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.