Petshark: Talking Stick
The big three: should old acquaintance be forgot?
by petshark on 12/30/11 at 11:00 AM ET
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We thought The Big Three was thing of the past, to be contemplated only to the tune of Auld Lang Syne: Patrick Marleau, Joe Thornton and Dany Heatley playing on the same line. Apparently, the number three never dies. It is as big today as ever it was:
“We have to have the understanding that three is a very important number for us. Three is the be-all and end-all,” McLellan said. “It’s either hurting us when we give up three or helping us when we score three.” -Working the Corners
Like a holy trinity, three goals are the secret to everything: “the first to three,” “a 3-2 league,” “the most dangerous lead.” Well, that last one is pretty old. I like it because it illustrates my reason for being highly suspicious of any psychological or predictive theory that turns a number into a grail: you get ahead by three and you get sloppy. It’s hogwash, of course. A team can fall apart or get it together at any time, but people take it into their heads and their hearts and give it power.
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Tags: Anaheim+Ducks, statistics, three, Todd+McLellan, Vancouver+Canucks,
Ducks not dead yet, except the one
by petshark on 12/27/11 at 03:50 AM ET
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Thanks to a special shark fin turnover recipe, the Ducks came back to life and won a road game. It was a Boxing Day miracle, possibly the first on record:
@PollakOnSharks: “Perspective: Ducks have won 10 of 35 games this season, three against #sjsharks. Of only three Anaheim road wins, two are at HP Pavilion.”
Ugh. What more can I say? There was Colin White’s disappearance. He played a little over 8 minutes, and not at all in the third. That bodes ill. Who would have guessed the Sharks would need more than eight defensemen? Beyond that, let me refer you to Fear the Fin, Working the Corners, and Sharks Talk for all the gory details of how the Sharks lost yet again to the Ducks.
The sidebar story to the Sharks losing is that someone brought a dead duck into the Tank, held onto it through two periods and two intermissions, and threw it on the ice during the third. Eeeee-yuck.
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Tags: Anaheim+Ducks, Colin+White, dead+ducks, hockey+fan+rituals, HP+Pavilion,
Ducks in December, October revisited
by petshark on 12/26/11 at 04:39 PM ET
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Niemi will start for the Sharks tonight, Greiss will backup again. Aside from distracting us from the usual question about who will start, the answer to “who will backup?” doesn’t really tell us a lot. Which goalie will they move? Based on who sits on the bench, you could argue either way.
Douglas Murray and Jim Vandermeer are still out. It goes without saying, but I don’t want to forget about him: Martin Havlat is out too, as he will be for a long while. According to Kevin Kurz, the lines looked unchanged from the last game at the Sharks’ morning skate.
That skate was a long one, according to tweets from Brodie Brazil.
@brodiebrazilCSN: Boyle on #sjsharks long skate today: “trying to get our mindset back into the game and not in the clouds and Christmas presents, and stuff.”
Sounds reasonable.
Filed in: , San Jose Sharks | Petshark: Talking Stick | Permalink
Tags: Anaheim+Ducks, Antti+Niemi, Benn+Ferriero, Dan+Boyle, Douglas+Murray, Eric+Stephens, Jim+Vandermeer, Thomas+Greiss,
Starting from zero: new coaches in So Cal, new trends in San Jose
by petshark on 12/23/11 at 11:00 AM ET
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Last night, the California NHL teams with new coaches faced off. The game went to a shootout. I think this could be good news for Sharks fans, because unless both the Kings and the Ducks have already made enormous strides with their new coaches, it looks like they are not much changed from the state of terrible that got their previous coaches fired. I don’t know how many people expected dramatic improvement, especially from the Kings since their new coach just arrived the day before. Coaches aside, these are mostly the same teams that suddenly failed to perform for coaches they did pretty well with last season.
I am not above wanting our team’s opponents to play badly. Hockey players may be proud enough to prefer to win a good game instead of an uneven one, but I don’t have any compunctions about being greedy for points no matter who the Sharks get them from. What about that idea that the Sharks play better against tougher opponents? Throw it out. What about the fact that the Sharks played better on the road? Toss it. What about the Sharks playing better in the [fill in the blank] period and falling down in the others? Forget it. Starting from zero is the best approach after a gluttonous victory like we saw Wednesday. That game against Tampa Bay broke with all the Sharks’ trends this season, including being the fourth home win in a row.
Filed in: , San Jose Sharks | Petshark: Talking Stick | Permalink
Tags: Darryl+Sutter, Dwayne+Roloson, Helene+Elliott, LA+Kings, Ryane+Clowe, Todd+McLellan,
The curious case of Benn Ferriero
by petshark on 12/20/11 at 04:30 PM ET
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Martin Havlat is out of the Sharks lineup, no one knows for how long:
@markedwinemmons: “Todd McLellan said don’t expect to see Marty Havlat back until at least after Christmas. That means at least two games out.”
@KKurzCSN: “Havlat out at least through this weekend. Surgery? “At this point, not that I know of,” said McLellan.”
So Benn Obi-Wan Ferriero is back, just in time for the holiday roster freeze. If he plays one more NHL game he loses his waiver exempt status. Isn’t it time anyway? The Sharks could have called up Wingels if they wanted to use someone who could be sent back safely. The curious case of Benn Ferriero might be close to resolution.
Will he stay for an extended period? Get traded? Sent back down? Would he clear waivers? Doug Wilson didn’t comment on the long term plan for Ferriero, why would he? There are many possibilities. NHL rosters have to function as on multiple timelines, in several alternate universes. In one universe, Ferriero is in Carolina, in another he’s right here on San Jose’s third line, in another he’s back in Worcester, and then there’s the universe populated entirely by shrimp where he has to work as a salt water filtration technician.
Filed in: , San Jose Sharks | Petshark: Talking Stick | Permalink
Tags: Benn+Ferriero, Colin+White, Douglas+Murray, Doug+Wilson, Jim+Vandermeer,
Old dogs and new tricks
by petshark on 12/18/11 at 09:30 PM ET
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Dan Boyle gave an injury update last night after the game:
“I don’t want to make it sound like an excuse, but [injuries have] been a factor. I had a broken foot there for a while, and it really hurt my skating. Just being healthy for me has been a big difference the last five or six games or so.” -Sharks Talk
“A big difference.” You don’t say.
Let’s go back a little ways in the saga of Dan Boyle explaining his troubles this season:
“The game’s changed,” he said. “Everybody’s playing the same way – the neutral zone is pretty much eliminated, which is where I get a lot of my offense. Everybody just fires long bombs, chipping it in. It’s just a little bit more frustrating for me.” -Working the Corners, Nov 27, 2011
There’s that. Maybe Boyle was in the painful process of updating and revamping his style of play. Or maybe his sticks were too long and he had a broken foot.
Filed in: , San Jose Sharks | Petshark: Talking Stick | Permalink
Tags: Dan+Boyle, Marleau, superstition,
Once more, with feeling
by petshark on 12/16/11 at 06:55 PM ET
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Todd McLellan says he doesn’t think booing is a good motivational tool, but he’ll take it if it works. I agree. I prefer a stern silence, but any help is welcome. The Sharks did get booed Thursday night. Even though they won, there were still holes in their game big enough to boo.
In a few minutes, Nitty will start for the Worcester Sharks against the Albany Devils. I guess the Sharks’ goalie glut is upon us.
I didn’t feel at all like booing the Sharks Thursday. Sure, I would have preferred a more complete win, without all that falling behind nonsense. I would have preferred they beat a team that was not green, was less tired, and was playing better. I would have preferred fewer penalties, and maybe a pk that could survive without Marleau. But it was a win and I’m happy for it.
Filed in: , San Jose Sharks | Petshark: Talking Stick | Permalink
Tags: Antero+Niittymaki, boo, Dan+Boyle, Todd+McLellan, Torrey+Mitchell,
Will and trust and hunting polar bears
by petshark on 12/15/11 at 12:10 AM ET
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Apparently Todd McLellan chose “trust” as the theme of the season for the Sharks. If the team has been doing trust exercises, I bet there are a lot of bruised derrieres right now. This morning Twitter was fairly quiet regarding the Sharks. Two lone tweets came out from practice saying only that the gates were closed and the injured defensemen were skating before the group. It was an unsettling silence, a silence that allowed for all manner of speculation after yesterday’s loss.
@FTFsTCY: “There are definitely rumors floating around today. Just an FYI that any involving Marleau are bunk. He has a full NMC.”
It turns out that David Pollak was still in transit from Denver, and his internet access was limited. Kevin Kurz was ill. I guess Mark Emmons just didn’t feel very chatty. Nothing much came out today in terms of Sharks news, especially about the NHL issues of the day. No one has a concussion and McLellan has not been fired. And no, Marleau is not being traded (as far as we know).
Filed in: , San Jose Sharks | Petshark: Talking Stick | Permalink
Tags: Dan+Boyle, Doug+Wilson, Joe+Thornton, leadership, Todd+McLellan, trust,
Out of gas
by petshark on 12/12/11 at 06:45 PM ET
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First, some news: Desjardins only got fined for boarding Sami Lepisto, no suspension. Thank goodness, don’t need the lower lines destabilized right now. Also, Terry Murray got fired. His place is being filled by John Stevens. Finally, Nitty is off IR and going to Worcester for conditioning. He can stay there for a maximum of 14 days and could conceivably play in 6 games, if he plays 3 in 3 days. Uh huh.
“Out of gas.” That’s the title of one of my favorite episodes of Firefly. It’s also one of the things folks said about the Sharks third period and OT in Chicago. What did the team think? The coach? Hard to tell. Their quotes are as opaque as ever. So I decided to look up some better quotes. Here’s one from the above-mentioned episode of Firefly:
Mal: Ship like this, be with you ‘til the day you die.
Zoë Washburne: ‘Cause it’s a deathtrap.
They’re both right, it’s the classic problem of one thing seen from two different perspectives.
Filed in: | Petshark: Talking Stick | Permalink
Tags: Andrew+Desjardins, Dan+Boyle, Firefly, Jamie+McGinn, Joe+Thornton, Patrick+Marleau, Pillars+of+the+Earth,
Giveaway
by petshark on 12/11/11 at 12:01 PM ET
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In college, I read about a ritual in some Native American cultures where you give away all your possessions. This is supposed to get rid of your bad luck, spiritual crisis or mental funk. Is that what the Sharks are doing, giving away the puck and fan patience, bit by bit each game? I think doing it by accident misses the point.
And still their even strength scoring plummets, their power play ails, points slip away. Their penalty kill seems better than before, but is that just compared to the fall off of the rest? Last night, Kevin Kurz tweeted:
“Blues may have played well defensively, but I’m not completely buying some of the post game quotes. Final recap, here: http://t.co/nm2BubxJ”
Before even reading those quotes, I thought “I don’t buy them either.” The Sharks are usually understated in their postgamers (which has to make you wonder what Clowe or Boyle say off camera). Even so, there just doesn’t seem to be any valid excuse for this loss. Perhaps a mea culpa on a par with Bryzgalov’s “lost in the woods” speech. Maybe that would do.
Filed in: , San Jose Sharks | Petshark: Talking Stick | Permalink
Tags: Antti+Niemi, Brad+Winchester, Joe+Thornton, Martin+Havlat, Todd+McLellan,
About Petshark: Talking Stick
Native of Northern California. Hockey fan since 1998… sort of… there’s a hiatus in there that I still can’t explain.
I want to know about anything and everything related to the sport and the spectacle. I watch, I react, I write it down.
My interest in the Sharks was initially a matter of geographic convenience and regional loyalty because that seemed to be how it worked. I had no prior interest (at all—AT ALL) in professional sports of any kind. When I met hockey, it might have set off a chain reaction of general sports fandom. It hasn’t, I don’t think it will. At all.
Since then, that interest developed into full blown (mostly sort of usually almost completely) exclusive loyalty to the Sharks.
I started blogging a couple years ago on wordpress. I still occasionally put things there that I don’t think fit here because they are not about the Sharks. Wherever my words wander, here on Kuklas Korner, they will (usually) hang on to a teal thread.
I can be found in cyberspace on Twitter @petshark47, or emailed at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Most Recent Blog Posts
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Sharks at Mildred Goss Elementary School
How much should we put on Todd McLellan for the Sharks’ season?
The longest meetings: Doug Wilson to stay, nothing else confirmed
Patrick Marleau: the canary who won’t sing?
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Sounding the fire alarms in Shark Territory