Meet the 2007-2008 Pacific Division Champs

I'm thrilled about the Sharks' now-assured Pacific Division championship (clinched by the 3-1 win at Anaheim on Friday), but not because I think the title itself will be extraordinarily valuable. Yes, San Jose can now finish no worse than second in the Western Conference. (There's still a miniscule chance they can catch Detroit--the Wings would have to fail to earn another point and the Sharks would have to win out). This ensures that they will start the playoffs at home, and would also have home ice in any potential second-round matchup. Should they make it to the Western Conference finals, the Sharks would start on the road against the Red Wings but would host any other team.

This is all good, but it's easy to overstate the importance of home ice...home, road, North, South, East, West, wherever, to advance in the Stanley Cup playoffs you have to play excellent hockey, period. In my judgment, home-ice advantage is of relatively little importance. (The Sharks have certainly seen their share of playoff flameouts in series in which they had home ice).

Of even less consequence is what team you play. Again barring a wacky finish to the season that lands the Presidents' Cup in San Jose, the Sharks will begin the playoffs against the seventh seed in the West. Peril to any team that looks at a first-round matchup against a seventh seed (or an eighth seed, for that matter) as an easy pass to the second round. The teams in the bottom quarter of the playoff qualifiers have shown themselves to be perfectly capable of winning a playoff series (or two or three) over the past several years. Look at the top ten teams in the West and you'll see ten tough hockey teams, any one of which is perfectly capable of beating you in a seven-game series. Additionally, those teams that barely squeak into the playoffs have frequently been playing for their playoff lives for weeks or even months, and often enter the postseason playing their best hockey of the year.

So, now that I've trashed the importance of the Pacific Division title, you might be wondering why I would describe myself as thrilled. I'm thrilled because although a division championship is a modest goal, it's a goal that the Sharks put in the bank with considerable authority. San Jose didn't back into this title...they had an opportunity to clinch with wins on back-to-back nights against Dallas and Anaheim, and sure enough they won both games to salt the hardware away. As a Sharks fan, it's extremely satisfying to see the team set its eye on a goal and promptly go out and accomplish it. The fact that the clinching victory came against the defending champions made it just that much sweeter.


Sharks 3, Coyotes 1

Good win tonight against a game Phoenix team that I'm quite certain will be a force in Pacific Division races of the future, possibly as soon as next season. With the second seed wrapped up, I was very pleased to see San Jose come out with some fire tonight--Joe Thornton scored only fourteen seconds in and the Sharks generally controlled the play throughout the game. Regardless of whether or not any further progress in the regular-season standings is possible, it's important for the Sharks to keep up their high quality of play...you can't ease back your effort and then just magically ramp it up again when it's time for the playoffs.


Brown and Clowe...sounds like a law firm...

Two valuable Sharks are back in the lineup after extended absences due to injury. Both contributed tonight. Curtis Brown returned to the ice during the March 19th game against Minnesota, scoring a goal that night, one on Friday in the course of the clinching win against the Ducks, and tacking on another tonight. Brown's goal scoring won't continue at this pace, of course, but his leadership, penalty-killing skills, and hockey savvy will be valuable in the playoffs.

Returning against Phoenix tonight was tough winger Ryan Clowe. Clowe injured his knee way back in October and had to have surgery shortly thereafter. He brings that great combination of nasty physical presence and goal-scoring touch that is so valuable at any time but especially during the postseason. Clowe assisted on Thornton's first-shift goal tonight, and was all over the ice for the remainder of the game. It's great to have both of these guys back.

I Love Beating Dallas

I looooooooooove beating Dallas.

I looooooooooove beating Dallas in overtime even more.

I looooooooooove beating Dallas in overtime because Marty Turco committed a stupid, reckless penalty most of all.

The Stars probably would have won tonight if they would have demonstrated their usual commitment to their tough, hard-working, team-defense philosophy. Instead they tried to go dirty on the Sharks, and the Sharks responded in just the way you have to...they shoved Dallas' penalties right down their throats until the red light behind Turco started to flash.

First, some guy named B.J. Crombeen chose to attack Kyle McLaren because McLaren had the nerve to body check a Dallas Star. There's a time to go after an opponent because he's been chippy...this was not one of those times. McLaren's check was a perfectly legal hockey play, and Crombeen behaved like a fifth-grade bully throwing a temper tantrum. He was correctly given the extra two for instigating, and Joe Pavelski scored on the ensuing power play. (Ah...the system works.)

Then there's Marty Turco. Marty Turco is apparently upset about the fact that hockey players at all levels are taught to drive to the net, and that as a consequence there is frequently traffic around the crease of the goal he is defending...a circumstance that faces, at last count, every goalie everywhere. Marty Turco, though, is special, so he gets the privilege of constantly whining to the officials and maybe, say, taking a whack at Joe Pavelski's face with his stick every now and then. I don't know if I've ever seen a power-play goal as sweet as the one that won the game for the Sharks tonight.

In a way it's too bad, because Turco displayed some brilliant goaltending tonight. Actually, no, I take that back. It's not remotely too bad. Turco lost the game for his team tonight, and I'll be laughing myself to sleep.

Oh, and Turco should be suspended for intent to injure.

Ducks tomorrow.

Gut Check

I missed Friday's game against Anaheim, but when I logged on and saw the result the next day I couldn't have been happier. Not only did San Jose win the game 2-1, but they outshot the Ducks 43-13 and held Anaheim without a shot throughout entire third period.

As well as the Sharks have been playing during their very impressive streak of consecutive games with at least a point, I think all fans of the team were casting an anxious eye towards this particular date with the Ducks. Not only is Anaheim a divisional foe, and a threat to San Jose's Pacific Division lead, but they are an opponent that the Sharks have been unable to solve over the past couple of seasons. The games in the series over the past two seasons have generally ended in victories for Anaheim, frequently by comfortable margins, whereas the few wins the Sharks have earned have come in extremely close games that could have gone either way. Even though San Jose has spent much of the past month looking down on the Ducks in the standings, I know there was a latent worry in my mind that once the teams hooked up, Anaheim might prove they were still better on the ice.

The Pacific is San Jose's to lose at this point. For a brief, glimmering moment there it looked like they might even have an outside shot at Detroit, when the Red Wings seemed to falter a bit and the Sharks were charging hard. The chances that that will occur are fading, but that's okay. I always try to evaluate the strength of the team with a healthy dose of honest skepticism, but I think right now I have to say that I see few if any weaknesses in San Jose's game, and there certainly isn't any team in the league that is playing better hockey.

So what's the number one challenge going forward? Refusing to accept any retrograde step in the team's quality of play, while still recognizing that the current streak will not continue forever and there will be ruts and bumps and potholes in the road as deep as those that pit the streets of Minneapolis after a long, cold winter. (Holy smokes, it's bad out there...good thing this isn't a street-quality blog, or I would go on and on...)

As much of a gut check as this Anaheim game was, there will be more and more difficult challenges to the morale and psychology of the team going forward into the playoffs. And as any fan of the team knows all too well, the Sharks have crashed out of the playoffs at the hands of self-doubt and a general collapse of spirit in the last couple of years as much as they've been beaten by any opponent. There is no way to gauge a priori whether Team Teal is up to this challenge...we won't know until we get there.

But for the moment, it's hard to ask much more of the Sharks than what they're showing.

I hope everyone is having a happy Easter. If travel is in your plans, travel safely.

Do Not Touch

My biggest weakness as an ice hockey analyst is the fact that I have never played the game at any level. For this reason, I am exceedingly reluctant to make any judgments about things that occur in the split-second context of the run of play. I am therefore not going to express any opinion about the extent of Torrey Mitchell's culpability in the incident that resulted in Minnesota Wild defenseman Kurtis Foster breaking his femur last night in San Jose. (Was there intent to injure? To what extent can what occurred be described as a "collision"?) There have been many views of the situation put forth in the hockey media, with major differences of opinion amongst them--it is not useful for me to add my uninformed opinion to the debate.

What is certain, however, is that the two players were barreling down on the puck in a potential icing situation, one hoping to touch and prevent icing, one hoping the opposite. The requirement for a defending player to touch the puck before icing is called is unnecessary and dangerous--it is rather like rolling a stout wooden wall across a speed skating rink three feet behind the finish line. I am hopeful that perhaps some good will come from this terrible incident, in that the call to abolish the touch-up icing rule in favor of no-touch icing (which is used across the world in amateur hockey) will grow strong enough to make the NHL take notice.

Presumably the touch-up icing rule exists to reward hustle and fearlessness--if you can get down there and touch that puck before a defender, you can keep the play going deep in your opponent's zone--but NHL hockey already rewards hustle and fearlessness. The athletes in our league subject themselves to sufficient danger in the course of the cleanest hockey game; insisting on touch-up icing creates further, useless peril for no real gain.

Proponents of touch-up icing will no doubt suggest that introducing no-touch icing will take the hitting and intensity out of the game. As Colonel Sherman T. Potter would say, "Horse-hockey". If you don't take my word for it, I call as a witness the indomitable Don Cherry of Hockey Night in Canada, who is as old-school as it gets. He's been calling for no-touch icing for years.

Foster's injury isn't the first that this stupid rule has caused. Let's make sure it's the last.

Leaving the Door Open

The Sharks defeated the Los Angeles Kings tonight by a final score of 2-1. This extends San Jose's road winning streak to nine, and their string of games with at least a point to thirteen.

I almost envy other sports bloggers who have grounds to rail against their team's front office, but I honestly think it would be difficult for any Sharks fan to be critical of Doug Wilson...as a GM, he has way more wins than losses to his credit. (The Guerin trade last year didn't work out so well, but that was a rare misstep.) The Thornton deal alone would be the pinnacle of any GM's career, but his major moves this season are proving to be very savvy as well. Jody Shelley has been an excellent addition, of course the Campbell deal has all Sharks fans giddy (although the real measure of the success of that move will be whether or not Soupy can be persuaded to stay in teal), and Brian Boucher played his second excellent game tonight in spot relief of Evgeni Nabokov, finally conceding his first (and so far only) goal as a Shark after more than 115 minutes of shutout play.

The goal wasn't Boucher's fault--the sequence which led to it appeared to begin with a miscommunication amongst the San Jose defense, and things just got worse from there--but it still bothered me, because for what seems like the umpteenth time this year the Sharks showed an almost magical ability to turn a 2-0 lead into a 2-1 lead. Too often, those 2-1 leads have then morphed further into tie games. If they were a baseball team, you'd say they were in dire need of a closer.

But hockey isn't baseball, and what the Sharks really need is a greater ability to turn 2-0 leads into 3-0 leads...it's less about keeping the other guy off the board than it is about chasing that extra goal. I've already worried much in this space about the number of 6-on-5 goals the team has given up; despite the Sharks' gaudy record over the past month, a lot of those wins have come by razor-thin margins. On the one hand this is good...most games in the playoffs are tight, so it's good to know you can win those close ones. But on the other hand, letting opponents hang around is asking for trouble. Now that the team is firing on all cylinders, I'd really like to see them give themselves some lessons on slamming the door and putting the opposition away.

All Good Things...

Sorry about the lack of updates over the past few days...I was in the great city of Milwaukee over the weekend, where I visited friends, participated in my fantasy baseball league's auction draft (verdict: it's a rebuilding year) and attended Friday night's AHL game between the Milwaukee Admirals and the Peoria Rivermen (more on that later). I also missed both Friday's 4-1 San Jose victory over St. Louis, which stretched a franchise-record winning streak to eleven games, and the 2-1 shootout loss to Edmonton last night that ended it.

You knew the streak was going to come to an end at some point, and I suppose it could've ended in worse ways. Sounds like the Sharks just ran into a hot goalie last night...Dwayne Roloson stopped 48 of 49 San Jose shots. And as everyone in the NHL has learned this season, you do not want to go past the third period against the Oilers (counting last night, they are an extraordinary 19-5 in overtime/shootout games).

Bearing in mind that it's easy to become bewitched by shot totals, you still have to like firing almost fifty shots while giving up just twenty-three. Patrick Marleau scored (again) and although it was in vain he buried one during the shootout, too. I actually witnessed the last 5-on-5 goal conceded by the Sharks, and that was a week ago yesterday against Minnesota at the X....an outstanding streak in its own right. Furthermore, remember that last night's game against Edmonton was essentially a tie; Edmonton gets the extra point for winning the little bit of crowd-pleasing stunt hockey that follows a tie these days.

So to the best that I can discern without having watched the last two games, things still seem like they're going pretty well. The Sharks are at LA tomorrow...the Kings may have the league's lowest point total, but they can still bite you if you take them lightly. Indeed, San Jose suffered a bunch of losses to LA towards the beginning of the season, and the Kings are better now than they were then. They need to come out firing and sustain the momentum that's carried them this far.


Go Admirals!

Milwaukee is home to an American Hockey League franchise, the Admirals (not to be confused with Norfolk's American Hockey League franchise, also called the Admirals). A friend of mine from Milwaukee (you can read his blog here, by the way) and I went to Friday night's tilt against the Peoria Rivermen.

The whole evening was a blast. First my buddy and I grabbed a burger at a cool bar right across the street from the Bradley Center (where the team plays). Then we strolled over and took in the game. Our seats were great (about twenty rows up just inside one of the blue lines) and way cheaper than NHL seats (seventeen bucks apiece before TicketMonster fees), and the hockey was excellent. The lower bowl of the arena was about three-quarters full...I had read before my trip that the Admirals average about 5,000 a game, and was on par with what it looked like I was seeing. The team clearly has a devoted fan base...many people showed up in Admirals sweaters, and one young girl a few rows in front of us was in possession of a well-made poster praising Milwaukee goalie Pekka Rinne. There were even a couple sitting near us who were Rivermen fans and had made the trip from Peoria, to provide a little bit of in-stands rivalry.

The Admirals won the game 3-2. The one player that really stood out to my eye was Milwaukee center Cal O'Reilly. It was clear from watching him play that he's a gifted skater, stickhandler, and passer, and his numbers bear that out. He had two assists on the night and was +2. I could see him playing in the big league one day (he's only twenty-one). Although his numbers are similar to Joe Thornton's, he's too small to really be a Thornton-type player, but I think he could reasonably aspire to be a Marc Savard-type player.

All told, it was an extremely fun night. If you are fortunate enough to live in a city that is home to an AHL franchise, I urge you to take the opportunity to check out some awesome hockey for a reasonable price.

Two-Four-Six-Eight! Who Do We Appreciate?

NHL Ice Girls, that's who.

I haven't undertaken actual historical research of the topic (although I may at some point) but I'm reasonably sure that one of the things we can credit the NHL's expansion to the Sun Belt with is the emergence of various dance teams/cheer squads that have begun to make appearances during games, mostly (although not entirely) in the South. (In addition to the franchises represented above, I am aware that Carolina and Phoenix boast dance teams.)

However, based upon the slender evidence of the photos in the gallery, only this shot of some young ladies supporting the Dallas Stars would appear to depict what I would truly call skating cheerleaders. I would really like to see more skating cheerleaders in the NHL, although probably only in certain places...this seems "right" in Dallas and would probably fit very well in Los Angeles (or San Jose), but might seem out of place in, say, Boston or Edmonton. Another place it would fit in would be Minnesota, because we have a long tradition of skating cheerleaders here. The Golden Gophers of the University of Minnesota (my alma mater) have had skating cheerleaders for many years.


Checking out the AHL

I won't be able to catch tomorrow night's game against the Blues, as I'm going to Milwaukee over the weekend for the draft for my fantasy baseball league (in which I am totally overmatched, by the way...I'm in a league with the type of guys who spend their free time perusing A-Ball box scores so they know who'll be good in six years). However, I am going to attend tomorrow night's game between the Milwaukee Admirals and the Peoria Rivermen with a friend of mine. I've never been to an AHL game before, so I'm pretty excited. Watch this space for a report.

I Think We Can Just Go Ahead and Award the Vezina Now...

During the final moments of tonights game between San Jose and Nashville, the Predators, trailing 2-1, were on the power play and had pulled their goalie as well for a 6-on-4 advantage. With two and a fraction seconds remaining, Nashville defenseman Marek Zidlicky took a pass right in front of the net and fired.


The puck was going in, but Evgeni Nabokov barely got his pad on it, as you can see in this frame...


The final frame shows the puck deflecting upward and out of harm's way...


Um...nice save.

That's ten in a row. With this win, the Sharks hop over idle Dallas for the Pacific lead, at least for the moment. As I write this, Anaheim leads Phoenix 2-0. Nothing will come easy. Every win is crucial.

Monday Musings (March 10th, 2008)

Blogging is Fun

It was just after the last visit of the San Jose Sharks to Minnesota that I began this blog, so now seems as good a time as any for a quick look back at the past ten weeks or so.

I pretty much started this on a whim, with no particular expectation that I would be able to sustain interest in it for any length of time, but it's honestly been much more enjoyable and rewarding than I would have expected. My confidence is growing that Team Teal in the Twin Towns will be around for the foreseeable future.

I've also gotten more visitors than I thought I would...a testament to the power of search engines, I guess. First of all, to anyone who has ever visited...thanks! I hope you enjoyed the page. I would love it if you would leave a quick Hello! via the comment section. Don't feel obliged...if you just want to kick back and read, that's totally cool. But if there's anything you'd like to say, or any points I've made you wish to disagree with, or errors of fact I've made you'd like to correct, please feel free. I appreciate any feedback.


My Fellow Americans...

A colleague of mine had a Daily Show desk calendar a couple of years ago. He saved this particular page for me...



Cool, eh?


Contact the Pulitzer Committee!

David Brewster, a photographer for the local rag here in the Mini-Apple, caught a great shot yesterday of Patrick Marleau swatting what would have been the winning (or, from a Shark perspective, losing) goal out of mid-air as overtime was ticking down. You can check it out here. (The Star-Tribune has a bit of an obnoxious policy regarding viewing their content...as near as I can determine, you can look at a pic/link/article once, but if you go back again or reload the page you have to register. It's almost more annoying than just being asked to register up front. Anyway, if you go look at the pic, it's best to download it locally if you think you're going to want to look at it again).

Alone in the Wild

Sunday afternoon. I am milling about outside the main gate of the Xcel Energy Center with two tickets to the upcoming Sharks-Wild game in hand.

I was only able to get tickets to the game when a few extras were "released" (whatever that means) a couple of days ago, so there wasn't time for them to be mailed to me. Consequently, my only option was to pick them up at Will-Call. I distrust Will-Call and always have, so I arrived ridiculously early, quite prepared to discover that there were in fact no tickets waiting for me, and ready to call Ticketmaster, my attorney, my congressman, and/or Governor Schwarzenegger, as required. Besides, arriving ridiculously early for things is the habit of my clan.

So here I am, well before game time, dressed in Sharks colors, lingering in the lobby and waiting for my friend, surrounded by Wild fans. I feel a bit like Homer in that episode where he's the only one at work wearing a pink shirt.

Then a man arrives with three teenaged boys in tow. Two of the kids are wearing Wild gear, but the third is wearing a Sharks sweater. And here I mean sweater in the conventional American-English sense of a garment knit from yarn, not in the hockey-specific sense of the thing that is generally called a jersey, at least in the United States--someone has literally fabricated for this kid a teal sweater, complete with a Sharks logo, a number, and a name on the back, from yarn. Did a nice job of it, too. I feel a little less like Homer.

*****

While I'm waiting I see a man dressed in an excellent slate-colored suit. He is entering the arena via the press entrance and I vaguely recognize him. After a moment I realize it's Sharks defenseman Sandis Ozolinsh. Ozolinsh has been a healthy scratch for several games now, and apparently he is tonight, as well.

A short time later I see Jeremy Roenick. Roenick is pounced upon by two young women in Wild jerseys who are tickled to see him. JR is all smiles throughout. I feel a bit proud for some obscure reason.

I am a bit surprised to see JR out of uniform, because he played the other night in Chicago. Maybe he's not quite over that flu, after all...

*****

My friend arrives and we enter the arena and find our seats. He's not a big hockey fan, my friend, but he had a blast the last time we went to a game so I'm happy he was able to make it today on short notice. We are there early enough to catch some of the pre-game warm-up drills, which I always find cool. My friend says that it must be tough to come out and warm up, then have to go back into the locker room and wait while the ice is resurfaced for the game. I admit I'd never thought of that, and I agree.

*****

The puck drops. Forty-six seconds in Milan Michalek scores for San Jose on a shot that Wild goalie Niklas Backstrom should've stopped. I jump to my feet and clap. A murmur of discontent runs through the crowd...Minnesota has not been playing well lately and their fans know it. As the period continues, the Wild continue to look out-of-synch. The murmurs grows in amplitude.

*****

In the latter half of the first period Sharks rookie Tomas Plihal finds himself with the puck behind the Minnesota defense. He is hooked from behind and awarded a penalty shot. The crowd disagrees with the referee.

My friend asks if hockey penalty shots are essentially automatic goals, as in soccer. I tell him no, far from it. In fact I am not optimistic...converting a penalty shot is tough, especially for a young player. But Plihal impresses me, coolly finishing for a 2-0 San Jose lead.

*****

The horn sounds to end the first. The Wild, skidding and badly in need of points in the standings, have not played well. The crowd boos.

*****

In between periods they pull one of the goals to its blue line and a bunch of little kids play hockey. I believe every Wild game I have ever attended has featured little kids playing hockey during one intermission or the other. It's green vs. red. I watch the action but don't pay attention to the score, so I'm ignorant of who won.

*****

Second period. Minnesota still looks fairly ragged, but about four minutes in they get a goal on a shot from the blue line. The crowd cheers, et cetera, et cetera. A gentleman sitting to my left produces a pair of small, rotating red lights (reminiscent of goal lamps) from the pockets of his jacket and turns them on. They flash merrily.

*****

When play continues San Jose continues to control the action. They have a number of chances but are unable to put anything away. I begin to worry aloud about the fact that they are not making Minnesota pay for their many mistakes.

*****

Second intermission. Two couples participate in a race involving pushing one another around the rink in one of those circular sleds.

I tell my friend that I remember, back in the day, when they only used one Zamboni and they didn't have time for any of this other monkey business. I also tell him that I remember back when there was a Prince of Wales Conference and a Campbell Conference and a Norris Division and a Smythe Division et cetera et cetera. He remembers that, too, despite never having been a hockey fan. We both lament the discarding of those great names in favor of generic geographic references.

*****

The third period is tight and there aren't a lot of shots by either team. There are long periods of unbroken, generally neutral play. The Minnesota crowd, somewhat mollified by the second-period goal, grows restless once again. At about the fifteen-minute mark of the period, I tell my friend that as the game winds down I am becoming worried about San Jose's poor play 6-on-5 (and that in fact I mentioned this very topic in a recent post).

With a minute to play, the Wild pull Backstrom. With about forty seconds left, the Sharks gain control of the puck. Torrey Mitchell has it. Even from where I'm sitting in the stands I can see that he has a look on his face as though he's going to shoot at the empty net from his own side of the red line. I have one of those moments where I feel like I'm yelling "Noooooooooooo!" in slow-motion. Mitchell shoots the puck. He misses. Icing Sharks.

The Wild win the face-off and score five seconds later.

I put my head in my hands. The place goes crazy, et cetera et cetera. The guy sitting next to me (different from the first guy who was sitting next to me--seating is pretty casual at the X, apparently) punches me in the shoulder with a giant grin on his face. He wants me to high-five him. Only then does he realize I'm wearing a Sharks jersey. He settles for high-fiving my friend.

*****

Overtime.

The extra open ice provided by the four-on-four format produces some wide-open play, and the Sharks have a couple of good chances. Brian Campbell displays the spin-move, eliciting a gasp from the crowd, but is unable to produce a good chance. As so often happens in OT the time seems to fly by, and before you know it there are only a handful of ticks on the clock.

With time winding down Minnesota is buzzing. A cry goes up from the crowd, which quickly glissandos into a groan--I don't see what's happened, as the fans have leapt to their feet, but I am grateful not to hear the cheer that would have meant a Minnesota goal. I'm glad when the horn goes off.

While the ice is being resurfaced for the shootout, the replay is shown on TyrranoVision, and only then do I see Marleau's remarkable save, batting the puck out of thin air off the goal line.

*****

Shootout.

Minnesota shoots first. Again, the crowd rises to its feet as the shooter bears down on Nabby so I can't see really well, but the disappointed groan tells me that the shot was saved.

Pavelski scores. Minnesota misses. Cheechoo gets Backstrom to bite on a fake, but slides the puck wide of the goal mouth.

Pierre-Marc Bouchard shoots next for Minnesota and beats Nabokov on a dramatic spinning backhand that captures the precise reason why people like shootouts. More delirium &c. The guy next to me tries to high-five me again. I try to explain to him that I'm not that interested in a high-five, because if Bouchard would have missed the Sharks would have won. He insists that I have to admire the move, and states that he is willing to settle for a low-key fist bump. "For hockey," he says, brilliantly finding the chink in my armor. I agree, and we bump fists.

Then Marleau rockets in on Backstrom and ends it. The crowd groans. I cheer.

Nine in a row.

*****

As the crowd winds out I hear a young woman in a Wild jersey say to her friend, mournfully, "We're not going to the playoffs."

*****

I took the bus to the game today, and I'm taking it home. I get to the bus stop, and a short time later a young man in a Wild hat arrives. Many people in St. Paul have Wild hats, so this doesn't necessarily mean he was at the game, although he could've been.

A short time later we are joined by an older gentleman. He is wearing a quilted jacket the color of a dusty robin's egg and carrying an unlabeled white plastic bag. He smokes a cigarette. He is of Asian ancestry, and when he addresses himself to the guy in the Wild hat he speaks with a bit of an accent.

"Did they win today?"

The young man shakes his head. "Nope. Lost. 3-2, shootout."

The man with the cigarette shakes his head. "They can't win on the road, they can't win at home..." He shrugs hopelessly.

*****

On the bus, I encounter, remarkably, another Sharks fan. We high-five. It's a good high-five, too...not one of those lame ones where you barely connect. A crisp, authoritative smack fills the bus.

I'm feeling pretty happy.

*****

Back in Minneapolis, I have to transfer downtown to get on the line back to my apartment. I'm hungry and I don't have much food at home, so I stop at one of few places open on Sunday evenings and grab a bite to eat.

"Good game today," says my waitress. "For you."

I don't have anything with me to read, so I'm content to watch Tennessee and LSU play basketball against one another on the television. I think forward to the evening's blog post, and conclude that although writing in the present tense is a little pretentious, and perhaps even dishonest, in the sense that it gives the impression that I've been "live-blogging" when in fact I haven't, the tone of present tense seems right for what I want to say. So I decide to roll with it.

You Snooze, You Lose

When the Minnesota Wild franchise was still in its embryonic stages, and a nickname was being debated, I thought that the team ought to be called the Minnesota Fighting Walleye. Well, the franchise blew its chance to have that awesome nickname (no one ever listens to me about this stuff!!), and now even the (admittedly small) chance that the team could be renamed is gone, because Toledo's new ECHL franchise beat them to it.

I'm thinking that Toledo Walleye tee-shirt would look pretty good on me. Where's my credit card...?

Sweet Hockey Card of the Week (March 8th, 2008)

Most exuberant greetings, hockey fans! The deepest apologies are due from the management for its failure to provide a new edition of the Team Teal in the Twin Towns Sweet Hockey Card of the Week yesterday. However, the appearance on the calendar of a Sharks game obliged it to place its attention thereupon. But now, 'tis a new day, so let us get right to it--this week's sweeeeeet hockey card is...


Pete Stemkowski, New York Rangers, 1975

Stemmer!

Pete Stemkowski played fourteen seasons in the NHL (fifteen if you count the one game he played in the 1963-64 season) for Toronto, Detroit, the Rangers, and the Los Angeles Kings. (Career stats here.) On the back of this card, the text says that Stemkowski was born in Winnipeg in 1943 and that he was "Known for clutch plays, especially in the playoffs."

Historians of the NHL are in general agreement with this statement. In the index of their book '67, about the last Toronto Maple Leafs team to win the Stanley Cup (of which Stemmer was a member), Damien Cox and Gord Stellick provide a listing for Stemkowski, Peter (Stemmer) "as playoff warrior, page 31". His greatest playoff moment, though, was his triple-overtime winner against Chicago in 1971 as a member of the New York Rangers.

Of course, I personally will always think of Stemmer as an analyst for the Sharks. At various times he has served both in the television booth and on the radio for San Jose...I associate his voice with my early fandom for the team.

Apparently, the Sharks Have a Player Named "David Setoguchi"

Hockey play-by-play guys have a tough job, I need to state right away. I try to temper my criticism, as should all fans. However, one of the funny things about watching the same team play so many games, as I have this season and last, is that it really becomes clear just how tenuous a grasp broadcasters can have of the opposition's roster.

During tonight's game against Chicago (which the Sharks won 3-2), Blackhawks broadcaster Dan Kelly called Sharks forward Devin Setoguchi "David" several times. Someone must have slipped him a correction at some point, because later on he called him by his correct name (although mostly he seemed content to just refer to him by his surname).

On a number of instances I have heard Craig Rivet's last name pronounced as though it describes a fastener used to join pieces of steel. And I suppose opposing broadcast teams can't be blamed for shortening Douglas Murray's first name to Doug, but Randy Hahn and Drew Remenda always call him Douglas, and it's my understanding that this is what the guy in the #3 sweater goes by.


Good Game

'Twas a good one tonight in front of a boisterous crowd at United Center. Both teams showed some jump early--although the Hawks maybe had a little more, possibly fueled by an emotional pre-game ceremony honoring legends Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita--and the score was tied at two after one. The game simmered down a bit in the second, and remained tied until a series of crisp passes found Patrick Marleau, who made a pretty move to get some room and beat Patrick Lalime for what stood up as the eventual game winner.

Marleau...well, there's not much to be said that I didn't say in my post about the Ottawa game. I don't know where this has been all season and it doesn't matter. Now that it's back, I'd like to see it stick around.


Unsung Hero

The official "Three Stars" of the game were Joe Thornton, Brent Seabrook, and Jonathan Cheechoo, but tonight my vote for first star would have gone to Kyle McLaren. And not just because he scored a goal...he was a nasty physical presence all night long, and may have saved what would have been the tying goal by deftly sliding the puck out of the crease with Nabokov down and out, denying the salivating Rene Bourque a crack at an open net with a little under three minutes left.


What's that thing that just whizzed past our ear?

The Hawks thought they tied the game with Lalime pulled and less than a minute left on a goal by Bourque, but replays clearly showed that he had advanced the puck into the net with his glove, and the goal was correctly disallowed. For a sickening moment, though, I thought that San Jose had let yet another lead slip away with only seconds remaining.

They dodged a bullet tonight, but the Sharks have to figure out some way to play better 6-on-5...they are likely to face this situation many more times this season and into the playoffs. And in the playoffs you can't console yourself with the knowledge that at least you got a point...


Hey! Which side is that guy on, anyway?

It's not too often you see an NHL general manager on the ice before a game wearing the other team's sweater, but that's just what we saw tonight. Doug Wilson took part in the pre-game ceremony, wearing 'Hawks colors. Wilson, of course, was a lethal offensive defenseman for Chicago for many years (39 goals in 1981-82!), before closing out his playing career with the Sharks.

Since I started off this post with a criticism of the 'Hawks broadcast team, I'll close it by extending kudos to them for recognizing the class of the Sharks organization in taking part in the pre-game festivities.


Next Game on Sunday at the X

I'll be there...

More About the Ottawa Game...

Despite their recent struggles and turmoil (head coach John Paddock was fired at the end of February) the Ottawa Senators are still a very dangerous hockey team. The Sharks got them last night in a fairly vulnerable state, however...the Sens were a long way from home, coming off a 3-1 defeat against the punishing Anaheim Ducks, and without goal-machine Daniel Alfredsson. So I was disappointed that the Sharks did not come out of the gate looking for blood last night. Most of the first period was played in their zone, the Senators were winning all of the battles for loose pucks, and overall San Jose was lucky to get out of the first period scoreless. The lack of energy was particularly apparent on the heels of the electrifying win against Montreal on Monday. The Sharks did not really start to look dangerous last night until late in the second period, by which time the Senators had finally taken a deserved 1-0 lead.

I give the Sharks credit for storming back to win...I'm certainly delighted to see Marleau net a couple of goals, and Cheechoo continues to be on a tear, which is fantastic. Brian Campbell played well again last night--San Jose has yet to lose a game with him in the lineup. But they were playing against a tired, slightly struggling team with some drama going on off the ice. Against an energetic, confident, distraction-free opponent, the lack of intensity the Sharks exhibited for the first half-plus of the hockey game last night could have sunk them into too deep a hole, beyond the reach of any late-game heroics.


Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!

The Sharks will face such an opponent tomorrow night when they travel to Chicago. I watched the Hawks gleefully stomp a more talented Vancouver Canucks team on Sunday, and since then they have chalked up wins at Minnesota and against Anaheim--those are two very tough teams. The Blackhawks are making a virtue of their youth and inexperience...the former they tap for energy and enthusiasm, and the latter is almost certainly a factor in their failure to be awed by the red-hot defending champions, whom they shut out last night 3-0.

If the Sharks come onto the ice tomorrow night as flat as they did against Ottawa, they will trail after the first period, probably by multiple goals. Hopefully San Jose will come out flying, and this assertion will go untested.

Hey! Who's That Guy in the #12 Sweater?

He's pretty good...

I don't know what's gotten into Patrick Marleau. And I don't care. If he keeps scoring and makes me forget the first three-quarters of the season, I'll be pleased as punch.

The Sharks played slightly under half a good hockey game tonight, and were frankly quite fortunate to come away with a 3-2 overtime win over the Ottawa Senators.

There was good, there was bad. Longer post tomorrow. 'Night for now...

Beating Them at Their Own Game

Three goals had been scored in tonight's game at the Tank between the Sharks and the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Canadiens before I even took the first sip of my beer. The early flurry set the tone for the game, which was an absolute fire drill by San Jose standards, and therefore played precisely into the hands of the high-scoring Habs. Add in the fact that the generally ragged play induced a number of lapses in discipline by the Sharks, resulting in penalties that put the fearsome Canadiens power play on the ice far too often, and it seems a small miracle that the Sharks came out with a 6-4 win.

It was certainly great to see fantastic goals by Cheechoo and Marleau tonight, Big Joe was his usual self, and even Jody Shelley got a goal (just reward for all the hard work he's put in wearing a Sharks sweater), but certainly the most electrifying moment of the night was Brian Campbell's clincher with just under two minutes left in the game, providing the final margin. Campbell displayed his skating and stickhandling skills, beating former Shark Josh Gorges (EDIT: My mistake. Looking at the replay, Campbell actually beat Mike Komisarek on that goal. I don't know how I got it in my head that it was Gorges. Sorry, Josh. Okay, I think I know why...it's because Cheechoo beat Gorges on his goal.) with the characteristic spin move we have seen from him several times since his arrival with the team, then sliding the puck under Habs goalie Carey Price's pad. The crowd at the Tank went nuts--hopefully the fan response will help Campbell become favorably disposed to the idea of sticking around San Jose for a while. (Memo to Brian Campbell: We like you! We really like you! Memo to Doug Wilson: Sign Brian Campbell long-term. Do it now.)

Unlike almost all their other games this season, tonight the Sharks were explosive in the offensive end but ragged in their own zone. That's probably not the recipe for consistent success in the Pacific Division over the rest of the season, but it provided one hell of an entertaining hockey game.


Price

The Canadiens are a very legitimate contender for the Stanley Cup, and therefore many hockey observers were surprised to see Bob Gainey trade goaltender Cristobal Huet to Washington at the trade deadline, thus placing the Habs' hopes squarely and unambiguously on the shoulders of twenty-year-old Carey Price.

American sports fans are probably going to have trouble conceiving that the following could be true, but I really think it is: there is no more pressure-filled role in all of North American sports than the goaltender for the Montreal Canadiens. It seem to me an extraordinary decision to place such a young player in that position. (Yes, Patrick Roy was able to handle it in 1986, but...well, he's Patrick Roy.) But seriously, who am I to question Bob Gainey (one of my favorite hockey people, by the way)? The kid obviously has rare talent.

But he looked like he got a bit flustered tonight. He was victimized by some bad luck and probably let in a couple that he should have had, and at moments he was clearly rattled. I guess my point is that inevitably he's going to have legions of critics in Montreal without being tough on himself. As the playoffs heat up, he could definitely take some tips from the guy who was in the other crease tonight...Nabokov is one of he calmest goalies I've ever watched. He usually looks as if he barely has a pulse.

For those counting, that's six wins in a row for the Sharks. Ottawa Wednesday.

Sunday Scraps (March 2nd, 2008)

Fun Conquers All

In the third period of this afternoon's game at United Center in Chicago, Blackhawk defenseman Duncan Keith found himself breaking alone into the Vancouver Canucks' zone, defended by veterans Matthias Ohlund and Kevin Bieksa. Keith tried a nifty between-the-legs spinny move in an effort to beat the defense. It was a cheerfully optimistic effort which utterly failed, and for good measure Bieksa clobbered Keith as punishment for his cheek, but the move was characteristic of the youthful exuberance, even naivety, with which the Chicago Blackhawks defeated the grim, anxious Vancouver Canucks this afternoon by the score of 4-1.

The Blackhawks have fallen to the very margins of the playoff race, but it's still been a very promising year for this very young team. With veterans Martin Havlat, Robert Lang, and Yanic Perrault out with injuries, the squad that took the ice today looked even younger than the Hawks typically have this season. One of the Rogers Sportsnet analysts calling the game for Vancouver joked that it was like the Canucks were playing the Rockford Icehogs (Chicago's AHL affiliate). Today the Hawks were able to channel all that youth into hockey energy, and they controlled almost all of the play. They threw the body, won the battles along the boards, fought with gusto, and swatted pucks out of the air and into Vancouver's net as if they don't understand that that's hard.

The Canucks, on the other hand, are still very much in the playoff picture, but have had some grim outings lately. Vancouver has lost its last two games in overtime after giving up third-period leads. At this time of year you absolutely have to beat the teams behind you in the standings, and I'm certain that the Canucks approached today's game as a must-win.

But they played like a team expecting things to go wrong, and it was a self-fulfilling prophecy...they were tight and never got into a groove, allowing themselves to be pushed around by Chicago from wire to wire. I had a mental image of them standing on a precipice, having just lost their balance, and windmilling their arms in terror in an effort not to fall.

The broadcast team alluded to the sheer quantity of one-goal games that Vancouver's reliance upon Roberto Luongo and a tiny dram of scoring obliges them to play, and one wonders if they aren't beginning to crack under the constant pressure.

The Canucks today were more talented and vastly more experienced than the Hawks, but the Hawks looked like they were having infinitely more fun and in the end that made all the difference.


Wings-Sabres Observations

The Red Wings visited Buffalo today, having gone 1-8-2 in their prior eleven games. East vs. West matchup involving a Western team other than San Jose, so of course I was pulling for the Sabres to do the Sharks and everyone else out west a favor. Alas, the Wings gave the Sabres a pretty good drubbing today, and came out with a 4-2 win.

Much like the other night against the Sharks, the Wings were victimized by a bizarre goal involving the officials allowing play to continue when (almost) everyone was anticipating a whistle. With about four minutes gone in the third period and Detroit leading 3-1, there was a hard hit along the boards, followed by some face-washing, followed by some more face-washing, followed by a few punches. It certainly looked like a melee was imminent, and a linesman had already stepped in to start prying players apart. However, at no time was the whistle blown, and after several seconds the puck, which had been generally disregarded in all the ruckus, squirted free. Jason Pominville scooped it up and bore down on a cruelly marooned Dominic Hasek, beating him glove side to pull the Sabres to within one. Tonight, however, the Wings weathered the bad break...that was Buffalo's last marker, and the Wings added an insurance goal later to provide the final margin.


Rick Jeanneret

One of the great things about watching Sabres games is that you get to hear the action called by Rick Jeanneret, one of the legends of the business. It's pretty much the equivalent of listening to Vin Scully call a Dodger game. He has that energetic tenor that is perfectly pitched for hockey play-by-play. There's a cool video here with some highlights from his great career.

Box-Score Blogger (March 1st, 2008)

As I mentioned at the tail end of my last post, I didn't watch the game tonight (a 2-0 win over St. Louis) because I had my folks over for dinner at my "new" apartment. (Actually, I've been here for six weeks...sheesh, what kinda son am I, eh?) Of all the games I've missed this year, this is the one that I probably would've most liked to have seen, because it would've given me a chance to size up new goalie Brian Boucher, who got the start tonight in place of Evgeni "The Iron Goalie" Nabokov.

Heck, I'm head over heels over the result...the guy already has a 1-0 record and has yet to give up a goal as a Shark. Can't ask for anything more than that. I guess the only thing that gives me pause is the fact that the Blues' offense has had no teeth lately...three goals in their last five games, including tonight. Yowch. So it's not like Boucher was facing a high-powered team firing on all cylinders. Still, this result has to be a huge confidence-builder for the team, as it provides evidence that giving Nabby an occasional rest need not be the daredevil move it has seemed previously this season, when Thomas Greiss or Dimitri Patzold were Team Teal's only options for relief.

Also, how happy am I to see this scoring line?

San Jose 16:41, Joe Pavelski 15 (power play) (Brian Campbell, Joe Thornton)

Well, what are the SI units of happiness? Whatever they are, I am exhibiting lots of them. Power-play goal, assists to Campbell and Thornton. Music to my ears. Since the Campbell trade, I have been dreaming of a mighty power play, engineered by two of the best puck-moving players in the league, tearing giant gaping holes in opposing defenses. I hope to see many lines in many scoring summaries quite similar to the one above over the remainder of the season and deep into the playoffs.


Not So Bad, After All

So ends the eight-game, seventeen-day odyssey, which looked at first as if it were going to be either a disaster or an unmitigated disaster, but which on balance has to be counted as pretty successful. It wasn't just that the Sharks lost the first three games of the trip...remember the events immediately preceding their hitting the road. First, they blew a lead in the last minute to Calgary, and went on to lose in overtime. Then they closed out their homestand with a weak effort against a banged-up Edmonton Oilers team. So before the voyage began, the team was already threatening to go into a tailspin, and after losing the first three games of the trip you seriously had to wonder if a major control surface hadn't completely detached itself from the aircraft.

It isn't always true in situations like this, but in this particular case I believe the turning point can be identified with precision. It was the second intermission of the Philadelphia game. Recall that although the Sharks had been outplaying the reeling Flyers for most of the first forty minutes of that one, a series of bad breaks and breakdowns sprung Philly on a 3-on-1 that was converted by Mike Knuble with literally a handful of seconds left in the second period. This really could have shattered the morale of a San Jose team for whom nothing seemed to be going right, but instead they came out firing in the third, getting a goal early from Milan Michalek and another one a short time later by Douglas Murray, and cruising to a 3-1 win. They've been playing good hockey ever since, and that good hockey has been producing points in the standings.


It's a Dang Good Thing, Too...

...because the Stars and the Ducks have been joining forces with the Sharks to demonstrate why the Pacific Division is the toughest in hockey. San Jose, of course, ends its road trip on a five-game winning streak. Anaheim is also on a five-game winning streak and have won nine of their last ten. Their only loss in that span was to Dallas, who are, remarkably, nipping at the heels of the once apparently uncatchable Detroit Red Wings for the top spot in the West. The Stars had a four-game winning streak going as of this morning, but lost their game today against Nashville 3-1. Still, those of us who were hoping that the Brad Richards trade would fizzle on the Stars (nothing personal, Brad, but ya know...) were rudely yanked back from that fantasyland by his five-assist performance against the Blackhawks the other night. Right now, Dallas has a legitimate claim to being the NHL's best team.

The league's schedule makers saw fit to give the Sharks one whole whopping day off after that brutal road trip. On Monday night they're back in the Tank for a match-up with one of the East's best teams--the Montreal Canadiens.