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.

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.

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.

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.

The Bogeymen

I'm surrounded by boxes and clutter in my apartment, and I still have some work I want to get done tonight, but I do want to make a few comments about tonight's 4-3 overtime loss to the Anaheim Ducks.

1. AAAARGH!!

2. Remember, this was basically a tie. Anaheim gets the extra point in the standings for winning the cool little exhibition that follows a tie.

3. Overall, the Sharks played a strong game tonight. The spirit and the effort were there. As I've alluded to before, this team still seems to save its biggest mistakes for the very worst times, but honestly I'd rather lose because of mistakes than because of a lack of hard work.

4. Alexei Semenov has been a healthy scratch for the last several games for a reason. Let's hope Kyle McLaren gets better quick.

5. Thomas Greiss played well pretty well tonight. What a way to start your NHL career, huh? Against the defending champs in their building. He looked like a rookie goalie during Anaheim's first serious attack, and his anxious flopping contributed to Bertuzzi's goal, but I thought he really came into his own during the Ducks' power play early in the second period. He cannot be faulted on the game-tying goal.

6. Loving Torrey Mitchell, Mike Grier, and Curtis Brown on the penalty kill. The defensive skills and hockey savvy of the veterans are very nicely complemented by the rookie's speed and counterattacking ability.

Okay, that's all for now. Time to continue putting things in boxes...