Does it have to get ugly?

TheFeeder.com – Inside Sharks Hockey:

I am hesitant to advise that the Sharks start running Predators players (not that they’d listen to me anyway). Who knows which Sharks we might lose if the league suddenly decides to tighten up on this sort of thing and throws around serious suspensions?

The genie is out of the bottle. The league won’t be able to put it in, just do damage control.

The Predators aren’t going to suddenly go back to playing hard, clean hockey. That bridge is crossed, and burnt.

The Sharks have two choices. They can step up and push back, refuse to be intimidated, and yes, that means return the favor in kind, in an eye for an eye kind of way, or they can let the Predators push them around and lose the series.

The league won’t like it, but we’re now at the point I know they don’t like to be, but it’s an inevitable side effect of the “let the boys play” mentality.

All I can say to the Sharks is this:

NO PRISONERS.

I don’t particularly enjoy this kind of hockey — this isn’t the hard hitting of Scott Stevens or Cam Neely, This is Broad Street Bully crap. But now that we’re in it, either finish it or go home.

I suggest the Sharks finish it. Let Barry Trotz whine and posture, let’s play hockey and make the Predators stop us, if they can.

To be honest? if I were Ron Wilson, I’d dress Doug Murray as a forward, and I’d put two pictures up on the board — Vokoun and Forsberg. And I wouldn’t say a word to the team before the game, let the pictures talk.

And personally, for as good a player as Forsberg is, I’m already very tired of his dirty play and stickwork, and his incessant whining every time the refs call him on the blatant penalties he’s been taking…

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