What does the Sharks blowout by the Wings really mean?

To me, the answer is simple:

“We’re not done yet”.

For all the Sharks have been rolling this season, Detroit is still the Cup Champions, and the Sharks are “simply” a team with a great start. They haven’t taken the mantle away from Detroit, and Detroit was clearly not going to hand it over that easily.

you can throw a lot of things in the mix: 2nd game in back to backs on the road, injured players (effectively skating a full line that a month ago was in Worcester), etc, etc. Bottom line: Sharks didn’t play well early, Nabokov gave up a couple of soft goals early, and the team let tired legs take control of the game after that. Oh, and the Wings wanted to make a statement, and did.

All of which says the Sharks have more work to do if they want to get what they’re shooting for this season.

The good news is — losses like this are good, because they keep a team from getting lazy or starting to think it’s going to be easy. It gives them something to get motivated around to improve their game further, and this is the kind of team that will. I’m actually pretty happy that Detroit spanked the team — a close loss or a couple of bad bounces could be explained away, that loss requires some deep thinking and commitment to improve.

Detroit was clearly a much better team. Fortunately, it’s December, when a loss like this is a learning experience and not the end of a season. And once you get past that, you just move on. Both teams have won, at home, on the 2nd game of back to backs for the losing team. There’s a lot of hockey left to play before we really know which team is going to go further in the playoffs.

One of the teams the Sharks have played recently that really impressed me was Columbus. In the first game, which the Sharks stole, I was finding myself wondering how a team playing that well was 14th in the conference (as of tonight, they’re 11th; that’s part of the answer; they’re now playing well and moving up). but when you look at the standings, four wins separates the 15th team (St. Louis) from the 8th playoff spot. Unlike the easy, where you can presume that six or seven of the teams have already settled into the playoffs and you have four teams playing for that eighth spot, in the West, there are maybe four teams that are “safe” for the playoffs, and you have eleven teams playing for the other four spots. The hockey is that good, and the race is still that close — two or three wins or losses can shuffle the standings around in a major way.

Steve Mason has impressed the hell out of me, and as of now, is on my short list for rookie of the year. But the Bluejackets are really playing good, confident hockey right now, and they’re going to make some teams crazy along the way. Right now, they look to be one of the teams making the final eight, and more power to them.

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