Sharks: after five games

first, an interesting piece out of Philly:

We knew going in that this team was going to be offensively challenged. And so far, it’s shown itself to be, well, offensively challenged. But not offensive. There were a number of "gee, that went in when I was in the {ahl, bundes league, WHL, etc}" shots — we have some kids are going to have to learn to adjust to NHL caliber goaltending. Even then, we’re going to be a 2-1, 3-2 kinda team.

What I like: Someone please tell me why Darryl Sutter couldn’t teach that kind of precious, crisp transition passing in his entire tenure here? And they do it consistently? (actually, I think the answer is fairly simple: under Darryl Sutter’s  system, cross-ice passes were failures under all circumstances, so players always went to the near man up the boards, even if he was covered. Very little innovation in the breakout, it was a grinder game. With Wilson, it seems the players have a lot more leeway in passing to the open man, even if, gasp, it crosses the center of the ice. And Wilson seems to take the attitude that if nothing bad happens, it wasn’t a mistake — so instead of never trying things, players hustle back and break up problems before they happen.).

The team is fast (and the ice is pretty decent!). it passes. it controls. It transitions well for the most part (It struggled more against Ottawa, which is the team odds-on with many to win the Stanley cup, and which plays the kind of game the Sharks are now aspiring to — I’m not at all suprised Ottawa adjusted and made life interesting — and I thought the sharks handled themselves okay against a clearly better team). Think how few offsides are called against the sharks. How few icings. How few WHISTLES in the two home games. how few dump and chases, how little "stuff it in the corner and grind for 40 seconds". How the Sharks have given up on the "dump and change" strategy of hockey.

I like the work ethic I’m seeing. I like the team’s willingness to take some chances. I’m really liking Scott Parker: every shift he gets, he puts his head down and hustles his butt like it’s his last shift in his career. he causes havoc, he fights to create screens, and he’s doing what I want a guy like him to do BEYOND fighting. he’ll likely turn himself into a rival of Jeff Odgers for all-time fan favorite at this rate.

So in my mind, even when they lose, this is a much more interesting team to watch. (the opposing point of view, from someone who’s seen more Sharks games than I have, and who’s been at Sharks games going back to the Cow Palace days, is that he hates the new team. Absolutely, positively can’t stand it. Yeah, they work hard, yeah, they pass, but it’s a bunch of kids who can’t score. and he has a point, and he’s seriously missing Owen and Teemu — but look how they helped us last year. At some point, you have to throw it out and start over, and for all we remember the division championship, we need to remember all of those other under .500 years we had getting there. One year where it all fell together and Dallas fell apart doesn’t make a successful dynasty)

This is clearly a young team. It’s going to have good nights, and not so good nights. There’s going to be inconsistency. We’ve already seen a bit of that, but given the last two nights, they took it to heart and really put on a show at home. we’ve lost a lot of scoring — and we have to see who’s going to step up and take charge trying to replace that. (Patrick Marleau, white courtesy phone please). Guys who’ve been in the shadow of Nolan have to step into the light now. I expect some will, just not overnight. I expect this team to season and improve as the season goes along. If it can hang near .500 the first 25 games, we’ll be okay. It should finish better than it started. But right now, I’m shifting my goal down a bit from 80-85 points to 75-80. I just think there will be early struggles to knock pucks in the net. May they make it up in Februrary…

I’m really impressed with Damphousse. He took the offseason "come in and earn your salary" to heart. Against Philly, he was more physical tahn he was most of last season. My big worry here is whether he can hold up to playing that way.

The defense, given it’s missing Stuart, is really holding up well. It doesn’t act like it’s full of untested rookies. It makes mistakes, but it also hustles its butt off to fix them. It’s going to be okay, and it’ll get better.

One serious problem: Scott Thornton. In two games, he’s looked soft, slow and tenative. he’s not right — it looks like he’s already injured to me. I caught him flexing a knee at one point during the Ottawa game, but I’m more worried about a shoulder. he simply doesn’t seem to be the presence we need him to be.

Korolyuk is, well, Korolyuk. someone please get Coach Wilson a large bottle of Tums, and get me one, too. He’ll be a net positive to the team, but always making life interesting. hand me a Tums, please?

Nabokov is looking good, but has to be better. He’s, oh, top 1/3 of the league, we need him top 1/4 or higher.

It’s too early to panic. we’ve played some tough teams (Philly is 2-0-2, Edmonton is 3-2, Ottawa is 3-1) and overall, hung in well. We should have beat Philly, we just didn’t beat Hackett. We have a couple of rather weak teams coming in next, and I hope we’ll go 2-1 in the next three games.

I mean, honestly — if you pick a team to challenge for the 8th playoff spot, and the team we think might win the Cup beats them, isn’t that supposed to happen? Now, if Chicago schools them… But if they play the way they played Philly or Ottawa, Chicago won’t. So let’s see.

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