 years, started to finally show some signs of life over their last 5 games. The additions of Ben Eager and Kyle Wellwood seems to have added a little energy to the team. Scott Nichol returns after his 4 game suspension. Antii Niemi seems to have elevated his game back to where it was when he shut us down last year.

Given the nature of the Western Conference standings it looks like if a few teams get hot they cold lock up the 4-6 spots. That would lead to a mad dash for the final playoff spots. Hopefully the Sharks will begin one of their notorious hot streaks and be one of those teams locking down a higher seeded playoff spot. Sooner would, of course, be better than later, but the team is about to embark on their annual 2-week road trip to accommodate the SAP Open at The Tank and it’ll either be a case of road ‘team bonding’ or road ‘team exhaustion’.

And then there’s the trade deadline. I REALLY hate last minute trades. It seems like any player picked up at the deadline either feels too much like a rental player to get invested in their new team or it’s just not enough time to get into sync with his new teammates. In either case history would dictate that none of the Sharks’ trade deadline acquisitions made much of a contribution in the playoffs. I would rather see an ‘solid’ acquisition now than a ‘blockbuster’ acquisition at the deadline.

It’s the push to the playoffs….

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Then upon further pondering I though the acquisitions are also a sign of discontent with the talent in Worcester. It’s no secret that the Sharks, a traditionally good team at drafting and developing talent, has run very thin ‘at the farm’ over the last few years - trading away a lot of high draft picks to make a run at it now. Are the likes of Jamie McGinn, Benn Ferriero, Frazer McLaren and Bradon Mashinter - apparently the best Worcester has to offer - not good enough (just yet) to be playing regularly at the NHL level?

Tonight the Sharks play the Vancouver Canucks - a really BIG test to see if the Sharks have really begun to pull it all together after slogging through a really bad losing trend. A win would be nice, but if anything can we try not to give up the first goal, get shut out and/or blow another 3rd period lead. To quote Al Davis - ‘just win baby!’.

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Because a friend was able to give me discounted tickets last night, I was able to see the ineptitude of the Sharks firsthand. With the exception of Clowe and Nichol, it was hard to see any sense of urgency, especially with our top line skating 5 on 5. Some days we blame the goaltending, others the scorers and still others the D-men. Last night, you could have blamed all three.

A very angry Todd McLellan said after the game, “Maybe some guys need to watch a few games.” Gee you think Todd? What took you so long to notice?

One has to be Wallin. What the hell, he looks drunk out there. Another in Heatly, he should be use to the treatment since this is what happened to him in Ottawa. Because many of our stars have no-trade clauses, they will be hard to move. This however should not keep McLellan on benching a few guys.

I still don’t know why we don’t recall Cheechoo, he is only leading the Worcester Sharks in goals, assists and points. Give a call to Owen Nolan (ala the Ducks with Teemu) to play half the year. Sit Wallin and play Joslin.

I hate to say it boys, but if we don’t make the play-offs, it’s time to blow up the team. And that includes the GM and coach.

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So when the Sharks do make the ‘national’ news it stands out to me as being news worth in and of itself. Well the prognosis is not good. ESPN.com has a small piece on which ‘good’ West team is going to miss the playoffs. The prediction is that the Sharks, Chicago Blackhawks and Los Angeles Kings, either one or all, will miss the playoffs.

In order for the Sharks to make any kind of honorable mention on a forum like that is if they do something exceptional. In this case the apparently are doing something exceptionally bad.

We figured the Blackhawks would have a significant fall off given the shedding of talent required by them to manage the salary cap. And the Kings were predicted to be good but were not really ‘game tested’. But the Sharks, comparing what we lost (Rob Blake, Manny Malholtra, Evgeni Nabokov) to what we gained (Antti Niemi, Antero Niittymaki, The Rise of Logan Couture) we should absolutely not be sitting near the bottom of the Western Conference. The only good news, and I seriously mean ‘only’, is that the parity in the West is so great that we’re still just a few points out of a playoff spot.

But even if we were in the playoffs, would you give this team a chance in heck to get past the Vancouver Canucks or the Detroit Red Wings? Forget them, how about the Dallas Stars or Nashville Predators?

Does anyone out there have any reasonable explanation for what has happened to this team? It really baffles me, and I hate it when I don’t understand something.

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However, in homage to chaos theory, I suppose there are some patterns being spotted within the disorderly conduct of the team. Let’s review:

Logan Couture. I’m as high on him as everyone else but I don’t think his presence is going to help us in the playoffs as much as he might help us get to the playoffs (assuming we do get there). He’s going to hit that rookie wall around Game 50 (which, by the way, is sometime this month), so I would expect his productivity and effectiveness to drop off very soon. On the other hand if he is able to continue his run for the rest of the season and into the playoffs (again, assuming we get there) then the excitement for me would be more around the idea that he’s ‘the real deal’ as opposed to a rookie blip on the hockey radar.

Goaltending. I’m still not sure how hard it is to adapt to a new goaltender. Unless your goaltender is an exceptional puck handler (which our guys are not), all you have to do is two things. One, take away the pass on the odd-man rush and two, clear away the traffic in the crease. Then again I’m no hockey expert but at the end of the day those seem like the fundamentals – and it’s the fundamentals that seem to sometimes be the problem.

Too Much Thinking. Just pass the puck – sometimes it looks like the Sharks are thinking so much they become paralyzed with indecision. The third period of yesterday’s game against the Buffalo Sabres was an example of how the Sharks CAN play when they just move the puck instead of thinking themselves to death. More I say.

The Captain. I never thought being team captain would make that big of a difference. But if it does, what does the team’s play say about Captain Joe Thornton?

I suppose my indifference towards hockey right now is based not just on the schizophrenic play of the team but also the result of external circumstances. Watching the San Francisco Giants win the World Series was a living, close-to-home example of a team clicking on all cylinders – adding to my disdain over the Sharks’ current state of play. Watching the San Francisco 49ers make big changes in management and coaching are examples of ‘real’ change (verdict of moves not withstanding) versus the incremental changes the Sharks made this past summer.

But all in all the Sharks are still in the thick of things and we still have half a season left. And since in seasons past the Sharks have started the season strong yet ‘slid’ into the playoffs, maybe they’ll do the opposite this season, uncomfortable is it is.

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At this point I’m pretty sure there’s no amount of rhetoric that can get this team out if it’s psychotic funk. The time is for action. I’ve been saying for a few days now that someone needs to get traded. We already expected General Manager Doug Wilson to make some kind of move to get a Top 4 defenseman, so why not combine that with a trade to get people worried about their jobs? And since any team willing to trade away a quality defenseman probably needs offense, it looks like we’d have to trade a forward to get said D-Man. But which forward would we trade? We’d have to trade someone of a high enough quality to make parting with a Top 4 defenseman worth while.

I pondered this for a while but really couldn’t come up with anything that makes sense. You’re most likely not going to trade one of the Top 3 (Dany Heatley, Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton), and the Second 3 are the only one’s producing at this time (Ryan Clowe, Logan Couture). Then I read this ‘Trade Bait’ article on espn.com. They suggest Devin Setoguchi.

I’ve been suspicious of Setoguchi’s production for a while now, and when Wilson didn’t extend a longer term deal to Setoguchi during the summer I assumed that the team also has some doubts about Setoguchi’s long term prospects. I feel like Setoguchi is suffering from Cheechoo-itis. So when it comes to considering a trade I felt that Setoguchi’s lackluster 2009 through 2010 made him a lesser asset to trade for a Top 4 defenseman. But according to ESPN there might be some teams anxious to get their hands on him. Good.

Salary considerations aside, how about packaging Devin Setoguchi and Torrey Mitchell for say Joni Pitkanen or Tomas Kaberle? Or I guess the question is, which defenseman would you want to see in teal before the All-Star game?

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The same can probably be said for last night’s Sharks comeback against the Flyers. If you didn’t see the game I suggest you scour the interwebs for a replay. I’m not going to go over the game too much except to say the only thing better than scoring 3 unanswered goals to tie the game was the one-tenth of a second replay to show that the Sharks had NOT lost the game at the end of overtime.

They say it’s better to be lucky than good. Last night showed two things. The Sharks are capable of being VERY good, and they’re also awful lucky.

Philadelphia Flyers Mike Richards' potential game winning goal against the San Jose Sharks was waved off after a reply showed time expired.

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Diving for pucks was the order of the day.

I have 10 minutes to compose this post so let’s get cracking. I remember very clearly a comment made on NHL Home Ice LAST year that the San Jose Sharks - in their attempts to build a championship team - had traded away many of their first round draft picks. The Sharks’ farm system, which traditionally had been very well stocked, was now very thin. Mind you this comment was made last year BEFORE they went on their playoff run. This year the comment by my friend (not so) torturedkingsfan was ‘yeah, you guys don’t have much in your system.’

There were two defensive starters scratched for last nights’ game against the Detroit Red Wings - Niclas Wallin and Kent Huskins. Not all are convinced that those two guys are exactly impact players, if anything they’re veteran defensemen who use their experience to overcome their physical shortcomings. But when both of those guys - probably the 4th and 5th guys on the defensive depth chart - are out, and you replace them with a few of your best defensemen from your farm system, one would HOPE that the defensive drop off would be minimal.

Not so.

Again - I’m still not savvy enough to know what to look for in ‘good’ hockey, but the defensive breakdowns were SO obvious even I could spot them. And it’s not necessarily team defense, the kids from Worcester made individual mistakes so big they could be seen from all they way up in Section 211 Row 11 - from the other side of the ice.

It looks like the drop off is so significant that the Sharks are playing by the skin of their teeth. Not that all is lost, the gap between us and the lead in the Pacific is just 3 points, and the gap for the lead in the Western Conference is just 8, but if the Sharks don’t start looking at making some trades and/or start figuring out how to improve as a team that gap will very quickly become gappier and we’ll find ourselves outside looking farther inside.

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Back then life was much simpler. I used to go to games with my then 10-year old nephew. I’d get us tickets, we’d go to The Tank in our sweaters, we’d get our chicken nuggets, we’d watch the team warm up. He’d watch the game on the big screen (Me: “Can you follow the game?” Him: “I watch the TV!”), he’d do all the chants and rallies, and we’d go home happy - win or lose.

It is from this perspective that I rallied against Ray Ratto’s column. For me it was all about that experience. Certainly the goal is for my nephew and me to be in the building when the Sharks hoist the cup, but otherwise it really is - as it should be - about the experience like I just described.

Things have changed. I am a partial season ticket holder and have tickets to 20+ games this season. We had a group of 8 at the home opener. I need a spreadsheet to help me keep track of who’s going to which games. I think I was at all but one home playoff game last year. My mother now has more Sharks swag than me and my nephew combined. My girlfriend updates me about the latest Sharks news. It’s bananas. I have tickets to tonight’s Detroit Red Wings game. And now I’m sitting here all uppity and bothered because the Sharks are currently not even a playoff team. I’ve been so stressed out about the apparent decline in the team that I can’t even get myself to listen to NHL Home Ice.

Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it?! I know that I have nothing to complain about. I know I’m incredibly fortunate to be able to participate in the Sharks season to the extent that I do. But as with most things I get carried away and forget how I got here in the first place.

Tonight it’s just about the Red Wings - nothing more and nothing less. The best games this year will be the one’s I go to with my nephew. And if we just barely make it into the playoffs, well the San Francisco Giants made it in on the last day of regular season…

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The defense has been unable to hold a lead and the offense has been shut out.  It’s (US) Thanksgiving and we’re reaching a turning point.  Some theories say the team is getting used to trusting not just one new goal tender but two.  I’m not sure if I buy that theory because if it were true I’m sure head coach Todd McClellan would have settled in on one goalie a long time ago.  This would give the team the best chance to get used to that new goal tender.

Another theory is the new contracts.  I don’t play fantasy hockey but NHL Home Ice actually has shows focusing on the subject (mostly during the summer when it’s one slow hockey news day followed by another).  One of the host’s tenets is that he stays away from players that sign new contracts.   The Sharks signed Patrick Marleau and Joe Pavelski.  Given the character of these two players I absolutely don’t think they are suffering from any serious ‘contract hangovers’ (See Ilya Kovalchuk for the extreme example).  But given the parity in the NHL any loss of even the slightest edge could mean ‘the difference’, and since these guys are team leaders perhaps the dulling of said edge is rubbing off on the rest of the team.

I have tickets to the Detroit Red Wings on November 30th and the Chicago Blackhawks on the December 11th.  If the team cannot find a way to beat both of these opponents -at home no less - then I fear the worse.  It’s only a matter of time before that 6 point gap starts to grow along side the impatience of The Sharks Nation.

Otherwise I’ll be spending my Thanksgiving in Minnesota.  This is my first time (ever) spending the holiday in a place where you can actually play pond hockey.  If I’m lucky I’ll get to see some kind of junior or college hockey, or better yet some outdoor hockey.  Too bad I don’t know how to skate.

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The San Jose Sharks have quietly climbed to 6th in the Western Conference and are within 4 points of the lead. Due to unusual but fortunate circumstances I was at The Tank for 3 of the 5 games during this home stand (Tampa Bay Lightning, New York Islanders and Los Angeles Kings). Some observations from the upper deck:

• Niclas Wallin - Seem to be playing a more physical and aggressive game than I remember from last year. Also seems to be skating faster.
• Dany Heatley - Speaking of playing more physical, seems like ‘Heater’ is getting into the mix a lot more, the most I’ve seen since he joined the Sharks.
• Jason Demers - Looks very comfortable on defense as well as handling the puck - is starting to make some big plays and his mistakes are fewer and less gratuitous.
• Logan Couture - Ridiculously good so far this year.

On the other end of the spectrum:

• Devin Setoguchi - Still doesn’t seem to be on top of the puck as he was before the injury last season. Not sure if there’s a correlation.
• Kent Huskins - Not that I’m some expert but he it seems like he’s not a very solid defenseman. The other night against the Kings he seemed to move AWAY from the King’s player to take away a possible angle instead of separating him from the puck. The result was a Los Angeles goal. Are we sure he’s one of our 6 best defensemen?!

Special recognition: Antero Niittymaki.

When the Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl in 1996 (wow - has Brett Favre been around THAT long!?) Brett Favre said one of the key things that got the Packers over ‘the hump’ was the career ending injury to Sterling Sharpe. It’s not that Favre wished Sharpe any ill will but that Sharpe had such an ego and demanded so much that it distracted the team. Once Sharpe retired the team was free to come together and win the hardware two years later.

Watching the interaction between the players and Niittymaki is quite the refreshing change. When the games end and the players skate off the ice there’s a lot of ‘playful banter’ between Niittymaki and the team. I’m sorry but you RARELY if ever saw any of that with Nabokov. And after the Tampa Bay game (Niittymaki’s former team), once the 3-Stars were announced and the Lightining players were all in the locker room - Niittymaki skated over to the Lightning bench and shook hands and said ‘hello’ (I think) with the Tampa Bay equipment guys. I think we have ourselves a good ‘character’ player in Niittymaki.

I just hope all this is enough to get the Sharks over that ‘hump’.

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I have a friend who grew up in Boston. He’s a big sports fan and his big thing is the NFL. He has been enjoying a recent wave of pro sports championships. His (beloved) New England Patriots, Boston Celtics and Boston Red Socks are all recent and sometimes repeat champs - including one year when all 3 won at the same time. But then came the infamous 18-1 Super Bowl loss for the Patriots - an event so devastating I only remind him of it sparingly.

I recently shared with him some of my own personal experience. My goal was to help him understand the nature of things and to help him see things as they really are. I will now share this experience with you.

It’s like gaining weight - it happens slowly and over a long period of time. It’s so subtle that you usually don’t notice it when you’re going through it, but one day you wake up and realize you’re someplace far removed from where you used to be. It usually starts with early playoff exits or losing to teams you don’t normally lose to. You suddenly realize that although your team still has a winning record, the teams you’re beating don’t make the playoffs and the teams you’re losing to are playoff contenders. The next thing you know you haven’t been in the playoffs for a few years. And before you know it they’re using phrases like ‘rebuilding’ when discussing your team. I’m talking about the eventual, almost inevitable, decline of every sports franchise. I went through this with the San Francisco 49ers.

The Sharks need to start winning and they need to start now. The Sharks need to start winning every “2 out of 3″ or “3 out of 4″ games going forward. The longer we stay in the back the harder it will be to make up the necessary ground to make the playoffs. And we also need to start beating the good teams. Is it possible that the window for Thornton/Marleau/Heatley/Boyle isn’t closing but has already closed? Is the infusion of youth from McGinn/Couture/Demers too little too late? Is the only player on the team truly in his prime Joe Pavelski? Are we ‘gaining weight’ but don’t even know it?

The first benchmark was 10 games. The next benchmark is (US) Thanksgiving - that’s when you’re about a quarter of the way into the season. Thanksgiving is when some teams start firing coaches and general managers. Not that I think anyone in San Jose is going to lose their jobs, but the end of November is the theoretical Mendoza line - the absolute drop dead date for turning your franchise around if you’re serious about making the playoffs.

Thanksgiving is two weeks away - all I can say is ‘pray for snow’.

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Niemi 1-4-0, 3.90 GAA

Niittymaki 5-1-1, 1.78 GAA

After watching last night’s game and looking up some interesting stats I believe I have found the solution to the early season woes of the San Jose Sharks. The answer is Antero Niittymaki. Niitymaki has a record of 5-1-1 and Antti Niemi a record of 1-4-0. Niittymaki has a goals against average of 1.78 and Niemi an average of 3.9. More importantly the Sharks score an average of about 4-5 goals per game with Niittymaki in net yet score only about 2 when Niemi is guarding the house.

One argument against Martin Brodeur, the current goal tender of the New Jersey Devils and certain Hall of Fame inductee, is that Brodeur’s numbers are possibly only as great as they are because of the way New Jersey builds great defensive teams. That point being any decent goaltender put behind a New Jersey defense is capable of putting up Hall of Fame numbers.

If that’s true then the disparity between the Sharks’ goal tenders becomes that much more relevant. But what about scoring? Niemi is only getting about 2 goals a game support as opposed to the 4 that Niittymaki is getting. A goalie can not win if his team does not score goals. True that. But there’s another argument floating around the hockey world, that if a team doesn’t trust its goal tender then they start squeezing their sticks and start playing ‘back’. Is the lack of offense (or for our Canadian readers, oh-fence) when Niemi is in net due to a lack of confidence the team has in Niemi? Let’s not forget that the Chicago Blackhawks are a well run organization and if Niemi was that good they would most likely have at least tendered the $2.7M arbitrator ruling to keep their Stanley Cup-winning goaltender.

Given all the evidence I’m now curious to see how the team handles what might become an obvious decision - giving Niittymaki the full-time starting job with Niemi as the backup. I’m also curious how they use the two goalies to manage playing time, as the knock against both is that neither has shown they have what it takes to be a full time work horse in net.

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But then I checked the numbers.

Guess what the Sharks’ record was after 10 games last season? 5-4-1. Guess what it was the year before that? 5-4-1. The year before that? 8-2-0. But the year before that - 5-4-1. The Sharks have started out 5-4-1 3 out of the last 4 years. Whew.

So it would seem that the boys are exactly where they’ve always been, right above average to start the season. Admittedly I haven’t been able to watch too many games so far this season but I will be there for this Saturday’s game. I’m hoping to compare that night’s performance with what I saw during the home opener and see if there’s any improvement now that they’re in the ‘groove’ of the season.

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San Jose Sharks and San Francisco Giants
celebrate their respective moments of joy.

Now that the distractions of the Joe Thornton contract extension and home opener loss have subsided, I realized that there was an actual hockey game played at home and we did have some thoughts on what we were seeing as the game unfolded.

First we noticed just how good Torrey Mitchell looked. He finally looks completely recovered from his string of injuries and was absolutely flying again. Ryane Clowe also looked far better at the start of this season than he did to start last season. Of course the ‘core’ of the Sharks team looked just like they always do, so put it all together and the team looks just fine moving forward. With one exception. Devin Setoguchi still seemed to be chasing the puck for most of the game and I can’t help but think his situation feels eerily familiar - a la the rise and fall of Jonathan Cheechoo. I don’t think we’re there yet and I hope we never get there but the fact that the Sharks didn’t sign him to a longer term deal (than the one year he got) raises some concern for me. Sharks General Manager Doug Wilson usually knows what he’s doing so keeping Setoguchi on a ’short leash’ may be an indicator that they’re not completely sold on him yet.

In 1992, when the San Francisco 49ers traded Charles Haley to the Dallas Cowboys, the story goes that Oakland Raiders Owner Al Davis called Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to congratulate him on winning the (next) Super Bowl. Sure enough the Dallas Cowboys won the Super Bowl the next year - Haley’s first year with the Cowboys. Despite his ‘personality’ issues, Haley’s talents were the missing piece that got the Cowboys over that metaphorical sports ‘hump’.

unrulytraveller’s comments regarding Annti Niemi not withstanding, three of the four goals scored against the Sharks during the home opener came during defensive breakdowns. There was a 3-on-2 scramble in front of the net, the short handed goal and the 3-on-1 break away. The talk for the last year and a half has been the suspicious nature of the Sharks defense. Despite the yet unresolved argument about our upgrade or lack of upgrade at goaltender, the Sharks certainly didn’t add any ’skating’ defense during free agency. Are the defensive failings predicted for last season materializing this season? Are we gambling too much on rookies, Kent Huskins and Niclas Wallin? Or are we one Charles Haley away from solidifying the defensive corp? Remember 3 seasons ago the knock against the Sharks was that they lacked that shot from the blue line and Rob Blake was brought in to fill that role. His effectiveness in that role aside, are we now once again without that ‘outside’ threat? We have many questions with so few answers - what else is new?!

Tonight the San Francisco Giants go up against the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series, right up against the Sharks’ 4th game of the season. Unfortunately I have a previous commitment so I won’t be in front of a TV for any of it. But it’ll either be a good night (2-0), a bad night (0-2) or a split (1-1). If it’s going to be a split I’d rather have the Giants get the win.

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The San Jose Sharks home opener was everything you’d expect it to be - save for the outcome. The Sharks are sitting on 3 points with a 1-1-1 record but I did remind myself that 1) the Sharks typically play poorly if they have more than one day off between games and 2) conventional wisdom says it takes 10 games to find out which direction a team is going.

The bigger news is the contract extension of Joe Thornton. Apparently proposed by Joe and taking less than an hour to put together, Thornton inked a 3-year $21M contract which is a little less than what he’s making now and far less than what he could have made on the open market. I’m not planning to discuss the merits of having Joe on the team for 3 more years - good, bad or indifferent, or discuss whether or not he has the mental fortitude or personality to lead a team to the promised land (I’m not smart enough to figure all that out). What I find very interesting is the way the contracts have all fallen into place. The ‘core’ of the Sharks will be Thornton, Dany Heatley, Patrick Marleau, Joe Pavelski and Dan Boyle - under contract through the 2013/2014 season.

I’m the kind of guy who hates change so having these guys locked up for the foreseeable future makes me feel warm and fuzzy. But I also understand that by having these guys signed to reasonable, short term contracts it makes them easier to trade. It’s also interesting that Heatley’s contract is one of those front-loaded types, so his salary actually starts dropping during his last 2 years. This frees up some nice salary cap space to help secure the next generation of Sharks.

In the end I’m getting some mixed feelings about the recent contract signings. Thornton, Marleau and Pavelski all took a combination of below market salaries and/or shorter contract lengths to stay in San Jose. Does that mean they believe this team can make a serious run or two at the cup or does it mean that there’s so little pressure (as opposed to a Toronto) that it’s just easier to stay here?

I hope it’s all about the run.

79 more games to go, but it’s all about the next 7.

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Joe Thornton as San Jose Sharks’ Captain

With the exception of one pre-season game for which I had tickets I have not seen any San Jose Sharks games this season. The reason for this is not a lack of interest but the result of a series of extenuating circumstances. Some pre-season games were shown on the NHL Network, but I switched to a new cable company over the summer and they do not carry that channel. Then I was out of the country for the last two weeks and could not get the two games played in Sweden (I did, however, watch a lot of cricket). To redeem myself I will proudly admit that we (myself and 7 friends and family) have group tickets to tomorrow night’s home opener - we will be at center ice, first two rows of the upper deck. Part of the package includes my “company’s name on the scoreboard” - so if you’re at the game look for ‘Friends of Penaltykill.net’ on the jumbotron.

I do hope that being at tomorrow night’s game jump starts my enthusiasm for the upcoming season. I have found myself not quite as excited about this season as in season’s past. I’m not sure what it is but I think it may be due to several factors. First I think I may be suffering from some form of ‘post-season playoff hangover’, whereby last season’s emotional playoff run is leaving me feeling a little blasé about the upcoming regular season. And although we’ve had a complete overhaul at goalie it doesn’t feel like the same kind of ‘active’ personnel change like the Dany Heatley acquisition from last year. I might even be feeling burnt out before the season even starts - I have tickets to 22 home games this year and even though I’m extremely grateful that I can afford to go to so many games I’m a little overwhelmed and fearful that I might burn out. Maybe I’m also worried about the season ticket fan sitting in front of me. If you’re the guy in Sec 211 Row 10 Seats 12-14 could you PLEASE stop leaning forward during the game and please stop standing up every time the Sharks are attacking - none of us behind you can see anything when you do that. Thanks.

Or maybe it’s just the jet lag.

Whatever the case I’m sure the season will draw me in and send me on that oh so familiar emotional roller coaster - like being a part of a focus group no matter how hard I try I get sucked into the conversation. And a very special thanks to all the bloggers how have returned to contribute once again to the conversation here at The ‘Net, I do appreciate all your writing and look forward to following your teams through your eyes once again.

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“Well, he is a Worcester Shark. He got released from his tryout with the Stars and has signed a pro tryout with the Sharks. I hope he makes it back into the NHL again. It seemed he never fully recovered from his injuries.

Some weird line combos from the Sharks beat reporter in Sweden:

Marleau – Couture – Heatley

McGinn – Thornton – Setoguchi

Clowe – Pavelski – Mitchell

McLaren – Nichol – McCarthy/Wingels

Murray – Boyle

Vlasic – Wallin

Demers – Huskins

Mayers is still injured from the pre-season game against Vancouver.”

I hope FC Sharks Fan is right, that Cheechoo’s decline was due to injury and not work ethic. Any takers on whether or not we’ll see him in San Jose again?!