The Sharks off-season so far
Happy American Independence day! (and a few days late, Canada Day, aka hockey player independence day..
I wanted to make a couple of comments on the Sharks off-season so far. Back in may I made my proposals for “fixing” the Sharks. Since then, Huskins, Clowe and Blake are signed. Semenov, Lemieux, Goc, Plihal and Grier are moving on. Of those, I had Goc and Plihal on my roster, but both of them no higher than Black Aces — so for the most part Doug Wilson and I are on the same page. Well, I’m on the same page with Wilson, let’s be real here…
Where he and I disagree slightly: I called for the trade of Thornton and defended Nabokov; Wilson made Thornton and Boyle untouchable, and Marleau and Nabokov visibly in the “tradeable” pile. Craig Button was on NHL Home Ice after the Sharks went out of the playoffs and more or less mirrored Wilson’s idea here on Thornton; it’s the support crew around Thornton that needs to help him get the job done because he’s being mobbed.
Intellectually, I can agree with that; emotionally, I still feel like both Thornton and Marleau (and Nabokov, for that matter) look to me like they aren’t taking it up that one final notch in the playoffs. That’s probably because that notch is in use much of the season as well, not because they aren’t using it.
All in all, I’m happy with the off-season so far. Wilson didn’t do anything dramatic at the draft — but didn’t make any stupid grandstanding moves, either. Ditto free agent day; he focussed on keeping the players he wanted here in San Jose, and got Huskins and Clowe signed, and worked out a deal with Rob Blake. All great signings for the team. Wilson’s made it clear that July 1 is the day GMs will definitely overpay because of the way the market is structured, and he’s right. Unlike some fans, I’m not interested in watching GM’s “make a splash”, I want a better hockey team. Patience is a good thing many times.
The Sharks pursuit of Gustavsson (“the monster”) is fascinating. I don’t think they’ll get him, but it’s clearly a shot over the bow at Nabokov. Greiss is probably the backup in San Jose this fall (Boucher was a real trooper, but solid backups are fairly easy to find, and it’s time to let a kid step up) — but Laurie and I aren’t convinced about him. We’ll see.
Free agent day in general? I was fascinated by how many players moved around and how they shifted. There was a real levelling of talent across the league, as players moved to “less good” teams to clear cap space or to keep their salaries at par, while top tier teams worked the cap and ended up with “not quite as good, but cheaper” talent. Parity kicks in hard core; unless you are a fan of a dynasty (and more specifically, a dynasty that involves your team — yes, talking about you, Red Wings fans) this is good for the league. Lots of solid, competitive hockey, and teams in the chase most of the season. It only sucks if you somehow believe your team should be awarded the Cup on opening night adn the rest of the season is a formality.
Detroit has some serious challenges; they lost a lot of talent in free agency. OTOH, they have a lot of talent in the minors, for all some pundits are pointing and declaring it’s over, come next April, we’ll likely be talking about 2-3 Red Wings who ahve stepped in from the AHL and are surprising the crap out of everyone. Except, of course, the Detroit organization.
Big winners? I really like what Burke is doing in Toronto. And Dean Lombardi has the Kings moving in the right direction.
Losers? I don’t understand the Brashear contract. I do understand the Hossa contract in Chicago, but I think they’ll regret it down the road. These decade-long contracts get scary and limit your options, and you just have to hope you guess right. Gaborik is another one: I wouldn’t have gone beyond two years in the deal, not because he’s not good, but because he’s never healthy.
The biggest loser this off-season is Dany Heatley, though. More on that in another post.
What’s wrong with the Sharks?
It’s that time of the year when fans start worrying. I’ve gotten a number of emails and IM’s asking me what I thought was wrong with the Sharks.
I knew the hot start wasn’t sustainable. Well, we’re into that “not sustainable” part. Teams that play “too well” can get into bad habits, and those can make life difficult when the wins stop. The Sharks got into some bad habits, but nothing too serious. The big problem I see with them is a tendency to play to the level of the other team — and they’ve pulled a lot of games out in the third period. right now, the bounces aren’t going their way, and they’re losing some of those.
When it works, we call it “pacing ourselves for the playoffs”, and it’s a mild annoyance. When it doesn’t, it’s called a lot of things, most of them unprintable, but “not being ready for the game” is a common one. Soft starts and digging holes early, and right now, they’re not digging out of them well enough.
the injuries on the third and fourth lines are tough; add in injuries to Blake (broken jaw), Lukowich (sports hernia) and Boyle (wrist) — which have all ben played through to some degree or another, but still affect their games — and the team’s depth has been tested. it’s held up quite well, actually (I am still seriously impressed by Semenov in his fole), but there’s little margin of error in the western conference.
All in all, though, this is the “mid season” blahs, accentuated by some injuries. It’s not like the team’s sucked, it’s merely moved to pretty good. They’ve lost a few, but I see that as a good thing, in that it’ll hopefully help the refocus on the details of the system that have slipped by — and even with the recent struggle, they’ve still taken 11 points in the last ten games. This “slump” is still better than many sharks seasons I’ve watched.
And if you look around the league, similar complaints are being lodged at the Red Wings (two 8 goal allowed losses!, Dallas , Chicago, Boston, Washington and Montreal. At the same time, teams that struggled early, like Toronto and Pittsburgh, vanvouver and Nashville, have come on and are making it a playoff fight.
This kind of adversity can help the sharks; it’s bad for a team to decide winning is “easy”, because in the playoffs, it won’t e, no matter who you play. They’ll figure it out; assuming they get healthy, they’ll be fine. I don’t want to see this go on for another two weeks (if it does, I’ll start worrying), but so far, this is about what you should expect over a season. Rough patches happen. you play well the other times, and it balances out. Playinb well going into the playoffs is huge, though, so I’m a lot happier with a team than finishes well than one that plays well in November, so it’s time to see the Sharks start that solid finish.
but the biggest issue with the Sharks is lack of scoring on the third and fourth line. the secondary contributions have dried up. Where are the injuries? On the third and fourth line. Will the injuries impact us in the playoffs? I sure hope not, and the additions at the trade deadline definitely help.
So I’m not worried. Well, not yet.
Gauthier gets two games — and some cheechoo chat
This just hitting the wires — Gauthier gets two games for his hit on Patrick Marleau. Jamie Baker covered the hit well, and I agree with him. Fair suspension for a cheap hit, the kind we want removed from the game.
We really enjoyed the Sharks/Kings game. The Kings played well — and hard — and clearly felt they needed to rattle the Sharks cage to have a chance to beat them. Emotions got strong, but the Sharks didn’t back down, which was a great response and encouraging to see.
In a bit, we’ll head to the tank where the Thrashers come into town. It’ll be interesting to see what plays down, but the Sharks are seeing some of the hurt players coming back; Marcel Goc and Torrey Mitchell continue to be out, but the rest are coming back. Perhaps this “slump” is starting to end, the team’s gameplay is getting back towards what we saw early in the season.
Mark Emmon’s did a nice piece on Cheechoo and his struggles today. My feeling on Cheechoo, pretty much the only player not living up to expectations this year, is that he really needs to be both healthy and confident to play well — his skating is marginal enough that if he isn’t working at it every shift he struggles to play at the NHL level, so when he’s banged up, or when he’s not confident about his health, his production fades.
He’s trying, working hard. I have no complaints with his work this year, but we have to remember that his talent level is a lot closer to Jeff Odgers than it is Joe Thornton — and Jeff Odgers stayed in the league as long as he did not through raw talent, but by skating his butt off every night and getting his nose dirty, not by scoring lots of goals. Cheechoo has hands Odgers could only dream of, but the core of his game has to be the same: skate hard, work hard, play in the hard areas, and find the seams where his shot can get through.
As long as he keeps working at it, you’ll get no complaints from me. The Sharks have enough depth there’s no need to worry about this much.
We were talking at the last game about trade deadline deals, and Cheechoo’s name came up. He’s basically the only roster player I could see moving from the Sharks, and it’s not a priority to me that it happen (but I wouldn’t be shocked if it did). There was some feeling that Cheechoo would be perfect on the wing with Sydney Crosby. If that happens, I’d love it for Cheechoo’s sake, and it’d probably be fun to watch, because ultimately Cheechoo is Brett Hull’s hands on Jeff Odger’s baby brother’s body. I’m not convinced he’d return to his Rocket production in that situation, but having a setup guy like Crosby couldn’t hurt.
Me, I think I’d just leave this team alone. Hard to argue it needs much fixing.
The Curious Case of Ray Whitney
Ray Whitney.
Okay, I knew that he still played in the league, so it wasn’t a surprise to see him score a goal, but every time he lights the lamp, I’m reminded of this talented player, who has been around the league since, well, it seems time immortal.
In reality, Whitney has been in the NHL since the San Jose Sharks took him in the second round of the 1991 Entry Draft. Their first selection had been Pat Falloon, and the two young guns were held up as the future of the young Sharks.
via XM204 » Blog Archive » The Curious Case of Ray Whitney.
Pat Falloon — great prospect, tore up his shoulder and was never quite the same after. Part of that was that the development environment within the Sharks wasn’t the best early on, part of it was that Falloon rode his talent instead of worked to improve it.
Whitney always had to work his butt off to succeed and never stopped. Even after the Sharks dumped him into the IHL after Al Sims declared him not an NHL player (and we all know how Al Sims was the key to the Sharks success!), he kept at it. After the NHL changed the rules to make smaller skill players more effective in the league, Whitney didn’t just survive in the NHL, he thrived.
Whitney was always one of my favorite early Sharks. And he has one quet thing he can be proud of: he is the last first-year Shark to still be playing in the NHL Long after everyone else who started out in San Jose and played in the Cow Palace years, he’s still proving himself a key cog in the NHL. congrats, Ray.
Who was the second to last first-year Shark to play in the NHL? it was Sandis Ozolinsh, which when he was drafted probably wouldn’t have surprised anyone, but he had his struggles as his career went on and some off-ice challenges, but he ended up with a long, successful career. We got to meet Sandis a couple of times, and he is an amazingly nice, shy, intelligent person.
But here’s a bit of trivia I doubt anyone will get. After Ray Whitney and Sandis, who was the next first-season Shark to be left standing in the NHL? you could possibly guess Whitney, and maybe ozolinsh, but #3 is off the charts and will be hard to figure out. it’s not an obvious one on the face of it.
It’s — Wade Flaherty — former Sharks goalie and a guy who made a long and successful career as a team’s 3rd goalie and usually found a way to be brought up for a few games every year. Flaherty finally hung them up and in 2008 worked with the Sharks on their Shanghai china sharks team, and this year was named by the Blackhawks ot be their goaltending coach. Well done, and it shows you that longevity in the league isn’t necessarily about talent, but about attitude and work ethic. (jeff jilson, take note. Oh, wait. sorry, too late).
Hockey takes backseat to tragedy in Buffalo
Several Sabres players live in Clarence Center, the suburban-rural area where the commuter flight from Newark crashed and they talked about the experience. Defenseman Teppo Numminen heard both the sound of the plane coming down and the noise from the impact. He and his wife opened the shade on the bedroom window and could see the flames and the red sky. Goalie Patrick Lalime lived even closer. Former Shark Craig Rivet lived nearby, but far enough away that he and his family weren’t aware of the 10:20 p.m. crash until they woke up this morning.
Some of the Sharks, too, reflected on their own flight difficulties in getting out of Pittsburgh, but they expressed confidence in their charter pilot, stating that the plane would not have taken off if conditions were a serious threat. The landing in Buffalo, while buffeted a little bit by high winds and with limited visibility, wasn’t that rough — though it came less than five hours ahead of the plane that crashed.
There’s a subset of fans that like to think that NHL players should be robots, simply because they get paid a lot of money. You know the time: “With the money they make, they better show up every night!” — which is nice in theory, but given these are humans (well paid or no) with human limitations and frailties, it’s going to happen.
and then once in a while something happens that reminds you how human they are. My thoughts go out to all of the Sabres players and staff and the communities they live in for what they’re going through now. The show does go on, and should — but I’ll bet it’s going to be a tough night for some of them.
If you lived close enough t the crash to realize than 10 seconds difference in how the plane came down could have landed it on your house, how would YOU feel at work the next few days?
Remember that the next time some thoughtless fan rips a player for not playing 82 “A” games because they don’t care that the guy is playing through a case of flu that’d have most of us in the hospital for a week….
Sharks looking at tampa’s Jeff Halpern?
According to Tampa Tribune beat writer Erik Erlendsson, San Jose’s John Ferguson has been scouting the Lightning for a few games and there is a rumored Sharks interest in center Jeff Halpern. The 9-year veteran and former Washington Capitals captain has 3 goals and 5 assists in 25 games played for Tampa Bay this season.
If this is true, and in ways it makes sense, it probably means that Torrey Mitchell’s setback is more serious than the sharks have admitted. Given that Mitchell hasn’t been skating since he tweaked things during his stint in Worcester, I’ve been expecting to hear he’s done for the year. this might be the indication that’s true.
Was the Sharks/Bruins game a statement game?
So was the Sharks/Bruins game last night a statement game?
I think it was, sort of. But not as much as some are making it out to be. I think San Jose made a statement because both teams brought their “A” game, and as the game went along it was clear San Jose took the upper hand and ran with it. They won and deserved to win. What means more to me in some ways, though, is that they did it on the road. I’d be a lot less impressed with the Sharks game if that game had been played in San Jose — note that San Jose and Detroit have won their home games, but are yet to “break serve” in the other’s building.
But a second look at the Bruins game showed the two teams to be pretty close in skills and capabilities. I certainly don’t think that the win last night means that San Jose would win a series against the Bruins — in fact I think that’d be a pretty darn good and close series if (or when) it happens. I’d choose San Jose to win it today, but heck, that could well change.
But in reality, any combination of San Jose, Detroit and Boston would be some pretty great hockey, and honestly, San Jose would likely have to get through Detroit to get to Boston, and I think it’s a lot harder for whatever team comes out of the West to win that final round than it will be for the eastern team. If (as I expect/hope) the western Final is Detroit/San Jose, I expect that may be the best series in the playoffs — and good luck to the survivor.
Right now, it really looks like the Cup runs through these three teams. The team I’d put in fourth would be Washington, and I’d expect one of those four to win the Cup this year, at least based on the season so far. Below them? In the west, I still like Dallas and Chicago, with Minnesota up there as well. In the east, Montreal, Philly and New Jersey.
For the west, I’m rooting for 6-7-8 to include Calgary, Columbus and Nashville. I’m still unconvinced about Vancouver (but Sundin is waking up, so I can finally end my “no-sundin” embargo here) and Los Angeles are in the mix. I expect Edmonton to fade, Colorado is packing it in, and St. Louis is working their butt off, but simply had too many injuries to overcome. Damn shame, too. My christmas gift to hockey for 2009: that the Blues stay healthy next season.
For the west, honestly, I don’t think 6-7-8 matter. Where there are 10 teams that have a chance to make noise in the west, I’m just not enthused by more than the top five in the east. Good teams, but first round outs. The west is such that there can (and probably will be) significant upsets along the way; I just hope they don’t happen to Detroit or San Jose.
And so on to Pittsburgh, which just hasn’t gotten back in the groove after last year. Sharks better watch out, I expect the pens to see this as a chance to fix things.
Chicago 4, San Jose 2. Ouch
Chicago nicely beat the Sharks last night. Good game for the Hawks, one of the teams that’s is always impressing me. The Sharks looked sluggish, but in reality, the Hawks outplayed them, I give more credit to Chicago than I take away from San Jose. I think the Sharks really missed Boyle’s ability to carry the puck last night, but the real issue was the Hawks aggressively pursuing the puck and aggressive breakout. the Sharks fought to deal with it all game.
Weird game; Hawks lost a goal to a double-minor high stick called by a linesman in the first. Since Linesmen can’t stop play for that, play continued until a whistle, that whistle happened to be after a goal. Confused the heck out of the Sharks broadcasters, but they finally sorted it out. The refs actually hauled Cheechoo back out of the locker room to examine the damage — they were lucky he didn’t have a needle and thread in his face being stitched.
So the refs got it right. Well, mostly. They were supposed to announce what was going on to the crowd and didn’t. It is also unclear if they adjusted the clock; Laurie and I watched the game from home (I caught her cold, we both kept our sniffles to ourselves) and Drew mentioned the clock at one point as not being fixed, but I don’t know whether or not they caught it. The clock definitely should have been returned to the time of infraction.
Amusingly enough, the Sharks announcered talked a lot about how they didn’t know the rules and and never seen something like this before. Kind of marvelled at the refs ability to know things to this level (well, that’s their JOB). I knew the rule (because I have no life and I spend it reading rulebooks, I guess) although I couldn’t have quoted number and page out of the book.
Then, later on NHL network Larry Murphy talked about this and did the “maybe the NHL needs to fix this” because of the play going on and then the goal being called back.
Um, Larry? the system worked. It’s a situation that pretty much everyone agrees is quite rare; I’ve probably seen it once before over the years, maybe twice (maybe). The refs got it right (except for the “explain it to the crowd” part). So what’s to fix? And why is the first reaction to anything that “something has to be done”?
Seriously — if it’s a situation that nobody can remember the last time it happened, a situation where the refs got it right, and the end result was appropriate, and nobody died, what’s to fix? And why the kneejerk reaction that it has to be?
I don’t get it. And in general, I think Murphy does a good job on NHL network, but this is a classic symptom of an attitude in the hockey media I think the media needs to step back and think hard about. Edge cases and weird things happen. When they do, if the system worked, it’s not a reason to change the system.
One more home game and on to the big sharks road trip.
San Jose Sharks – News: Nabokov Sets Shutout Mark – 01/30/2009
San Jose netminder Evgeni Nabokov shut out the Phoenix Coyotes 2-0 on Thursday night and in the process set a new Sharks regular season shutout record of 170:10. The streak began before the NHL’s All-Star break in the first period against Vancouver on January 20.
via San Jose Sharks – News: Nabokov Sets Shutout Mark – 01/30/2009.
It clearly wasn’t San Jose vs. Detroit — an enjoyable game, good energy, but definitely more trench warefare. I went to the game with a friend, and we talked about it on the way and I said that Phoenix was the kind of team who’s work ethic can give teams fits — and they did. The Sharks had the best of the play, but serious trouble penetrating for good scoring chances, and Bryzgalov was quite good.
Nabby, however, was better — he’s on a real roll right now, and hwne he does that, watch out. One aspect is that no matter what, there’s a Shark there grabbing and clearing rebounds, so Nabby can focus on taht first save and not have to think about being in position for a second. That allows Nabby to take more chances on the first — and it’s working. He’s had some just shutdown saves, ones that just leave the other team deflated and wondering.
It seems that the Sharks are a bit bored with merely winning everything at home and almost everything on the road. They seem to be gearing up the 2nd have planning to simply not allow anyone to score. Let’s see how far they can take it. Saturday should be fun!
One Shark I think deserves some recognition right now is Alexei Semenov. He was a marginal player last season, but worked his butt off in the offseason to improve his game. I’ve been told by folks in the locker room he put on 20 pounds and dropped his body fat — if you see him close up, it’s hard to dispute those numbers, even given everyone’s propensity in the league to lie about height, weight and how much they can bench press. He’s RIPPED. and what I find amazing is that he did that knowing he was slotted in as the 7th D and a part time player.
What he’s done is earn his way to a regular spot and significant minutes. And he’s still basically a depth player, so that kind of committment just isn’t noticed by most fans, but I’ve been watching him the last few games, and he’s really turned his game around. The early season decision by McLellan to show confidence in him and skate him at forward has done wonders. The coaches trust him, he believes in himself, and the team trusts him, too. He’s being more aggressive offensively, more physical defensively, and he’s been a non-trivial part of why, despite injuries to the defense, the Sharks haven’t missed a beat.
Derek Joslin, the new kid, is improving every game. He’s solid, and starting to show he’s feeling more comfortable.
And finally, the Claude Lemieux watch. He’s still playing limited minutes, he’s still doing nothing to suggest he SHOULDN’T be here on a fourth line, and that alone impresses me. I didn’t notice him much against Phoenix, but that’s not a criticsm. A lot of his job is to not be noticed, because when the fourht line is noticed, a lot of the time it’s because someone’s fishing the puck out of their own net. That’s not happening.
The Sharks seem to be getting back on a roll. If this was their slump, watch out.
Sharks 2, Vancouver 1 in overtime
And to think I could have stayed home and watched paint dry….
What can you say? Last game before the All-Star break, and a whole lotta “I don’t want to spend the break in a hot tub” broke out. Vancouver got a goal early on a really good shot on one of their few offensive chances in the first, and went into an 0-5 and tried to hold the lead for the rest of the game.
The Sharks played like they really didn’t care much one way or another. spent lots of time in the offensive zone, little time actually fighting for quality shots.
Yawn. The Sharks woke up late and decided to win it, Vancouver didn’t notice until it was too late, and then Henrik takes a stupid, lazy penalty in OT and that more or less hands the game to San Jose. Vancouver wins a point, San Jose gets two they really didn’t deserve, but neither did Vancouver.
In the “not sure what I expected” department: the arena all but gave Claude Lemieux a standing ovation just for coming over the boards and skating a shift. As I kept saying to people around me, “old guys rule”. I love the Sharks fans, they tend to get the game in ways not all fan bases do, and one thing I think they got here was just how hard Lemieux worked just to get to this point, and they recognized him for it. As do I. He looked in pretty damn good shape for at one point skating for the Vancouver Millionaires.
How’d he do? skated hard, hit bodies, drove to the net, took really, really short shifts, and got a few shots on net. Didn’t do anything that made me think he deserved a promotion off the fourth line, didn’t do anything to make me think he didn’t deserve to be there. Earned a second game in my book, and that’s good enough.
Hell, I noticed him on the ice more than I noticed Sundin. Honest. I mostly noticed Mats skating when he was gliding back to the bench ending a shift. He just didn’t do anything to make me see him taking shifts.
Hey, watching this game was great practice for watching the all-star game, right?
(yawn).
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