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.

The Old Man and the "C"s

The Washington Capitals defeated a stubborn but worn-out Florida Panthers team tonight 3-1 to secure the Southeast Division championship and the accompanying playoff spot, but not before the sellout crowd at Verizon Center was obliged to endure some anxious moments. After a first-period goal by Tomas Fleischmann gave the home team a 1-0 lead, the Capitals failed to score on a pair of minute-long 5-on-3 advantages, and when Kamil Kreps tied the game for Florida you could almost see the mist of anxiety fall across the previously raucous Washington fans.

Then, with about five minutes left in the second, Alexander Semin found thirty-eight-year-old Sergei Fedorov--who was on the ice for the Detroit Red Wings at the end of the Sharks' famous 1994 playoff upset--in open ice with a Thorntonesque pass. Fedorov wound up and blasted an absolute bullet past Panthers goalie Craig Anderson and the Caps were ahead to stay.

Fedorov, acquired from the Columbus Blue Jackets in a trade-deadline deal this February, will likely never approach even twenty goals in a season again, let alone the 56 he scored in 1993-94. But he still has an enormous amount to contribute. He has always been an excellent defensive player, his hockey IQ is probably unsurpassed amongst active players, and as he showed tonight he still has that intangible something that inspires the greatest athletes to play their best at the most critical times. And now he Semin and Alexander Ovechkin and Cristobal Huet and Mike Green and head coach Bruce Boudreau and all the rest of this motley bunch are headed for the playoffs. It's a feel-good, Cinderella story of a type the NHL has not seen for a long time.


A little love for the Panthers, please...

I think some kudos need to go out the Florida Panthers for a couple of gutsy performances over the last couple of nights. Without any postseason of their own to look forward to, the Panthers, in a position to play a major role in the final Eastern Conference playoff picture, provided difficult opposition for both the Canes and the Caps. Especially after an exhausting, skin-of-their-teeth win over Carolina last night, the Panthers had every excuse to collapse in the face of all of the energy and emotion that had built behind the Capitals. But they played hard...even after Alexander Semin scored early in the third to put Washington up 3-1, Florida never gave up. Laurels in particular to goalie Craig Anderson, who played courageously and well, facing 66 shots over five periods of work. It was an honorable performance the Panthers can be proud of.


Yes, I know this isn't supposed to be a Capitals blog!

But it's an exciting story! And an important one for the league! But, yes, Team Teal in the Twin Towns will now return to being a blog dedicated to the most awesomest team ever, the San Jose Sharks.

Go, Los Tiburones!

Saturday Scraps (April 5th, 2008)

Humility, thy name is Losing to the Kings

The Sharks' 20-game point streak ended on Thursday with a 4-2 defeat in Los Angeles.

There's no good time to lose, but of course this streak had to come to an end at some point. Detroit defeated Columbus earlier that evening, sewing up the President's Trophy and ensuring that the Sharks-Kings matchup would be genuinely meaningless in terms of position in the standings, and one wonders if this didn't have an effect on the Sharks. Evgeni Nabokov got the start in goal in a last-minute reversal by head coach Ron Wilson (we had been told for days that Brian Boucher would play against LA), but Christian Ehrhoff, Craig Rivet, Jonathan Cheechoo, Devin Setoguchi, and Marcel Goc all sat...chances are all of these players are dealing with minor injuries and could use a bit of extra rest before the playoffs start.

So by losing to the last-place Kings, San Jose didn't really suffer any damage of consequence, except possibly a blow to their ego. With the right attitude, the team can turn this into a positive. "Tonight kind of showed that if you let your guard down, even for a little bit, the game's not going to go your way," Mike Grier was quoted as saying in the AP recap. A timeless and valuable lesson that a team cannot be reminded of too many times.

Tomorrow the Sharks wrap up the regular season in Dallas. The loss to LA ought to give San Jose motivation to beat the Stars and go into the postseason on a good note. I hope they come out charging, because I loooooove beating Dallas.


A Long, Strange Trip

So after weeks of hanging on to the tail-end of the playoff caboose by the very tips of their fingernails, the Washington Capitals at last control their own destiny. The Carolina Hurricanes lost to the Florida Panthers last night by the final score of 4-3 in their last game of the season, ensuring at a stroke that Ottawa, Philadelphia, and Boston made the playoffs and putting the improbable Caps in a position to win the Southeast Division championship if they can get at least a point out of their game against Florida tonight. Only one team from the Southeast will make the playoffs, so for both Washington and Carolina it's either win the division and get the East's third seed or start scheduling tee times.

The Hurricanes feel, quite correctly, that the entire hockey world is against them. I freely admit that I am cheering with all my might for the Caps, and there is no doubt that the Powers That Be at NHL headquarters in New York are desperately hoping that Alexander Ovechkin and his 60+ goals will head to the playoffs. The only obstacle in their path is a Florida Panthers team that survived a grueling game against Carolina yesterday and has nothing to play for other than pride and the chance to be a spoiler.

However, having watched the Canes-Panthers game yesterday I can testify to the fact that pride and the chance to be a spoiler are serving as tremendous motivators for Florida. They are clearly in no mood to be a pushover--they were outshot 46-17, played most of the game with backup goalie Craig Anderson in net after Tomas Vokoun left with back spasms, were clearly exhausted by the middle of the third period, and faced power play after power play, but still hung on for the win, displaying admirable guts and heart in the process. Do they have one more such game in them? We'll find out tonight...I'll be tuning in, even though it means abandoning my Final Four-watching friends to do so. (Hey, priorities are priorities!)

Go Caps!

Friday Fragments (January 11, 2008)

Cujo

News services are reporting that "sources" claim goaltender Curtis Joseph (presently out of work) is interested in signing with either the Sharks or the Calgary Flames, and that these teams are in turn interested in him. TSN's article has characterized the process of Joseph narrowing the number of teams he would like to play for from five to two as a "sweepstakes".

All reports are he played well in leading a team of Canadians to victory in the Spengler Cup in Switzerland, making 38 saves in the final against Russian squad Salavat Yulaev of Ufa. Even at age 40, then, he probably still has something in the tank...but if he winds up in a Sharks uniform I'm pretty sure I'm unlikely to feel as though Ed McMahon just showed up at my door with a giant novelty check. I'm uncertain where the notion that Curtis Joseph is the best free-agent goalie in the world comes from.

Look, are the other goalies in the Sharks' system ready or not? Thomas Greiss has never played an NHL minute, but there was a time when Evgeni Nabokov had never played an NHL minute, either. Then he showed up and won the Calder. If Greiss is worth having in the system he needs to play sometime, and there's no such thing as an unimportant game, so now is as good a time as any.

If Cujo wants to have a job in the NHL I'm sure he can find one, and I wish him well. Maybe he'll be unbeatable...stranger things have happened. But given the choice between Joseph and a young goalie scouted and developed by an organization with a league-wide reputation as one of the best when it comes to scouting and developing goalies, I think I'd rather have the kid.


Crumbling Leafs

Tomorrow night the Sharks host the Toronto Maple Leafs, who are absolutely on the verge of disintegrating. On a swing through SoCal the last few nights, the Leafs lost to the Ducks 5-0 then fell behind the Kings 5-0 before pulling two back to make the margin a little more respectable. Vesa Toskala, returning from an injury, stopped only 19 of 24 shots in Anaheim, but did better in relief of the torched Andrew Raycroft against L.A. Will the late signs of life against the Kings stir Toronto to make a stand against the Sharks? Or will the collapse continue? We'll see tomorrow...


Almost a Caps Fan?

In an earlier post I expressed some fondness for the Washington Capitals. (And no, I have nothing to say about the Ovechkin deal). I used to live in the D.C. suburbs when I was a little kid, and on a recent visit to my parents' house my mother confirmed for me that she and my father did indeed take me to a Caps game when I was little--I couldn't have been any more than five or six. (I've had a dim memory of this, but I wasn't entirely positive the event had actually occurred).

At some point in the future I'll relate the story of how I became a Sharks fan, but for the moment it's sufficient to say that the tale involves the theft of the team I grew up rooting for (the Minnesota North Stars). Sometimes I wonder what team I would've wound up supporting if particular events in my life hadn't led me to the Sharks. I'll bet I would've been a Caps fan...

Caps-Habs Observations

Washington and Montreal played an early matinee today at Le Centre Bell, with the Capitals winning 5-4 in OT. I have warm feelings towards both of those organizations, so I tuned in.

Alexander Ovechkin had a couple goals today. I love watching him play...his enthusiasm for the game is extraordinary, and he always looks like he's having fun. He has a bit of Martin Grammatica in him, seeming to celebrate every goal as if it were an overtime game-winner.

Oh, and let's not forget that he's capable of feats like this. Still one of the standout individual efforts of all time, I would say...


Goalies

Highly-regarded Canadiens rookie Carey Price had a bad game today. He looked shaky all day and gave up one really awful goal. It happens to every goalie, of course (except maybe Marty Brodeur), so we'll have to see how the kid bounces back.

Speaking of goalies, Olaf Kolzig seems like he's been in the league so long that you'd bet his first game in Montreal was against the Maroons. Curious, I looked it up...his first year in the league was the '89-90 season. That's before the Sharks even existed, folks. And all of it with the Capitals.


Logos

Speaking of the Caps, it's nice to see that they're back to what I consider their "classic" logo, having moved away from that lame, tepid eagle-thing they had for a while.


TV

The feed for this game was the one from Washington, and the broadcast periodically visited the set of Redskins Live! during intermissions, et cetera, for a few words about the upcoming Redskins-Seahawks playoff game. After the third period, we stopped by again, and the Redskins Live! studio crew could not hide their irritation that a hockey game had had the cheek to go into overtime, thus curtailing their scheduled ninety minutes of pregame show by five, or possibly as many as ten minutes.

I understand that ice hockey is a niche sport. I understand that the eyes of the DC sporting world are firmly fixed on the NFL playoffs, and that's cool. (I'll probably watch some of that game myself). But I think that those in the American sport media for whom nothing matters but NFL football could ease back on the arrogance juuuuuust a little bit, and probably be none the worse for wear.

(For the record, the hockey game ended at 3:02 PM Eastern, delaying the scheduled start of Redskins Live! by 120 seconds...)