Shuttin' 'Em Down

I tuned in to the game between San Jose and Vancouver last night at just about the midpoint of the second period. (I have been reading Dave King's memoir of his year coaching Metallurg of Magnitogorsk in the Russian Super League, entitled King of Russia...I was in one of those reading grooves and wanted to push through to the end. It was good...maybe in the future I'll provide a review in this space.) By this time the Sharks had built a 5-0 lead, which I was pleased to see. What I was less pleased to see was the way in which the Canucks controlled the play for the remainder of the second period and indeed the game.

The game ended 5-0 because the two best players on the ice last night were Evgeni Nabokov and Vancouver goalie Curtis Sanford, who relieved starter Cory Schneider after the Sharks scored their fifth. I felt very good about Nabokov's performance--he made some tough saves and always looked in total control of his net. His focus was still exceptionally sharp, even though his team had a huge lead.

Combined with his seventeen third-period saves against the Rangers on Saturday, instrumental in preserving that 3-2 win, it's been a great couple of bounce-back games for Nabokov after looking dreadful in the high-profile 6-0 loss to Detroit last week. Like those of defensive backs in scrimmage football, the mistakes of goalies are obvious on the scoresheet and critical to the outcome of games. There is nothing that can send a team into a lengthy slide quite like a stretch of poor play from its top goaltender. Since every goalie has the occasional three-sigma-bad game that just doesn't go his way, the ability to get right back on the horse is crucial. Nabby has done that, and he looked in top form last night; that's why he's one of the best in the world.

Ugh

Ugh. Just...ugh.

The outcome of the big Sharks-Wings tilt in Detroit tonight? Wings 6, Sharks 0.

Hopefully we can leave all the excessive and factually misleading* gushing about the Sharks' "historic" start behind us, now.

The Sharks played reasonably well for the first ten minutes tonight. Then Evgeni Nabokov gave up a couple of featherbed-soft goals and they folded like Superman on laundry day.

Best case? This is a wake-up call that serves to remind the Sharks that however many points they have, they are not the league's best team.


* The Sharks only set a record for total points through thirty games because there are ways of getting points now that didn't exist several years ago. If all of their overtime/shootout wins were counted as ties (as they would've been in the past) their record would be more modest.

More Than Atmosphere

You hear it all the time, when two rival teams who are playing well collide during the regular season..."playoff atmosphere". Usually a term used to describe the feel, the buzz, surrounding the game--and the potential for the teams to meet in the postseason--the characterization often cannot be extended to the play itself.

However, Thursday's game between San Jose and Anaheim--which the Sharks won 2-0--transpired much as a playoff game would transpire. It was a tight, nasty, very competitive game from start to finish, with the Ducks effectively preventing the Sharks from engaging in the type of free-flowing hockey that San Jose has used to such good effect so far this season. Evgeni Nabokov played exceptionally well; his counterpart in the Anaheim net, Jonas Hiller, played okay, too, although he maybe let in one soft one. The dislike between the two teams, which has existed for years and been amplified in recent seasons when both clubs have been amongst the league's elite, was palpable from the start and only grew as the game went along, punctuated by a good fight between George Parros and Jody Shelley (winner: Shelley) and finally coming to a head in a scrum in the last minute that saw dozens of penalty minutes handed out. Even though the teams don't meet again until March, a dark cloud of unfinished business hung in the Tank as the players skated off.

As a Sharks fan, I found this to be the most satisfying win of the year so far. The Sharks will meet teams during the regular season against which they can impose their superior offensive talent and fire forty or fifty shots, and that's outstanding, but the playoffs ain't going to be like that. Playoff hockey is a tight-checking, very physical affair, and Thursday's game was a great dress-rehearsal for April. It was very encouraging to see the Sharks play full-bore for sixty minutes of tough, often ugly, always physical hockey, and very encouraging to see them bite back when the bullying Ducks (much like the Flyers teams of the '70s, dirty cheating has served Anaheim well) attempted to push them around. (Although there's a very fine line between refusing to be bullied and falling into the trap of playing the other team's game and finding oneself constantly shorthanded).

The Sharks were a difficult and no doubt unpleasant team to play against on Thursday night, and that's a good thing. Much like baseball, in which the reptilian fear of getting hit by a pitched ball is fundamental to the way in which the pitcher-batter duel plays out, and is therefore fundamental to the sport, you want teams that step on the ice against you to feel a lurking dread and to be acutely aware that there is nowhere to hide. (Teams obliged to play the Flyers when they were winning Stanley Cups were frequently afflicted by "the Philly Flu".) For all of their talent in the past several seasons, one has rarely had the impression that the Sharks inspired much fear in their opponents. Perhaps that is changing...and a welcome change it would be.

Improvement, But Not Perfection

The Sharks defeated the Southeast Division-leading Washington Capitals last night 7-2. The margin suggests a more lopsided game than what actually took place.

The Capitals are in the midst of a difficult road trip and were missing two of their most talented players--offensive D-man Mike Green and team goal-scoring leader Alexander Semin--due to injury. Even tired and short-handed, the Capitals controlled play for much of the evening and held an edge in shots-on-goal until relatively late in the game. San Jose's second goal was a gift from Washington--in soccer, it would have been scored "Own Goal: Shaone Morrisonn"--and their last goal came with less than a minute left in the game, long after the outcome was no longer in doubt. Despite taking advantage of early opportunities to score three quick unanswered goals, the Sharks still demonstrated that they don't know quite what to do when they get a big lead...the Caps came out and were clearly the better team both at the start of the second and the start of the third periods, getting goals in each sequence that allowed them to sniff a rally. Really, without Morrisonn's own goal and with a few key stops by Caps goalie Brent Johnson, the final score would've reflected the much closer game that this actually was.

On the other hand (it occurs to me I write those four words a lot...one has to, writing about this team) there are substantial reasons for Todd McLellan to be happy about last night's game, outside of the obvious. Although criticism of the Sharks for allowing the Caps to get back in the game is warranted, it's worth noting that San Jose followed up Washington goals with goals of their own, righting the proverbial ship and keeping the Capitals from building too much momentum. (In that nightmare game against Calgary in the playoffs last year, once the Flames got their first goal one could not avoid feeling that the Sharks, win or lose, were at a minimum not going to score again that night.) Hopefully this is a sign that the team is at least improving its ability to play with a lead, something that's been a persistent problem.

The production from the blue line continues to be extraordinary...Rob Blake had in what my opinion was his best night as a Shark (four assists) and is one of a remarkable three San Jose defensemen (the others are Dan Boyle and the suddenly blossoming Christian Ehrhoff) who are amongst the top five in the league in scoring, as of this morning. That particular part of McLellan's preseason plan has gone about as well as anyone could've possibly hoped.

And at the end of the day the Sharks did exactly what they needed to do with their opportunities. You get a tired team nearing the end of a road trip in your building when you've had a chance to rest up, and you have to clobber them...the Sharks did. (And as a fan of a Western Conference team, I pretty much have a cry-me-a-river attitude when it comes to road trips by Eastern Conference teams...gee, sorry you guys have to travel out of sight of the Atlantic Ocean for once.) You get a 5-on-3 at a crucial juncture, you need to capitalize on it...the Sharks did. Ice hockey, as I've said in this space numerous times, is really all about taking advantage of those islands of opportunity in a sea of broken, anarchic play. By this measure, the Sharks were a great team last night, worthy of their 17-3-1 record.

The fact that they've accomplished this while still having room for improvement...right now, writing in November of 2008, it really seems that the sky is the limit for this team.

Back Online!

Okay, we're into the new place and officially hooked back up to the internet. So expect that I'll resume normal posting soon.

What's new with the team? Well, the Sharks are 16-3-1, and there's reason to believe they can play even better. It's enough to make you say "Wow".

More later...for now I just wanted to announce that I'm back online.

Half-Full? Half-Empty?

Some Sharks fans will look at last night's 4-3 OT loss to Nashville--with San Jose launching a franchise-record 57 shots--and say, Hey, their goalie robbed us. That's the way it goes. Nine times out of ten we win that game...it's just a little bump in the road.

Other Sharks fans will look at the loss and see a second consecutive blown two-goal lead, and start to worry.

Count me amongst the latter camp.

Personal note: I'm going to be moving over the next few days, so my connectivity will be intermittent. Look for more posts once we get settled in to the new place and all the wires are going where they're supposed to go and carrying the electrons they're supposed to carry.

Swiftly Turns the Tide

I made pasta for dinner this evening. I started cooking it up during the first period of tonight's game against Phoenix. The Sharks had just taken a 2-0 lead on a power play goal by Ryan Clowe when I fished out a piece of spaghetti and determined that it was properly done. It looked as though maybe the poorest functioning piece of the San Jose machine this year (the power play) was finally running smoothly, and I allowed myself to believe that perhaps the Sharks were on their way to a convincing and pleasantly unexciting victory.

In the time it took to drain the pasta, the Coyotes got two goals to even the score. Phoenix went on to win, 4-2.

Disappointing game tonight after a promising start. Brian Boucher, getting the start in goal for an injured Evgeni Nabokov, came back down to Earth following a spectacular start to his career in teal--he was okay, but this was his first loss as a starter for the Sharks. (Although I have to give a tip of the cap to the string of remarkable saves he made at the end of the game, when, down 3-2 and with three men in the box after the officials apparently decided there is a new minor penalty in the NHL called Playing Defense and quickly punished the Sharks for being guilty of said penalty, San Jose's desperate attempts to pull one back playing 3-on-5 left him hung out to dry numerous times. Phoenix's fourth goal came with Boucher on the bench for an extra skater.) Overall, the Coyotes generally showed more spark and energy tonight.

Something that bothers me about the Sharks' three losses is that it seems they played down to the level of their opposition in each. Their first loss of the season was to Anaheim, and the Ducks, although on a hot streak now, were playing poorly then...in fact, that win was their first of the season. The second loss was against a decidedly mediocre Florida team. And the Coyotes, although possessed of much young talent and likely to be on the brink of a swift rise in the league, are a team the Sharks really ought to beat, especially if they have them down by two goals.

San Jose still leads the league in points, and by just about any measure they are one of the top if not the top team in the league right now. Every opponent is going to look at a game against the Sharks as a test, and will bring a little bit extra to the rink. Team Teal has to learn to match that extra energy, and close out the games they're supposed to win.

Ban the Mass Noun Nickname (Redux)!

Country music star Taylor Swift, quoted by Sasha Frere-Jones of The New Yorker, prior to playing a show in St. Paul at the X:

"So the hockey team is the Wild or the Wilds?"

You see! Mass noun nicknames are not just awkward, they're confusing!

Obviously I rest my case.

Say What?

I seriously wonder at the hockey savvy of some of the guys who write game recaps for the Associated Press.

With reference to last night's 2-1 San Jose victory over Dallas, the winning goal of which was scored by Patrick Marleau off of a mishandled puck by Stars goalie Marty Turco in the game's final minute, AP "Sports Writer" Greg Beacham writes the following (link here):

"Dan Boyle also scored and backup goalie Brian Boucher made 23 saves to stay perfect as a starter with San Jose, but the NHL-leading Sharks’ seventh consecutive victory came down to a horrendous mistake by Turco, the veteran goalie whose puck-handling skills have long been criticized."

Say what? I would hope that anyone who writes about the NHL for an institution as august as the Associated Press would be familiar enough with the sport to know that Marty Turco has long been admired around the league for his excellent puck-handling skills. Yes, Turco has had a horrible year and has caught all kinds of flak about every element of his game, but to assert that his "puck-handling skills have long been criticized" is absurd.

Sometimes I seriously question if the people who write these recaps have even watched the games they presume to write about. I have seen recaps that have credited the wrong player with a key goal, and recaps that have described particular plays in ways that are factually incorrect.

C'mon, Associated Press...could you please assign some writers to write about our sport who actually know what they're talking about and care enough to get it right? Thank you.

Uh-Oh

The Merc is reporting that starting goalie Evgeni "Shoulda Won the Vezina" Nabokov appeared to have twisted his left knee during the Sharks' 5-4, come-from-behind shootout win over St. Louis last night.

The Sharks have been fairly free of injuries to their core of key personnel in recent years. Losing Nabokov for any length of time would be a huge hurdle to overcome for a team that is off to a hot start. Stay tuned, I guess...

A Tough (but Triumphant) Triplet

After a relatively soft start to their schedule, the Sharks have faced tough opposition in their last three home games. Back-to-back games against Pittsburgh and Detroit saw them face last year's Stanley Cup finalists, and last night's matchup pitted them against another division leader--the Minnesota Wild. And there was a road game against Colorado thrown into the mix as well.

The Sharks won all three of those home games in convincing style (and the game in Denver, too). They are still undefeated at the Tank. Yet as impressive a run as this is, there is still an important caveat to each win.

The Sharks dominated possession against the Penguins and won 2-1, holding the Malkin-and-Crosby-led defending Eastern Conference champs to only eleven shots...

...but the Sharks were facing Pittsburgh's backup goalie, Dany Sabourin, rather than first-stringer Marc-Andre Fleury, and the Penguins have a gaping hole in the blue line with Sergei Gonchar and Ryan Whitney out with injuries.

The Sharks beat the defending champs 4-2, and hockey writers across North America breathlessly scribbled about how San Jose had successfully out-Winged the Wings with possession-oriented, puck-pursuit hockey and a ton of shots...

...but the Red Wings were tired, having lost a tough OT game in Anaheim the previous night. And, once again, the Sharks drew a matchup with Detroit's second-string goalie.

The Sharks clobbered the Wild with a dominant third period, outscoring Minnesota 2-0 and outshooting them by a whopping 22-5 margin in the final frame en route to a 3-1 win...

...but Minnesota was without Brent Burns, one of their top defensemen, and Marion "The Iron Man" Gaborik, who is, shockingly, injured (for the jillionth time in his career).

So that's the list of caveats. But some of them should be given little if any weight...Dany Sabourin played great against the Sharks, and it's not like Chris Osgood (Detroit's primary netminder) is exactly a brick wall this year. And anyway, even if San Jose did get some of these teams while they're a bit down...who cares? Hockey is fundamentally about being opportunistic, both tactically and strategically. If your opponent has a weakness, you have to make them pay. The important thing is that San Jose won all three of these games, and in reasonably decisive fashion. Any time you beat the Red Wings you've accomplished something. Any time you hold a team with Crosby and Malkin in the lineup to eleven shots, you've accomplished something. And any time you launch 49 shots against a Jacques Lemaire-coached team, you've accomplished something.

These were three great wins. I'm feeling genuinely optimistic about this team's chances.

Ban the Mass Noun Nickname!

The Sharks defeated the Colorado Avalanche tonight 5-3. No, it wasn't 11-0, but I'll take it.

I love beating Colorado. Not only are they another one of those teams stolen from their proper home, but they have a horrible mass noun for a nickname.

A few weeks ago I was in Madison for my girlfriend's brother's wedding. I had the opportunity to get to know a friend of the bride & groom who happens to despise mass noun team nicknames as much as I do. It was instant brotherhood. (Also, I give him credit for suggesting the term "mass noun nickname", which concisely and perfectly describes what I'm railing against.)

Avalanche. Lightning. Wild. Thunder. Heat. Magic. They're all awful. I'm pretty sure you can draw a correlation between how seriously (or not) a professional sports league is taken and the number of mass nouns employed as team nicknames. Why is the NFL the most successful league in the world? Because of good, honest nicknames like Steelers and Packers and Vikings. Why is MLS on the fringe? Because of the Columbus Crew, Los Angeles Galaxy, and Houston Dynamo, that's why!

(I'm willing to give a pass to the Alabama Crimson Tide due to the tremendous history associated with the University of Alabama's athletic programs, and the fact that "Roll Tide!" is a cool cheer. But that's the only concession I'm willing to make.)

Perhaps what's needed is a grassroots movement to rename the Avalanche, Lightning, and Wild. Heck, I can't see any reason the Minnesota team can't be named the Minnesota North Stars...if the AHL can have two teams named the Admirals, the NHL can have a North Stars and a Stars. Better yet, rename the Dallas team something else. (At the moment, it's hard not to suggest Sieves. Tee-hee.)

Speaking of the North St--err, Wild, the Sharks play host to them on Tuesday. Like San Jose, Minnesota is off to a great start. Should be a heck of a collision.

Test Passed

I just wanted to get in a quick post on the subject of this week's games against last year's Stanley Cup finalists.  The Sharks beat the Penguins 2-1 on Tuesday night, and the Red Wings 4-2 last night.  

Both wins were pretty convincing.  The poor defense I complained about in my last post was in little evidence for San Jose...they held Pittsburgh to only eleven shots on goal, and conceded few good chances to the Red Wings.  In both games the Sharks came out with a high level of energy and sustained it throughout, in contrast to the team's habit of coming out flat time after time last season.  Most importantly, Team Teal is possessing and pursuing the puck in a way that I don't think I have ever seen;  the reason the Penguins only had eleven shots is that the Sharks dominated time of possession.  

Any team is going to have ups and downs over the course of a long season, but I think it's very fortunate that the Sharks have started off the season strong.  Hopefully the good start will aid the credibility of new coach Todd McLellan's system in the locker room.  If the team continues to play at the level they demonstrated this week, they'll have to be included in any discussion about which team is the best in the league.  

There are still a couple of worrisome areas.  There still appears to be some vulnerability to letdowns at crucial times...in the Pittsburgh game, no sooner had Mike Grier put San Jose up by two than the good team defense falls apart, guys start to chase around anxiously, and all of the sudden Ruslan Fedotenko puts the puck behind Nabokov and the finish is far more dramatic than it needs to be.  The ability to grimly close out opponents in a boring, efficient way still seems to elude this team.  

Also, the play of Evgeni Nabokov this year has been highly average.  Detroit's opening goal, by Marian Hossa, was a shot Nabby should've stopped.  Coming into the year, it was presumed that goaltending would be one of San Jose's strengths, but this hasn't been the case.  I'm confident that Nabokov is just fighting through a rough patch, though...I'm sure his game will improve, and it's a good thing that the rest of the team is clicking at the moment and they're piling up the points, anyway.  

All in all, a good week for the Sharks.  There are still some things that need to improve, but so far this team looks like a legitimate Cup contender.

Next game Sunday against Colorado, one of my most hated teams.  I'm hoping the Sharks win 11-0.  Nice and boring.

Pause & Reflect

All thirty teams in the NHL were in action yesterday, and today they all rest. My own life has been joyously busy for most of the last two weeks, and while I've been having a blast I have not had much of an opportunity to update this blog. So today, while the NHL is taking a league-wide timeout, seems the perfect moment for me to get back on the proverbial digital horse.

So, where are the Sharks nine games into the 08-09 season? Honestly, it's tough to tell.

At first glance, the state of the team looks very good indeed. They are 7-2 and atop the Western Conference with 14 points. Captain Patrick Marleau, who I asserted would be the bellwether player for the Sharks this year, leads the team in points (9) and is tied for the team lead in goals (5) with the emerging Devin Setoguchi. Unlike last season, the team is getting balanced scoring--after Marleau, there are four players with eight points each. The promised increase in blue-line contributions to the offense has indeed transpired--Dan Boyle has two goals and six assists and, more surprisingly, the talented but (formerly) frustrating Christian Ehrhoff (who had one goal all last year) has identical numbers. Furthermore, there is substantial reason to believe Ehrhoff's increased production will continue, simply because he has clearly taken to heart the importance of putting his shots from the blue line on goal. This was absent from his game last year. Ryan Clowe, who I believe has legitimate claim to being a genuine NHL badass, is showing aptitude for getting to the costly and painful twenty square feet right in front of the enemy goal and causing opposing defenses serious problems. Comparisons to Detroit's Tomas Holmstrom are reasonable.

So far, so good, right? Well, maybe. Look beneath the gaudy record and the surface positives, and there are some reasons for concern.

San Jose's schedule so far this season has been extremely soft. Of their nine games to date, only four have come against teams that made the playoffs last year, and those four games were against two teams (Anaheim and Philadelphia) that have struggled badly so far this season. They lost one of the four (4-0 to Anaheim), and another game, a 7-6 shootout win over the Flyers, had everyone in the organization sour-faced over the dismal defensive effort.

It's the absence of a level of team defense remotely close to what is required of a contending NHL team that has me most worried. Yes, they shut out Tampa Bay 3-0 last night, but the Lightning are the consensus worst team in the league, so I hope my skepticism can be forgiven. I watched the 4-3 loss to Florida on Friday night, and the Sharks made a Panthers team of very modest offensive talent look at times like Gretzky's Oilers. San Jose still put fifty shots on the Florida net and probably would've won if not for the heroics of Panther goalie Tomas Vokoun, but maybe it's good that they didn't...after getting away with similarly bad defense in back-to-back games with Philly, a deserved loss may have provided a much-needed kick in the pants.

The Merc reports that a Saturday-morning meeting of Shark defensemen occurred. Maybe this meeting can be credited for last night's shutout over Tampa. Maybe Tampa's own ineptitude had more influence on the results. Maybe it was a little of both. Upcoming games at home against last year's two Cup finalists should provide a more legitimate test of this new San Jose team.

I'll Have the Roasted Duck, Please

The Sharks' 2008-2009 campaign began tonight with a convincing 4-1 win over the Anaheim Ducks. (Yay! for the start of the new season!) It's late and I have a busy day tomorrow, so just a few quick comments.

Man, is it nice to stomp Anaheim for once. And it's nice to get off to a good start for once, too.

New coach Todd McLellan promised us more offense from the blue line, and sure enough, there it was tonight. One of San Jose's goals was scored by a defenseman (Christian Ehrhoff, who has apparently been taught that he will score more if he actually hits the net with his shots) and defensemen figured in all four one way or another. Dan Boyle and Rob Blake were both impact players on the power play.

Evgeni Nabokov gave up some scary looking rebounds early in the game--one of which was barely missed by a charging Chris Pronger--but these appeared to vanish after the midway point.

I think this team still has some lessons to learn about the duration of hockey games. Sixty minutes, guys. At about the fifty-four minute mark tonight the Sharks took their eye off the ball, and the next thing you knew Anaheim had a goal and was threatening to make this thing interesting. This was a problem all last year, and absolutely has to be fixed. (Some redemption points awarded for Devin Setoguchi's late clinching goal.)

Overall, though, a good win against a tough opponent and a good start to the year.

Out of town over the weekend...I'll rap with y'all when I get back.

It's a Business

Veteran defenseman Kyle McLaren has been waived by the Sharks, and as no other team claimed him he has been assigned to San Jose's AHL affiliate in Worcester. (Story here and many other places...McLaren's career stats here.)

The placing of McLaren on waivers was a move that even the most casual Sharks watchers saw coming. Something had to happen to get the team under the salary cap, and he was pretty clearly the odd man out in a defensive corps that features three new imports (Dan Boyle, Brad Lukowich and Rob Blake) and three up-and-coming homegrown players (Christian Ehrhoff, Douglas Murray, and Marc-Edouard Vlasic).

He didn't have a very good year last year--he struggled with injuries, and I'll bet he couldn't be as physical as he wanted to be--but as a fan of the team, I have to recognize that McLaren was an essential member of some of the best Sharks teams ever to hit the ice. This seems such a melancholy way for him to leave...dismissed by the team, unwanted by any other, sent to Worcester to suit up against the Lowell Devils and the Hershey Bears. A tough reminder that at the end of the day, professional sports is a business, and a particularly hard-nosed and unsentimental one at that.

I hope McLaren catches on with another NHL team. He's been a tough, solid player for many years, and I hope that when the end of his career comes it can be on his terms.

"Starting in Goal, Number Seventeen..."

A curious story in the NHL as the regular season gets underway concerns the Vancouver Canucks and their new captain, Roberto Luongo.

What's curious about it is that Luongo is the Canucks' goalie.

The official role of the captain in ice hockey is actually pretty limited...the captain (or one of his alternates, if he is not on the ice) is the only player empowered to engage in discussions with the officials about the rules (and then only when invited), and has various other relatively minor functions concerning communications. The captain is identified by a letter "C" stitched to his sweater.

The rules of the sport prohibit goalies from acting in the capacity of captain or even from wearing the "C". (The intent is to prohibit the goalie from constantly leaving the crease and interrupting play to converse with the officials.) Apparently the Canucks are going to get around the latter provision by painting a "C" on Luongo's mask, but there's no way they'll be able to get around the former.

Of course, the unofficial role of the captain--to be the team's emotional leader, to be the go-to guy at critical moments, to provide a source from whence the other players can draw confidence and intensity when adversity strikes--far outweighs any official nonsense about who supposedly gets to talk to the refs. So since Luongo is by far the best player on a weak-looking Vancouver team, maybe making him captain makes sense...although it smells a bit gimmicky to me, and besides is something that Just Ain't Done.

I understand the purpose of the rule prohibiting goalies from being captains. But another thing that Just Ain't Done, apparently, concerns the numbers worn by goalies. In all my years of watching hockey, I don't think I've ever seen a goalie wear a sweater number between 2 and 19.

There are plenty of goalies who are number 1, and there are plenty with really high uniform numbers--Jose Theodore wears number 60, just to name one. But you're not going to see any goalies wearing 8, or 11, or 17.

What's up with that? As near as I can tell there's no rule governing how players are numbered, as long as it's with an integer between 1 and 98 (Gretzky's 99 having been retired league-wide). There are particular rules that apply only to the goalie, but his identity on the ice is of course obvious...it's not like scrimmage football, in which uniform numbers serve to distinguish eligible from ineligible receivers. As near as I can tell, it's just a cultural thing.

Does anyone have any insight into this? Can anyone provide a counterexample of a goalie wearing a uniform number between 2 and 19? In the NHL or any other league? If you can, please leave a comment...I'm interested in hearing from you.

Drop the Puck!

And...we're underway!

Even though most teams are still finishing out their preseason games, the NHL regular season officially began today with a pair of games in Europe. The New York Rangers just defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1 in Prague, and they're just about to drop the puck in Stockholm for a game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Ottawa Senators. (The Sharks open next Thursday against the Ducks).

Wow. Pittsburgh already leads 1-0 on a very soft goal against Martin Gerber forty seconds in. Goalie woes continue in Canada's capital, apparently.

As the world gets smaller, all the North American pro leagues are looking to expand the market for their products. With so many Europeans playing in the NHL, countries like Sweden and the Czech Republic would seem like "low-hanging fruit" for the league's efforts in this regard. England--where the league opened last year with back-to-back games in London between the Ducks and the Kings--would really be virgin territory. And our very own San Jose Sharks are looking even further afield, sponsoring China's only pro hockey team, the China Sharks. The goal in China would be to emulate the NBA's success in growing a massive new market in the blink of an eye. Maybe we'll see a couple of teams opening the NHL season in Shanghai someday soon...

Well, regardless of where the games are played, it's just a great feeling to know the season has started.

Oh, and before it gets too late, I guess I'd better make a Stanley Cup prediction. So here it is: Red Wings over the Habs in the final. Of course I want the Sharks to win it all (duh), but Detroit has to be the favorite...they were the best team in the league last year and only got better in the offseason.

Happy Hockey Season!

This is Not a Slam

This is not intended as a criticism of either Todd McLellan or Patrick Marleau, but David Pollak's article in the Merc over the weekend illustrates exactly what I'm talking about when I assert that Marleau is high maintenance (see last post).

McLellan:

"I think we need to give him some breathing room right now to see if the (coaching) change is going to affect him positively or negatively."

"I think he's excited about a fresh start and we have to let that evolve a little bit."

I mean, the whole piece strongly suggests a "Shhh! Don't scare the Marleau!" tenor to the relationship between coach and captain. Which is fine, really...everyone's different and if Marleau is high maintenance, he's high maintenance. If McLellan can find the secret to successfully maintaining him and he scores 40 goals, I'm cool with him being as high maintenance as he wants.

Marleau or Mar-Low?

The preseason is underway, and the time is ripe to look ahead to the 2008-2009 edition of the San Jose Sharks.

Fans of Team Teal will be all too familiar with the storyline heading into this campaign...despite being one of the league's top teams for most of the 00's (and in the post-lockout years in particular), the Sharks have consistently wilted where it matters--in the playoffs. Early playoff exits have become an annual event of gloomy regularity for Sharks fans, rolling around to ruin those great regular seasons the way the first day of school inevitably shows up and ruins summer for small children.

The organization's management gave the team a good shake in the offseason in an effort to produce a different ending this year. San Jose's defensive corps will look very different this season, and of course there's a new man in charge behind the bench. But I can't help thinking that the key to a reversal of fortune lies with a guy who's been on the roster for years--the man wearing the "C", #12, Patrick Marleau.

Let's not mince words: Marleau had a horrible year last year. After a career-high 34 goals and 52 assists in 05-06, and an only slightly less productive 06-07, Marleau skidded down to 19 goals and 29 assists last year, for a mere 48 points, and was -19 on a team that was generally good defensively. And this was with a relatively strong finish: nine of those 19 goals came after the trading deadline.

Not every captain has to be a pugnacious, fiery scrapper like Bob Errey or Jeff Odgers. A guy can have a low-key on-ice personality and still be an effective captain. But to do so, he has to let his production do the talking. Marleau simply has to increase his production this year...particularly because he has retained the "C".

I'm betting this must've been a tough decision for new head coach Todd McLellan. If it were his decision to make--if Craig Rivet (traded to Buffalo) had been last year's captain, for instance, and there were no incumbent--it is difficult for this particular fan to believe that Marleau would get the "C". But it would clearly be very difficult to take the "C" away from any player who wears it, especially Marleau, who appears to be burdened by at least some amount of psychological fragility. (Did the fact that he was widely blamed for allowing Robert Lang to score the series-turning goal in the 2007 playoffs contribute to his poor start last year? Is it a coincidence that his best stretch of the 07-08 season came after the trading deadline, when all of the rumors that swirled around him could finally be put to rest?)

Marleau strikes me as a brilliant but difficult player who must be handled with great care and precision at all times--kind of like a Formula 1 car. Make a mistake and he can stall out or fly off the road. It was widely reported that Marleau had a relationship with former coach Ron Wilson that ranged from merely cordial to downright poor. Maybe coach McLellan can solve the Marleau Enigma, and ensure that this essential element of the team contributes to his full potential.

"My Client Has No Comment!"

The Sharks hired John Ferguson Jr.--GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs until he was fired by that organization in January, leaving it in pretty rough shape--as a scout over the weekend.

Ferguson seems to be pretty universally reviled by Leafs fans...there were several players the Leafs would've liked to have moved for draft picks and young talent at the deadline last year (Mats Sundin chief among them), but they all had no-trade clauses inked by Ferguson and the organization was paralyzed.

So the guy's reputation is in need of a makeover. You would think in announcing his hiring on their official site, the Sharks could've found at least one picture that didn't make it look like he was making a perp walk...



Inspires confidence, doesn't it?

Maybe he'll do better as a scout...

We Got News

Training camp tends to be one of those time periods for which "no news is good news" holds true. Well...we got news.

Media reports indicate that second-year center Torrey Mitchell--who provided a nice, unexpected spark as a rookie last year, although he faded somewhat down the stretch and flashed his rookie side a little too often for my comfort--has broken his leg and will be out for eight weeks.

Coach McClellan, meet your first major-league curve ball.

With Mitchell down, someone will have to step in. Who will that someone be? Very very early indications (via David Pollak's blog at the Merc) indicate that Once-And-Future(?) Shark Jeff Friesen could have the early inside track.

Certainly a situation to watch as camp continues.

Why the Sharks? (Part IV)

It's my observation that generally people inherit their sporting allegiances from the people around them--very frequently their families, often their larger geographical communities. It is certainly possible for an individual to adopt a team representing a town that he or she has never visited and to which he or she has no other community connection, but this is relatively rare, as near as I can tell. As a kid, for example, I rooted for the Minnesota Twins, the North Stars, and Golden Gopher teams, because although I was born in Virginia and grew up in Northern Wisconsin, both of my parents are Twin Cities natives and attended the University of Minnesota. I suppose I'm nominally a Timberwolves fan as well, although I've never been a huge NBA fan and I'm not especially engaged by the team's fortunes. (My NFL allegiances have been nebulous, multitudinous, and mercurial, and lately chiefly revolve around A) my fantasy team and B) the desire to see the people I care about happy, which puts me in the odd position of throwing my karmic support behind the Vikings and Packers and Cowboys and Eagles, all at the same time. Many will likely say "No real NFL fan could root for both the Vikings and the Packers," to which I reply, "True".)

I think it took the peculiar set of circumstances that existed in 1993-94 to make me a Sharks fan. Certainly if the North Stars were still in Minnesota I would to this day be a North Stars fan through and through. When the Stars moved, though, it really threw the future of my hockey fandom up in the air, and in the summer of 1993 I had no idea where it would land.

I do not think I could have arbitrarily adopted a new team and made it stick. It's not enough--at least, it's not enough for me--to wake up one morning and say "Hey, I think I'll be a Vancouver Canucks/Hartford Whalers/Los Angeles Kings fan." It's not enough for me to say it...I have to really feel it, to really believe it.

If I had stayed in the Twin Cities after college, or if I had moved to a community that didn't have a hockey team (San Diego, say, which I looked at pretty seriously for grad school), who knows where I would be today? Maybe I would have lost interest in the pro game and threw my support entirely behind Gopher hockey. In a previous post I mentioned the possibility that I may have successfully adopted the Washington Capitals, on the basis of a thin association with that team in my early childhood, but who knows if this would've stuck?

Even if I had moved to a community with an established team--New Jersey, say (I also seriously looked at Princeton)--would I really have become a die-hard Devils fan? Maybe, but somehow I doubt it. The Devils were a successful team in 1993-94 (they went to the conference finals), with an established fan base...it was their team, not mine. I think it would've been difficult to feel that I was really part of that community. I may have taken some interest in the Devils' playoff run that spring, but I'm doubtful any allegiance would've endured. I wouldn't have felt it. I wouldn't have believed it.

It took moving to exactly the right place (and, for those who may have been wondering, no, the presence of a hockey team was not a factor in my choice of graduate school) at exactly the right time for me to become the hockey fan I am today. It was not just a hockey market that I moved to, it was an embryonic hockey market in the midst of growth and fermentation, and I happened to come along at one of the truly decisive moments in the history of the franchise. In fact, I would argue that until the team hoists the Stanley Cup, there is no on-ice moment in San Jose Sharks history more important than that Game Seven victory over the Red Wings on that day in 1994. It was a crisp and decisive watershed moment. If the Sharks had been as dreadful that year as they had been the previous season, I am doubtful I would have found myself as engaged in their fortunes as I was, and I doubt if my support for the team would have persisted beyond my brief stay in the Bay Area.

So, in this way as in many others, I am a very, very lucky man.

This is the last post in this series about how I became a Sharks fan. I encourage you to reflect upon why you love your favorite team(s) (both hockey-playing varieties and others). I'll bet you'll find there are great stories there!

*****

Training camp is underway, and the first preseason game is only a week or so away. I'll be posting a few thoughts about the upcoming season over the next few weeks.

Stay cool. Happy equinox.

Why the Sharks? (Part III)

First, a few words about the NHL playoffs.

The NHL playoffs are frequently mocked because "everyone makes it in". This criticism simply isn't warranted in this day and age--just ask, say, Chicago Blackhawks fans. There are plenty of good teams that miss the playoffs, and numbers one through eight in each conference are always solid. Anyone can beat you. In the spring of 2009, the eighth-seeded team will be a legitimate threat to beat the top-seeded team, both in the East and out West. Upsets of this nature happen with enough frequency these days that they aren't even that surprising anymore.

But it wasn't long ago--in the era when the NHL comprised twenty-one teams, and played an entire regular season to eliminate five of them--that this criticism was warranted. The '93-'94 season was part of the transitional era between those days of the "Original 21" and the current thirty-team league. In the Western Conference, of which the Sharks and the Red Wings were and still are members, there were only twelve teams in '93-'94, and eight of them made the playoffs. The Sharks were the eighth seed that year. As you can see by looking here, all of the teams that finished behind them in the standings--the Jets, the expansion Mighty Ducks, the Oilers, and the Kings--lost 45 games or more, and only one (Anaheim) won more than thirty. You could make a case that the Sharks weren't the eighth best team in the conference as much as they were the fifth-worst.

The point of all the preceding is to emphasize how wide the gap was perceived to be between Detroit and San Jose as the playoffs got underway in 1994. Those who are relatively new to the league may have recent memories of, say, 2006, when the eighth-seeded Edmonton Oilers defeated the top-seeded Red Wings in six, or maybe this past May, when the eighth-seeded Boston Bruins took the top-seeded Habs to seven games before finally losing. The league didn't have the kind of parity in 1994 that it has now, the playoff field was nowhere near as deep, and very few people gave the Sharks a shot against the Wings. You would have found far more hockey fans predicting a Detroit sweep than a San Jose victory.

*****
On the Stanford campus at this time, there was a little shop that sold sandwiches (really good tuna salad) and frozen yogurt...it might still be there, for all I know. Game One was of course at Detroit, and therefore on television relatively early on the Pacific Coast. After it was over, I was in the mood for a sandwich.

When I walked into the shop the guy behind the counter said, "Hey, who won the game?" (I was wearing my jersey).

"The Sharks!" I chortled. I was pretty excited.

"Hey, great," the guy said.

"You'll never guess who scored!" I continued to chortle. "Shawn Cronin!" I didn't even give the poor guy a sporting chance to guess.

"Wow," he said. "Cool."

Of course, he had no clue who Shawn Cronin was.

*****

You knew it was going to be a weird series when Shawn Cronin--who had no goals whatsoever during the regular season and throughout his career was known almost exclusively for his fighting--found the twine for the Sharks in the course of a 5-4 win. If you were a Sharks fan, weird was good.

My recollection of the series, fourteen-plus years later, is like this: first, the Sharks steal a game, probably through the heroics of Irbe. Then, the Red Wings wake up and come back and beat the Sharks like a drum in the next game. Then this process repeats, through two more iterations, until each team has three wins and it's time for Game Seven.

Looking at the actual history, provided here, I can see it didn't quite go like that. Yes, the Wings did win decisively in Game Two by a 4-0 margin, but I see that they also came back and won Game Three (the first game in San Jose) 3-2. It was then the Sharks who won two straight, taking a 3-2 series lead back to Detroit for Game Six, which the Wings won in a 7-1 rout. That particular thumping I remember for sure...I recall finally having the sense that the Wings had righted the ship and were ready to take care of this pesky Californian team with their stylish logo and their oh-so-nineties teal sweaters once and for all.

I may have been confident that the Wings had righted the ship, but their own fan base was not. In 1994 the Wings were still in the midst of a decades-long championship drought--I don't think anyone at the time could have known they would be consistently at or near the top of the league for most of the next two decades. So at the time it probably seemed that having finally assembled a good team, the Wings were about to blow a precious chance at the Cup, with no guarantee of how many more there would be.

A Detroit journalist--I think it was Mitch Albom, but I'm not positive--wrote a piece around this time that reflected the anxiety of Wings fans. It was written from the point of view of a fan so preoccupied with the Wings' difficulties that everything he heard reminded him of the possibility of impending playoff disaster...

"A coworker poked his head into my office, smiling. 'All's good'?

'What?' I screamed. 'What about Osgood? That kid couldn't stop a beach ball!! This is the best we can do? Seriously?'"

...or words to that effect...I don't remember it precisely. ("Osgood" was a reference to Wings rookie goaltender Chris Osgood--yes, the same one who added his name to the Stanley Cup this spring for the third time).

*****

Osgood actually had a decent series, with three wins, two losses, and a 2.35 GAA, but ultimately the series-deciding goal was scored off of his mistake. It's a measure of the guy's mental toughness that he was able to shake it off and go on to have a career that has been and continues to be stellar.

With only a few minutes left in a tense 2-2 game, Osgood went into the corner to play a puck along the boards. Unfortunately for him, his backhanded flip went right onto the stick of Shark Jamie Baker, who immediately shot the puck into the unguarded net for a 3-2 lead. (Video here).

I was watching the game in the dorm room of my friend the Wings fan--he had an actual color TV. When Baker scored I leaped up in joy, running into the corridor, screaming, no doubt disturbing many students who were deep into their linear algebra homework. Considering that I was watching the game on a color television through the kind invitation of my friend the Wings fan, I probably should have conducted myself in a more subdued manner. But what can I say? I'm rarely subdued when it comes to hockey.

The Sharks made the lead stand up in the face of an all-out assault by waves of future hall of famers over the last minutes--Fedorov, Yzerman, Coffey--and won the game. Then they moved on to face the Toronto Maple Leafs, who at the time were in the Western Conference. That series is much less memorable--the one detail I recall is that the Sharks led that series three games to two as well, and Johan Garpenlov hit the post in overtime of game six with a shot that would've sent San Jose to the Western Conference finals. As it happened, Toronto eventually won that game, and game seven as well, ending the month-long thrill ride that was the Sharks' 1994 playoff appearance.

I'll have a few concluding thoughts in the fourth and final post of this series.

Why the Sharks? (Part II)

First of all, this is a way better sepak takraw link than the one I used yesterday. (I'm pretty sure this is how I sound to non-hockey fans when I talk about hockey...)

The conclusion of my last post found me--a refugee from the Land of 10,000 Frozen Lakes and still mourning the Anakin-to-Vader-like transformation of my Minnesota North Stars into the Dallas Evil Empire--adrift on the left coast amongst a sea of hoops fans, the only land in sight a two-year-old NHL team that might not've given the Baltimore Skipjacks much of a scare.

I starting watching the Sharks, just because...well, they were on. And man, did they stink. They lost a bunch of games off the bat and didn't win at all until nearly the end of October. Still, I watched them anyway, on my tiny little black-and-white TV...or, if I was puttering around my dorm room doing homework or whatever, I would listen to Dan Rusanowsky, then as now the voice of the Sharks, then as now one of the best in the business. Maybe they had some sort of lovable loser appeal to them. Maybe it's just a measure of how much I like hockey that I found following the team worthwhile, despite their (apparent) futility.

Then, so subtly that one almost didn't notice it, the Sharks began to dig their way out of that initial hole. They didn't burn up the league or anything, but they began to win a few games, sometimes a few at a time, and they avoided any lengthy losing streaks. A scrappy Latvian named Arturs Irbe gave them good goaltending--the one ingredient absolutely essential to turning a marginal team into a contender--and former Soviet stars Sergei Makarov and Igor Larionov started to click on offense.

It was around this time that I convinced several of my friends to accompany me down to San Jose to actually take in a live NHL game. I remember that it was a 3-3 tie with Winnipeg. To this day, this remains the only Sharks home game I have ever attended. Was this the night I actually turned the corner and became a full-fledged Sharks fan? I dunno...maybe. I remember rooting for the home team, and I remember being impressed by the gleaming new building and the enthusiasm of the Northern California crowd. Possibly a combination of all these things won me over. Or possibly it was just one more element in a long, gradual process.

What I do know, for sure, is that I was firmly in Team Teal's camp by the time of the one regular-season game that season that I remember even more than the one I attended--a 7-1 shellacking of the wicked Dallas Stars, in the enemy's building. For whatever reason that was a game I listened to on the radio--I don't know if it wasn't on TV, or if I had homework to do, or what. If the latter, I didn't get much work done, because I can remember pacing furiously back and forth in my room, listening to Rusanowsky call the action, getting more exhilarated with every San Jose goal. When it became clear that my team (yes, by this time the Sharks were my team) was not going to just beat the Evil Empire on their home ice, but absolutely paste them, I remember being so elated that I felt that I was about to float up off the floor.

(It was around this time that I made this purchase.)

The game had significance beyond settling a personal score for me. It, and every other game on the schedule as winter turned to spring (an imperceptible change in temperate northern California, by the way) now had genuine playoff implications. Indeed, the Sharks had successfully put the '92-'93 season and the horrible start to the '93-'94 campaign behind them, and were now firmly in the running for the franchise's first ever playoff spot.

When the last game had been played, the Sharks had managed to finish eighth out of twelve teams in the Western Conference, good enough for a cameo playoff appearance as Speed Bump #1 between the hundred-point Detroit Red Wings and the Stanley Cup. The fact that San Jose was so badly outmatched in the first round didn't really matter, to Sharks fans...just getting to the playoffs was an accomplishment to be proud of.

Then this happened...


It was one of the biggest upsets in the history of hockey. I'll talk a little more about how it went down in my next post.

Why the Sharks? (Part I)

I get this one a lot, and I'm looking to warm this blog back up again in preparation for the season, so I think I'll post a little of what The New Yorker calls a "Personal History". It's a somewhat lengthy tale, so I'll break it into multiple parts...

I was born just outside of D.C. in northern Virginia, grew up in northern Wisconsin, and have lived in the Twin Cities for nearly all of the past nineteen years. How is it, then, that I became such a die-hard fan of a hockey team hailing from San Jose, of all places?

It's the "nearly all" in the previous paragraph that is key, for the small sliver of time between 1989 and the present that I did not spend in frosty Minnesota found me hanging my hat in California.

The autumn of 1993 was a pivotal time for the National Hockey League, the Sharks franchise, and myself. From the point of view of this hockey fan, the changes in the league were mostly baleful--the classy old conference and divisional monikers (Norris, Smythe, Patrick, and Adams Divisions, Prince of Wales and Clarence Campbell Conferences) were abandoned and replaced with vague references to North American geography, and my beloved North Stars were stolen from Minnesota and sent to Texas. On the other hand, there was a new and particularly curious team down in SoCal that piqued my interest called the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim (opinions vary, but I personally think their original logo rocked, and I lament its demise), and the Winnipeg Jets and Quebec Nordiques were still where they belonged, so it wasn't all bad.

The San Jose Sharks, at the forefront of the '90s wave of expansion (part of the "Original Twenty-Two", as we Sharks fans like to say) were entering their third year, and their first in their new building, San Jose Arena. At last the team was truly resident in the city of its appellation, having played in the Cow Palace (just outside of San Fransisco) for the first two years of its existence. In addition to their new building, the franchise possessed a new head coach (Kevin Constantine) and the fresh and painful memories of one of the worst seasons in NHL history (an 11-71-2 record in '92-'93, for a whopping 24 points--this was back when expansion teams actually had to suffer a little).

As for me, well, I finished college at the University of Minnesota that spring and had just been delivered, by a few kind friends of mine, to the campus of the Leland Stanford Junior University, thousands of miles from anyone I knew, to start grad school. Amongst my carload of possessions was a combination radio/black-and-white television with a five inch screen. I didn't anticipate using it much. As things turned out, I was wrong.

With the exception of a fellow mechanical engineering student down the hall from me in my dorm who was from Detroit ('nuff said--the Wings were as good then as they are now, and have pretty much maintained that level of play for every year in between), my new circle of Stanford friends were fans of scrimmage football, basketball, and baseball--in other words, they were fairly typical American sports fans. The fact that I was so devoted to hockey was curious and somewhat bemusing to them--they reacted largely as they would have if I had expressed deep interest in shinty or sepak takraw. One friend gave voice to this when I mentioned that I would value a national collegiate championship for the Minnesota Golden Gophers in ice hockey more than I would in basketball. The friend, a Duke alum and the type of college basketball fan who inspires this sort of thing, took a moment to convince himself that I was serious and exploded "Hockey? Who cares about hockey?"

At this point, though, despite loving the sport, I really had no team. The wounds left by the North Stars moving to Dallas were raw, and I did not know how, or even if, they would ever heal. I still cheered for the Gophers, of course, but I've always had a particular liking for the pro game.

Where, or where, was I to turn? For the answer to this and many other questions, see "Part II", coming soon.

The Other Hockey

The Summer Olympics have started, in case you haven't noticed. In the past, the experience of viewing the Olympics has consisted largely of watching glossily produced human interest pieces, sandwiched between various taped bits of Americans winning gold medals in things, all to a soundtrack of Bob Costas waxing hyperbolic. This year, however, NBC is using the internet to make much more of the action available live and in its entirety (as they should--if they're going to acquire exclusive legal rights to broadcast the Olympics, in my view they're obliged to provide to the consumer with as much of the Olympics as technically possible).

I've always been very curious about the sporting universe outside of the handful of sports that draw the vast majority of the attention (and airtime) in the United States. I once attended the world bandy championships and I have a working knowledge of cricket. This bit of an oddball streak in my personality probably contributed to my embracing ice hockey as a young person--it has always been just fringe enough that I get to feel special, yet accessible enough that I could actually become engaged in the sport.

One of the sports I've always wanted to see is field hockey. I've never had the opportunity to watch a live field hockey match in its entirety before, but that all changed this evening, with the opening of the women's tournament from the Beijing games--New Zealand versus Japan. NBC streamed the match over their Olympics website--just the international video feed, with no commentary, which was just fine, given how irritating 99% of sports commentary is.

I didn't expect that the sport would actually have much in common with ice hockey, and it doesn't. It's actually much more like bandy in terms of the size of the pitch (looks like it's a little bigger than a scrimmage football field but a little smaller than a typical soccer field), the number of players, and the general pace of play. The sticks are heavy and short, obliging the players to bend down quite a bit to play the ball, which is about the size of a baseball. The goals are fairly large and on the end lines, and, curiously, there's a rule that obliges an attacking player to shoot from inside an arc around the goal called the "shooting circle"--in other words, if you shoot from too far away, it won't count. (This means that no field hockey goalie will ever have to worry about pulling a Vesa Toskala.) In practice, it appears to be common for attacking players to attempt to drive the ball towards the goal from outside the line, hoping to get a rebound or deflection from a friendly player in a legal position--rather like ice hockey defensemen shooting from the point in hopes that a teammate will get a stick on the puck. Except in field hockey, if the shot goes in clean, it's no goal.

One thing I discovered I really like about field hockey is that it's unencumbered by any offsides rule, and by extension the irritating stoppages in play and whining that accompany offsides calls in other sports (especially soccer). The fact that an attacking player can never be in an offsides position, and is free to cherrypick if he or she likes, means that defenses must account for this--it tends to stretch defenses along the field's long axis, opening up space for play to proceed.

On to the match itself. New Zealand, to my untrained eye, appeared to have the better of the early play on a rain-sodden field, but Japan took the lead about twelve minutes in when one of their players broke free behind the New Zealand defense and scored. Japan added another goal a few minutes later off of a "penalty corner"--a set piece restart involving what amounts to a free centering pass, a bit like a corner kick in soccer. New Zealand pulled one back with a penalty corner of their own before halftime, but although they fought desperately for the entire second half, they couldn't find an equalizer, and the game ended with a 2-1 scoreline.

I highly recommend checking it out. The sport has an excellent pace to it, and the match I described above wrapped up in a tidy hour and a half, so it's not like it takes that much of an investment of time. It really is a wide world of sports out there.

New Sweater

Well, I've been meaning to do it all summer, and I finally pulled the trigger... I ordered myself a shiny new Sharks sweater. I ordered my own name on the back (of course) and I picked number 93 for myself, in honor of the year I became a Sharks fan.

My original customized sweater that I bought waaaaaaay back in 1994 is practically a vintage garment by this point, and I treat it with the anxious reverence with which one might handle a dinner jacket worn by Winston Churchill. I also have a blank sweater which some kind friends bought for me several years ago, and which I will continue to wear, particularly when San Jose visits the X. (Going into an enemy building wearing the opponent's sweater? Cool. Going into an enemy building wearing the opponent's sweater with your name on the back? Not too bright.) But I had an itch for a customized sweater that I could wear on a regular basis, so I found my way to NHL.com and snagged one.

I hope they spell my name right...

Renovating the Back Porch

Following the departure of free agent defenseman Brian Campbell to the Chicago Blackhawks, Sharks GM Doug Wilson made a series of moves that completely overhauled the San Jose blue line...rather like one of those home-improvement projects that's initiated by a need to replace the screen door and winds up involving a comprehensive renovation of the back porch.

So is the team better off after these moves? I believe the short answer is Yes--but the improvements have come at a very high price.

The particulars: free agent Rob Blake signed with San Jose for one year at $5 million. Dan Boyle and fellow Tampa D-man Brad Lukowich come to San Jose in exchange for Matt Carle, prospect Ty Wishart, next year's first-round draft pick, and 2010's fourth-round draft pick. Then Craig Rivet was shipped to Buffalo for a couple of second-round picks, one next year and one in 2010, in an effort to replenish, at least somewhat, the Sharks' depleted pool of draft selections. (Particulars from here.)

At the end of all of this, the Sharks are left with a very strong defensive corps going into the fall. Dan Boyle is every bit the puck-moving, offensive defenseman that Campbell is--his numbers were way down last year, but he missed a good chunk of the season after a freak accident involving a falling skate that sliced up his arm, and after he did come back he played for a bad Lightning team. Even so, he managed 4 goals and 21 assists in 37 games. He has the potential to chip in 20 goals from the blue line.

Lukowich won't contribute much in the goal column, but he's a hard-hitting shut-down guy of the type a team needs to be successful. He also has a reputation as a good shot-blocker--a critical element of defensive play in today's NHL. He and Boyle comprised a defensive unit for Tampa's championship team...I suppose chances are good they'll play together again this season, but we'll have to wait and see how things shake out in training camp.

I was skeptical about the Rob Blake acquisition at first, but viewed in this larger context I like it. Blake will turn 39 this season, and he is certainly in the twilight of his career, but he has some things to contribute, notably a slap shot that is still worthy of fear, if not the downright terror it warranted in the past. Even more importantly, though, Blake is mean. He may be the sweetest guy in the world off the ice, I have no idea, but on the ice he's just not nice, and on a team that probably has a surplus of pleasant, jovial, friendly guys, a player with a mean streak is welcome.

Another crucial characteristic shared by Boyle, Lukowich, and Blake is big-game ability. All three of these guys have their names on the Stanley Cup (Lukowich twice). Given the way the Sharks have fallen flat in the postseason for the last umpteen years in a row, I really like an injection of proven big-game experience. This is one thing Brian Campbell, who largely disappeared in the playoffs last year after a great finish to the regular season, does not have.

Now, on to the cost. For me, and I suspect many Sharks fans, the loss of Craig Rivet hits hardest. He had a great year last year and provided steady defensive play and solid leadership for the San Jose blue line. He always worked hard and was justifiably popular. But something had to be done to offset Dan Boyle's price tag, not to mention the sudden logjam of San Jose defenseman...one of them had to go.

Last year Matt Carle failed to follow up the promise shown during his first full season in the NHL, in the course of which he scored 11 goals and had 31 assists. He had only two goals and 13 assists last season, and was generally beset by long periods of inconsistent play. I'm quite certain he was the guy the San Jose brass were expecting to step from inside the organization into the role of offensive, puck-moving defenseman, but it just didn't seem like it was happening, at least not in any kind of timely way. He could still be a great player...maybe he'll do better in Tampa.

Losing Ty Wishart hurts. He was the top scoring defenseman in the Western Hockey League last year, and has potential to be a Brian Campbell/Dan Boyle type in the big league one day, possibly pretty soon. Of all of the personnel given up to bring Boyle to the Sharks, this loss probably stings the organization most of all.

And then there are the draft picks. Like this year, the Sharks will not have a first-round draft pick next year. The second-round picks acquired for Rivet help offset the pain of this somewhat, but the organization is still looking at an extended period of time in which no top young players will be flowing in. Sooner or later, the ultimate bill for this will come due. I view this as an acknowledgment by Wilson that if the sun is not quite setting on the Thornton/Nabokov/Marleau era over which he has presided, it has at least moved well past noon.

With a little bit of luck, the personnel overhaul at the blue line will put the teeth back in a San Jose offense that went from formidable in 2006-2007 to somewhat meek last year. The power play should be improved, and hopefully Boyle will be able to initiate many offensive chances from the Sharks' defensive zone. Only time will tell.

What Was Doug Wilson Thinking? (Seriously...I'm Interested)

In appearances before the public, Sharks GM Doug Wilson is the picture of pacific confidence. He tends to wear a small, patient, wry smile when being questioned, as if he had anticipated the query with comprehensive accuracy and is mildly amused by this, then typically issues a bland and pleasant response that is less informative than an AP wire story. It's as though he took very much to heart the scene in Bull Durham in which Crash Davis instructs Nuke LaLoosh on the benefits of clichés. ("You're gonna have to learn your clichés. You're gonna have to study them, you're gonna have to know them. They're your friends.")

I find it tough to get inside the guy's head...he's inscrutable. It would have been really fascinating to somehow have had a peek inside his skull as the events immediately following the opening of the NHL free agency period unfolded--the departure of Brian Campbell, then the acquisition of Rob Blake and the trade for Dan Boyle.

As I alluded to in my last post, it's the timeline of events that's so interesting. Brian Campbell was off like a shot to Chicago as soon as the free agency period began, signing on the dotted line on July 1st. This article, which appeared in the St. Petersburg Times print edition on July 3rd, suggests very strongly that Dan Boyle was not inclined to waive his no-trade clause, despite the rumors swirling around him. A few quotes from the above:

[Boyle's agent George] Bazos...explained he got a call Tuesday from "Lightning management" that he said indicated, "It's not their intention to move Dan. They're going to try to work out whatever they need to work out in other ways."

Bazos said [of Boyle], "He's staying put. You can't replace Dan. ... When rational people sit down and take a look at it and say, realistically, if they want to move Dan, how are they making the team better, they can't do it."

The timeline on the Blake situation is less clear-cut, but it appears that even he was still in discussions with the Kings at the time the Sharks lost Campbell.

In other words, it doesn't seem like Wilson could have known that Blake and Boyle would be available at the time he chose to let Campbell walk. He let Campbell walk anyway, probably judging that his cost was inflated by the relative scarcity of defensemen on the free agent market and that the Hawks overpaid. (I would agree with this...so does the Hawks' GM, for that matter).

So did Wilson know a bunch of stuff that the media and the general public did not? Did he have a sense that Blake and the Kings were at an impasse, and expect that Blake could be lured up the coast? Did he have the foresight to recognize that Tampa would have to move Boyle, like it or not, to make their salary structure work? And, furthermore, was he confident he could tempt the Lightning D-man to San Jose (rather than Ottawa)?

Or did he just let go of the ledge, hoping that he would land on his feet?

My posts in the July 1st - July 2nd time period betray my growing desperation as Wilson made no moves whatsoever and quality options for helping the team appeared to dwindle, as star after free agent star shot off to the other arms of the NHL galaxy. But, in the end, I would say the guy did land on his feet, not just filling the gap left by Campbell but actually improving the team. I'll discuss some reasons why I think this is true in my next post.

All Shook Up

Okay. So. Let's review the last few days, because they've been quite eventful.

The NHL free-agency period kicked in on July 1st, and immediately the Sharks lost defenseman Brian Campbell--widely regarded as the top blueliner available in a slim market--to the Chicago Blackhawks. This means that the price Sharks GM Doug Wilson paid for Campbell at the trade deadline--a first-round draft pick and Steve Bernier--turned out to be the cost of a short-term rental. My reaction: not surprised, or even that disappointed, really. I was ga-ga over Campbell during the regular season, but he didn't contribute in the manner I had anticipated during the playoffs, and frankly I think the Hawks might have overpaid for him...with few top defensemen available as free agents this year, it's just the nature of the market that the price tags would be inflated.

However, I presumed that Wilson would move immediately to make his suddenly short-handed team better...but this didn't happen. For a couple of frustrating days, I watched while seemingly every other team in the league made moves to improve for next season, while the only story about the Sharks was a press release from the team describing prospect Nick Petrecki's visit to the White House. Yippee skip.

(All this time, I should add, rumors were floating around that the Sharks were one of a number of teams pursuing Tampa Bay defenseman Dan Boyle, who is a similar player to Campbell. But Boyle had just signed a new contract with the Lightning in February, just got married to a Florida native, just started to build a house in the Tampa area, and had publicly stated that he didn't want to waive the no-trade clause that was part of his contract. Lame hockey trade rumors are a dime a dozen, and those involving players with no-trade clauses tend to deserve particular skepticism, because a no-trade clause means what it says--the player can nix any trade that the front office agrees to. So the scuttlebutt surrounding Boyle reminded me of the hurricane of hot air blowing around (for instance) Toronto Maple Leafs Mats Sundin and Pavel Kubina as the trade deadline approached back in February--both were the subject of intense speculation, both possessed no-trade clauses, and nothing came of any of it.)

Finally, on July 3rd, Wilson stirred himself to action, signing veteran (read: old) L.A. Kings defenseman Rob Blake to a one-year, $5 million contract. My reaction: underwhelmed. Rob Blake has had a fabulous career that has included a Norris Trophy and a Stanley Cup, and I respect the hell out of him, but his most productive season was over a decade ago, and he's been in the league for longer than the Sharks have. Adding Blake while deleting Campbell would not have made the Sharks better, in my opinion, but with options dwindling (even less-desirable D-men such as the fading Wade Redden or the post-operative Michal Rozsival were off the market by this point) this seemed exactly the situation that fans of Team Teal were facing.

What I didn't anticipate--what I'm not sure anyone could have anticipated--is what happened next.

Actually, in fairness I have to say it's not entirely clear what happened next, at least not to me. There isn't a body of evidence out there in the public record that would make a court case. All that is certain is that only a very short time after signing a new contract, marrying a Florida woman, commencing work on a new house in the Tampa Area, and stating that he had no intention of waiving his no trade clause, Dan Boyle agreed to be traded to the San Jose Sharks.

The most extensive comments from Boyle that I have found are here. Boyle suggests that the Lightning's new ownership group criticized his work ethic and threatened to put him on waivers (this would've meant that he could be claimed by any team in the league and would have no control over where he would wind up). Some quotes by Boyle from the above, which is by Erik Erlendsson of the Tampa Tribune...

"When my work ethic is questioned, my offseason work ethic and the way I get ready for games and what I do is questioned, and it gets personal and I'm threatened, that is absolutely the way not to do business..."

"...I, for a long time now, have been under the impression that I was part of this team going forward, wanting input from me on other players, and never in a million years did I think that I was one of the guys that needed to go."

Given the circumstances, I believe Boyle. If true, this is a really classless, unprofessional, and disrespectful move by the Lightning organization, and totally against the spirit of Boyle's contract. I'm pretty sure I need to retract all of the generally favorable things I said about the new Tampa ownership group just a short time ago.

I'm certain this has disrupted Boyle's family life tremendously, and I feel kind of bad for him. At the same time, though, it's a gain for the Sharks. Maybe if Boyle can once more put his name on the Cup (he was part of Tampa's championship team), this time while wearing teal, it'll make the ordeal seem worthwhile.

Okay, this is getting to be a long post, so I'm going to stop for now. In my next post I'll have some thoughts about how I think this particular trade, and a further deal Wilson made as a direct consequence (Craig Rivet to Buffalo) will work out for the Sharks. Till then, stay cool...

Okay, Something Else Was Brewing...

If you're a hard-core hockey fan, you know this already, but for those of you who aren't, the big and fairly surprising (at least to me) news of the weekend in Sharks land is that defenseman Dan Boyle of the Tampa Bay Lightning did in fact waive the no-trade clause in the contract he signed just this February and agree to be dealt to San Jose. The Sharks also got another Lightning D-man in the deal (Brad Lukowich), and sent Matt Carle, prospect Ty Wishart, and draft picks to Tampa.

I stand by my previous assertion that if the signing of free-agent blueliner Rob Blake had been Doug Wilson's only move to address the departure of Brian Campbell, it would've been inadequate. The Boyle deal (which I never really believed would happen) is quite the follow-up, however, and considered together the two moves seem...pretty cool.

Just a quick post for now. More tomorrow...

What Comes After Consolation Prize? Disconsolation Prize?

O-o-o-o-kay. Rob Blake signs with the Sharks (one-year, at $5 million, according to TSN).

Well, I guess I exhibited desperation for any move.

Most humorous part of the above article? New coach Todd McClellan comparing Blake to Nicklas Lidstrom.

Blake is 38 years old and his production is in a decline that seems unlikely to abate. He can still have a role as a solid NHL defenseman, because so much of playing that position is good decision-making, and there's something to be said for a guy who's seen every conceivable situation go down about ten million times. And he can probably serve as a(nother) mentor for the younger guys on San Jose's D, who are still pretty green...it helps that Blake has more big-game experience than Craig Rivet (or anyone else on the Sharks, for that matter).

But still...this is not the answer to Brian Campbell's departure, and Wilson sure as heck better have something else brewing, or I'm going to be one disappointed fan.

Tick, tock, tick, tock...

"Rangers sign..."
"Canadiens sign..."
"Avalanche sign..."
"Coyotes sign..."
"Lightning sign..."
"Bruins sign..."

I've been watching these headlines tick out like clockwork over the past three days, with still nothing to be seen from the Sharks. It's extraordinarily frustrating...it feels like the rest of the league is passing us by.

For the first time in Doug Wilson's tenure in the front office, I am starting to question the franchise's strategy for winning the Stanley Cup in a serious way.

The only buzz so far remotely regarding the Sharks identifies them as one of the teams interested in trading for Tampa blueliner Dan Boyle. One of several teams interested in trading for Tampa blueliner Dan Boyle. Who has a no-trade clause.

Excuse me if I don't get too excited.

Um...Hello? Doug?

Can someone give Doug Wilson a nudge, please? Maybe he's taking a nap.

The NHL free-agency period is well underway. The laundry list of hockey press clippings is growing and growing, with the news that Player X has signed with Team Y, &c. Yet the only mention of the Sharks is in the context of those to whom they have waved goodbye (Brian Campbell and Patrick Rissmiller, as of this writing).

I know what Wilson would say to this...we're always looking at deals, we're waiting for the right deal to come along, we have a lot of confidence in the players we have, we don't want to make a deal just to make a splash...yadda yadda yadda.

I understand that sometimes the best deal to make is no deal at all, but still...as a fan, you want to have some reason to believe your team is going to be better next year, and coaching change aside, some new personnel would help. It's a bit like seeing all the other kids in the neighborhood rush home after school to play with a cool new toy that your parents didn't even buy for you. It's tough not to feel left out.

We'll see what today brings, I guess...

The Other Shoe Drops

So, Brian Campbell's short career as a Shark is over. He is Chicago bound.

Although all parties involved insisted that San Jose was in the running right up until the end, I was pretty sure he was leaving, and I'm quite certain that most other Sharks fans have been of a similar mind.

My disappointment about this development is muted. Yes, Campbell is an excellent offensive defenseman, and it would've been nice to keep him around. But although I was initially head-over-heels in love with him in teal, I was very disappointed in his playoff performance. He was barely visible against Calgary, and the two attributes he will be expected to provide for the Blackhawks--the ability to generate offense by moving the puck accurately and aggressively out of the defensive zone, and the ability to quarterback the power play--were grimly squashed by the Dallas Stars. Indeed, Campbell sometimes looked borderline inept in the face of the Stars' withering forecheck. He certainly wasn't alone in this, and I'm not blaming Campbell for the Sharks early playoff exit--the point is just that my love affair with this guy (Me on March 4th, after the Montreal Game: "Memo to Brian Campbell: We like you! We really like you!") cooled considerably after the playoff exit.

(In retrospect, I wonder how much the admiration of Campbell-and the commensurate distress at seeing him go--amongst San Jose fans was amplified by a single moment: his brilliant goal against the Canadiens that night. The Sharks were on a winning streak, it was their first game back after a looooooong road trip, they were engaged in a crowd-pleasing goalfest with Montreal, and, with San Jose leading 5-4 and just under two minutes to play, Campbell scored an absolutely beautiful goal using his "Spin-O-Rama" move, salting the game away. After the game Campbell was interviewed on the ice and you could practically see the joy flowing through the Tank. It was an electrifying moment, and of course we all fell in love with Campbell if we weren't already, and the team certainly owed a lot of its success down the stretch to his presence...but one wonders if maybe we didn't get a bit carried away.)

Furthermore, there are the terms of the deal to consider: eight years, $57.1 million, according to the report I linked to above. The salary on a per-year basis doesn't bother me, but the duration of the contract does. How often do we see long, expensive "sure thing" free-agent deals become terrible burdens for mediocre teams? (You don't even have to look outside the Bay Area to find the poster child for this sort of thing).

Honestly, my happiness about the fact that the Sharks re-signed Jody Shelley exceeds my sadness that they lost Campbell.

In short: would've been nice to keep Campbell, but I didn't think it was going to happen and sure enough it didn't. If the Sharks had signed him for eight years at $50 million plus, I would've been uneasy. I wish Soupy well in Chicago...with the league's most outstanding young core, and the addition of Cristobal Huet in goal, the Hawks ought to be a legitimate contender very soon. And as I mentioned in this post, it's nice to see that NHL hockey is looking strong in the Windy City.

The news about Campbell could be the domino that sets a string of actions into motion for Sharks' GM Doug Wilson. San Jose does have a very real need for offensive production from the blue line, and with Campbell out of the picture presumably this will have to be addressed through free agency. (Just as long as they don't pay millions for Wade Redden, who is not remotely what he used to be and likely to be overpriced... Watch, the next time I check the internet I'm gonna read, "Redden signs with Sharks").

Update: Looks like I don't have to worry about that, after all...