East Meets West

Ouch.

Injuries suck. 

So going down the list. 

Heatly had a broken wrist and he had a twisted ankle.

Clowe couldn't dress himself.

Demers had a twisted ankle.

Thornton had a broken pinky and a separate shoulder.

Source:

http://www.battleofcali.com/2011/5/26/2191948/sharks-injuries-the-walking-dead?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sportsblogs%2Fbattleofcali+%28Battle+of+California%29

The biggest loss was the Demers injury. 

If we hadn't lost game 5, neither Clowe nor Demers would have been injured. I stand by assessment that the playoffs were lost in Game 5 when we couldn't hold on to 3 goal lead heading into the third period.

 

 

What the **** Happened?

The Sharks were eliminated from the post season. After an incredible series against Detroit, the Sharks, almost as a denouement lost in 5 games to Vancouver.

What makes it painful is that it feels like the Sharks should have won.

But let's remind folks. The Sharks, as a team, were pretty crappy the first part of the year. The second part of the year they rode an incredible run by Nemo to the 2nd spot in the conference. In the playoffs, they simply ran out of gas, having peaked two to there weeks too early.

The Nucks on the other hand had the best record in the NHL by 13 points (which is staggering) while not being able to field their team until the beginning of the playoffs. 

If you want to blame someone, blame Chicago for not being able to pull of the upset that would have made it possible for the Sharks to win a cup. 

Then in the post season, the Sharks had to work really really hard to almost lose to Detroit. Perhaps if they had not lost game 5, there would have been enough gas in the tank to beat Vancouver. But by the end of the Detroit series, Clowe had pulled up lame, Demers was down and out and Thornton was running on fumes. Losing Demers hurt the offense, it hurt the defense and it more or less guaranteed that we were unlikely to win the series. 

Yes, the last game was bad luck, but to come back from 3-1 you either have to be much better and lucky. And the Sharks were marginally better and unlucky in 5. 

Yes, we saw a historically unique event in Game 4, the Sharks getting scored three times on 5 on 3, but the real problem was that the Sharks only scored more than three goals once against Vancouver.

Niemi who was so great, suddenly wasn't. And that hurt. 

Like last year, the better team won. The Sharks will probably get better. Couture will not make the kind of rookie mistakes he made. Pavelski will acquire more wisdom. Joe isn't that old. Niemi will get better. Demers will get better. Braun will get better and probably replace Huskins in the depth chart. 

This year the better team won. The Nucks were by far the class of the league this year, and frankly deserve to move on.  

So kudos to the Sedin twins who after the series against Nashville found their playoff legs. Kudos to the Vancouver team which showed why they are so great. And Kudos to Bobby Lou who morons have mocked because he got beaten by a great Chicago team two straight years.

Nicholas saves the Sharks

Most. Bi-Polar. Fan. Ever. is back. 

For the past several games Nicholas has gone to sleep in the third period with the Sharks leading. I put him to sleep with the Sharks leading, and by the time I come back the Sharks are losing.

Today I decided to try something differnt.

I kept him awake until the last possible minute. Exhausted, and hungry, I fed him a bottle and put him to sleep. 

And, of the course, the last possible minute is just before the  Sharks get a 5 minute major. So there I am thinking: do I wake the kid or not?

I mean, it's the 7th of 8 games we were winning going into the third period, and I don't think I could deal with a 7th game .. 

So I get him out of bed and say: Nick, you gotta take one for the team. And I wake him up. Well okay, I get him out of bed, and he's still sleeping. 

Game 1 LOSE - No fatality

Are the Sharks tired? That was my thesis in Game 5 and Game 6 in the last series. Then in Game 7, the Sharks won. A game, I wrote about, but what I didn't write is that the Red Wings were down two players. So it may have been that the better team just ran out of gas at a critical point in the series. 

Today the Nucks were all over the Sharks. If it were not for a bone-head move by Luongo, the game would not have been anywhere as close.  

So the question in my head, are the Sharks finished? 

My heart says no, my head says yes. Watching their inability to generate any offense in the last 10 minutes of period three, all I could think of was the gas tank being empty. 

 

Game 7 Live Tweet: Sharks 3, Detroit 2

Here's something I haven't done in a while ... dump my tweeter stream out on my blog from a live game. 

Well here it is. You'll notice the dramatically curter phrasing this time around compared to last year. 

I was under more stress. More freaked out than usual. 

Thu 12 May 17:15:55	Nichol outplaying marleau
Thu 12 May 17:16:30	Love the atmosphere
Thu 12 May 17:17:05	Marleau watch; one offside
Thu 12 May 17:19:14	Clowe looks gutful, marleau gutless
Thu 12 May 17:23:06	Game 7. Victory or infamy to follow
Thu 12 May 17:26:21	clowe outplaying marleau
Thu 12 May 17:29:57	Driving to the net
Thu 12 May 17:31:16	clowe has heart. Thornton has heart. waiting for marleau
Thu 12 May 17:33:48	Sharks pp!!!! Marleau still missing
Thu 12 May 17:36:05	Seto wins!!!! sorry scores
Thu 12 May 17:37:29	Sharks on pk. Huge moment
Thu 12 May 17:39:32	Pickles is playing with guts.
Thu 12 May 17:40:03	Even heatly is skating
Thu 12 May 17:42:16	toronto wants a detroit win,..
Thu 12 May 17:44:02	Another sharks pk
Thu 12 May 17:46:09	I can no longer hear...
Thu 12 May 17:48:02	Fereo moved to top line.
Thu 12 May 17:49:10	Couture stealing a sloppy zetterberg pass
Thu 12 May 18:23:00	Nemo
Thu 12 May 18:25:00	Interference
Thu 12 May 18:27:32	Sharks pp firing.
Thu 12 May 18:28:21	stress level high
Thu 12 May 18:28:57	Game is awesome.
Thu 12 May 18:31:48	Detroit makea it 2-1.
Thu 12 May 18:32:15	At least if we choke its not like boston
Thu 12 May 18:34:46	Well now i know what roenick meant... Look at how he goes into the puck battle.. Body away from playy
Thu 12 May 18:38:58	detroit cranking
Thu 12 May 18:39:23	mclelan knows what a time out is
Thu 12 May 18:40:34	linesmen not as crisp as usual
Thu 12 May 18:43:17	with apologies to predator and the body ventura: i dont got time to cheer
Thu 12 May 19:08:22	Good shift
Thu 12 May 19:13:26	Playing better than last period
Thu 12 May 19:17:27	12 to go
Thu 12 May 19:17:44	Sharks pk
Thu 12 May 19:17:47	Too many men
Thu 12 May 19:18:31	Marleau is still on ice
Thu 12 May 19:21:13	Game is interesting. Still on pk
Thu 12 May 19:21:56	4 on 4
Thu 12 May 19:26:26	8 to go
Thu 12 May 19:27:38	Marleau s first point
Thu 12 May 19:29:00	3-1
Thu 12 May 19:30:16	datsyuk
Thu 12 May 19:30:49	Datsyuk is a god
Thu 12 May 19:33:15	detroit is a great fucking team
Thu 12 May 19:37:32	Two minutes 36
Thu 12 May 19:47:02	Marleau with the winner
Thu 12 May 19:47:04	off to vancouver
Thu 12 May 19:51:04	We beat detroit

OMG OMG OMG OMG

After game 5's epic collapse, and then game 6's epic no-show, the truly awe-inspiring momentous choke was teed up.

I was so upset after game 6, that I almost did not want to attend game 7. But I realized two things

1. If the Sharks lost, I would have been one of 50k people who had ever seen a game 7 choke of this magnitude. This would be something I could talk about and discuss for the rest of my life. Seeing such unbelievable events is why I love sports.
2. If the Sharks won, then I would be happy. 

So it was a win-win. 

I can't claim that I knew the Sharks were going to win, especially after what I wrote. So I'm not. 

In fact, until the buzzer sounded, I wasn't even going to admit that the Red Wings lost. Purdy probably summed up my feelings when he said that even during the handshake after the game I was thinking that the Red Wings would figure out some way to tie the game and send it into overtime. 

All I can do as share my reaction: 

 

The first 20 or so seconds of the video are the last 12-13 seconds of the game. And then the video becomes a blur as I jumped over two rows of seats to high-five some friends of mine. 

I was sweating, and shaking and going crazy. 

My wife summarized my behavior in the following, brilliantly pithy statement: 

Most. Bi-Polar. Sports. Fan. Ever. 

Go Sharks! Go Sharks Go Sharks! 

Bring on the 'nucks. 

It's all about Nabokov

At the beginning of this playoff season, it was fascinating to watch the Sharks TV commentariat talk about Nabokov. 

Or rather how they talked about Niemi

Now with Niemi, the Sharks finally have that goaltending element they always missed.

At first, my reaction was: 

Shame on you for speaking ill of the dead

But then, well maybe we should speak ill of the dead.

Nabby was a good goalie. Not a great goalie. His save percentage wasn't great. Look at his record from the Internet Hockey Database:

2006-07	San Jose Sharks	NHL	50	0	6	2778	106	4	7	2.29	25	16	4	1121	0.914	11	0	0
2007-08	San Jose Sharks	NHL	77	2	12	4561	163	6	6	2.14	46	21	8	1639	0.910	13	0	0
2008-09	San Jose Sharks	NHL	62	1	12	3686	150	0	7	2.44	41	12	8	1513	0.910	6	0	0
2009-10	San Jose Sharks	NHL	71	0	6	4194	170	2	3	2.43	44	16	10	1998	0.922	15	0	0

Yes, his teams won a lot of games, but you can't really point to his goaltending as the reason. He was never an all star. He didn't get the Vezina trophy. If you look at his record 

He was a solid goalie. He would make the periodic great save. But game in and game out he never inspired confidence in the same way that Carey Price or Pekka Rinne did this year. 

I even borrowed a term for his periodic brain farts "The Evgeni Nabokov Freebie" (ENF) that more or less guaranteed that the Sharks would have to score at least one more goal than if he didn't have his brian fart. 

Don't believe me, read this piece on a great goaltending blog on last year's playoffs: 

Why the lesson in vision, you ask? For Evgeni Nabokov, three crucial goals allowed in his last two games were a direct result of losing sight of the puck on plays below the goal line or in his crease. These goals were momentary flaws in an otherwise awesome playoff run, but they still shed light on an area of weakness in Nabokov’s game.

If you don't believe me on brain farts consider the number of shutouts he got over the last four years. In 99 games, Niemi got 13 shutouts whereas Nabokov had 10 shutouts over 133 games. And in the playoffs, Niemi had two shutouts to Nabby's 0. 

And then there were the playoffs. 

There was the 2009 playoffs where Jonas Hiller playing out of his mind beat the Sharks. Then there was the 2010 playoffs where Craig Anderson almost beat the Sharks, only to be beaten by, yes you got it, Niemi. For crying out loud, in the 2008 playoffs, Niemi made Marty Turco look like the kind of goalie that could win the cup. 

 

When Niemi started the season, I tweeted: I want Nabby back. And I was probably not alone. But that's why I am a fan and the GM of a hockey team.

Nabokov was ill equiped to be the kind of goalie that wins in the Stanley Cup. He needs to see the shot. In the new NHL the whole offense is geared towards hiding the shot. What you need is defensemen who can block shots, and have a goalie who is comfortable being in the general area of the puck and then dealing with the fallout after the shot. 

Again from my favorite blog: 

 

Not so for a goaltender. They must be so attuned to the puck’s movement that even the most sudden bounces must be stopped. Juicy rebounds off lively back-plates, crazy caroms off the glass, deflections, re-directions, hard shots from bad angles – it doesn’t matter. If the goalie sees the puck, he must effectively make saves, control rebounds, recover quickly and be ready for the next shot. (*1)

The most difficult area on the ice for pro goalies to keep their eyes on the puck is below their goal line. No matter how hard a goalie tries, their eyes must detach from the puck, at some point, in order to turn their head from side to side. This is a fleeting but crucial moment for the goalie, as they must work extremely hard to re-attach their eyes to the puck as quickly as possible. If they fail to see a pass being made from behind the net, they are forced to guess on shots. As a result, they have to depend on instinct to make the save, instead of solid positioning and awareness.

 

Nabokov couldn't deal with that chaos at the elite level needed to win. 

He wanted his defensemen to never block shots. Once, infamously, cross checking Jason Demers because Demers wouldn't get out of his field of view.

The Sharks were forced to play a style of defense that tried to overcome the limitations of their goalie while the rest of the NHL was optimizing how to score goals on goalies who had those limitations. 

Niemi doesn't have Nabby's grace. Niemi is nowhere near as colorful an interview. Niemi will never cross check a rookie defenseman. Watching Niemi stop shots you are reminded of a the tasmanian devil. 

But that's what being a great goalie in the NHL is about these days. Positioning for the tip in. Being able to deal with the chaos. Not about seeing the shot. 

I don't know if Niemi will win a second cup this year (sort of the anti-hossa curse), but for some reason when the game is on the line, I have confidence Niemi will find a way to stop the shots and win. That no matter what the goal will not go in, a confidence I didn't have with Nabby between the pipes. 

 

 

Failure on Figueroa (6-5 Game 3)

The first period of this game was the worst 20 minutes I have ever seen the Sharks play.

Players colliding with each other. Boyle unable to handle a puck. It was horrible. It was deflating. There was a four minute penalty caused by two Sharks who collided with each other and then high sticking an LA player.

And then the first 5 minutes of the second period continued the bloodbath. 

It was so bad, I took off my jersey, stomped on it and turned off the television.  The Guppies were back with a vengence. 

Then while I was on facebook, someone said it was 4-1. And when it got to 4-2, I decided to see the game.

And then Couture makes it 4-3. And then 5-3 and then 5-4 and Pavs, yes the Big Pavelski, makes it 5-5! Making it possible for Setoguchi to make it 6-5 in overtime.

In the second period, the Sharks and Kings scored 7 goals. 

Somewhere somehow the Guppies became the Sharks. 

The most insane hockey period I have ever seen in my life. 

 

The Return of the Guppies.

4-0 Kings. 

And it wasn't even that close. 

They were outplayed, outwitted, and outlasted by a much more determined team. 

You'd think the Guppies (aka Sharks) were missing their top point getters and one of their top-centers, not the Kings.

Sigh. 

 

My comments to the Sharks Management after the hit

[I am a season ticket holder for the Sharks. I sent this to my Sharks season ticket rep who forwarded it to Hockey Management. There are approximately 15k * 30 cities who pay 92% of the bills for the NHL. We owe it to our players to demand that someone protect them from acts of violence]

Hi!

I've been a hockey fan for almost 25 years (starting in 1984). I have seen a lot of crap over the years. I saw the brutal two-handed breakage of Stephane Richer's hand in the 1988 playoffs by the Boston Bruins. I have seen the removal of Koivu's eye during the Hurricanes - Habs playoff series. I still remember the decapitation of Cam Neely that destroyed his career. These were all horrific events. 

I have been a season ticket holder of the Sharks for three wonderful years.

But last night was the first night I wanted to stop watching hockey. Watching that hit on Max-Pac was just disgusting. I understand it's a violent sport. And I enjoy the roughness, but when things cross the line I expect the league I pay good money to, to actually do something and say: Hurting other players is not okay.

It's depressing and disgusting and wrong. The league's indifference to this act of violence was just appalling. I am not looking for blood. But I am looking for someone to say that watching a player stone cold on the ice, with everyone wondering if he is alive or dead is not something that this league condones. 

Is it now okay to "accidentally" hold someone's head so that it collides with a wall? That just seems wrong. 

If there is anyone you can forward this to, I would be much obliged.

kostadis