State of the Sharks: What We Learned
May 15th, 2009, 10:16 am
Better than expected.
Those were my first impressions leaving last night’s State of the Sharks event. While there were some awkward moments inspired by some awkward questions from some awkward fans, the overall quality of the event was higher than 2008. Mike and I are going to split up the post and share four observations from an event that we all hope we never have to attend again in May.
DOUG’S STATE OF THE SHARKS MUSINGS
- Joe Thornton is not going anywhere. Doug Wilson and Todd McLellan spoke of Joe making a commitment to come into camp earlier than previous years. Why would you even bother having that conversation with a player you’re going to shop around the league? Joe is staying. Ignore the rumors, that’s all they are.
- Joe Thornton is not captain material. I don’t mean this as a slap in the face, it’s just the truth. He was great last night, kept his answers light hearted and his answer to the fan who asked why didn’t shoot more was classic. To paraphrase Joe, “You know, I wish the fans would tell me to shoot more on the power play. I just can’t hear you when I’m on the ice.” While he brought levity to some uncomfortable questions, he didn’t demonstrate the determination, frustration and winning is all I want attitude that Dan Boyle or Todd McLellan did. He’s not a leader like that and we can’t force him to be – you are who you are. He’s more of a big class clown with a boatload of talent.
- Rob Blake is coming back. Doug Wilson and McLellan mentioned the big guy a few times when discussing the team going forward when they were otherwise being guarded about the future roster. While there was no statement like “Rob Blake is coming back”, I got the impression that the plan is to have him and his booming shot return. He had his best year in three seasons and didn’t look like a guy ready to hang ’em up. If he can reduce his price to 3M, he’s a bargain as a #4 guy…but I think it’s clear we need a different partner on the top pairing for Boyle. More on that later.
- Doug Wilson and Todd McLellan referenced bringing in “grit”. Thank you, lord! Without mentioning specific players (other than a long response about Brad Staubitz, who is clearly being considered for a featured role next season) management is aware that the lack of grit and a player who is willing to stand in front of the opposing goalie and take a beating is lacking and will be addressed.
Your turn, Mikey.
State of the Sharks for me is always a double-edged sword. On the plus side, the questions seemed to be generally better than last year, more hockey focused. On the minus side, more people took their opportunity at the mic as some sort of audition for This is Your Life, recapping how they became fans in 1977 when a clown beat them with a hockey stick at the county fair.
The key to State of the Sharks is to try and find those little interesting nuggets of information that get released amidst the fountains of fluff. Because I’m squirming in my seat most of the time when people are wasting the time of thousands of people talking about how they love the Sharks more than their children, some of this “insight” may be just a figment of my imagination. I have to keep my mind occupied somehow, so I don’t run down the stairs of the arena and hit the questioner with a shovel.
- Todd McLellan knows a ton about hockey. Okay, not really much of an insight. I have to get warmed up here. But his analysis of the PP issues in the postseason was pretty impressive.
- Patrick Marleau said that his captaincy could be competently held by others. Not much of an insight in and of itself, but I this means he understands (welcomes?) the fact that the threads holding the C to his sweater are fraying.
- Boyle essentially said the team didn’t think they could win the series after losing game 4. What he did say was something like, “We thought we could still win down 0-2, but then we had a horrible game 4.” Same thing to me.
- When Wilson said that some players could get “overripe”, and that guys need to make the transition to pulling their own weight instead of leaning on Patty and Joe, I had two names immediately pop into my head: Vlasic and Michalek. I could easily see a big change being made in this area.
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Nice job guys, thanks for the update.
Four things from me.
1. Sharks are not going to change their charter plane. That self-promoting fool was hilarious.
2. Agree on Joe – clearly not a leader and his comments showed it. I actually think that Malkin = Thornton. Malkin disappears in the post season, with occasional flashes of brilliance, and the only reason why he may win more titles over his career than Thornton is because he’s lucky to always play in the shadows of Crosby in Pittbough and Ovechkin in Russia – they’ll win trophies for him. I’d keep Joe here, but we need a new leader for the post season. Perhaps Patty deserves another chance for his injury, but seeing how Kane, Towes, Crosby, Staal and others step up their game in playoffs really makes me wish we’d have a leader like that.
3. We may see a change in goal. McLellan didn’t give any praise for Nabby, and when DW was talking about leadership issues, I think it also clearly applied to Nabby.
4. Pavs is too young for a leadership role. His comments about how we just need to keep doing what we did last season clearly didn’t impress McLellan, who later referenced Pavs saying it was probably not a good thing to say.
Why do you think this of Vlasic? Sure Michalek fits the bill. He’s crazy fast, has a good shot, and seems to get about 1 shot a game, etc. He worked harder in the playoffs than I’d seen him work all year, but is still a serious underperformer.
Same thing could be said for Goc though too. Great in the faceoff circle, but exactly how many times did he make a pass once he had the puck behind the net? Once all year? Did he ever set up anyone for a goal? Pretty pathetic performance in my view. He got the puck lots of times, got it taken away by the defense 99% of the time.
I say Vlasic because I think they want him to be the second coming of Scott Hannan- a great skating defensive defensemen that never panics, makes smart plays at critical moments, and eats up minutes. Vlasic can certainly eat up minutes, and has shown steadiness throughout his career, but I thought he was in over his head against the Ducks. Panic plays, ill-conceived clears, lack of timely stops, etc. He’s so young he still has time to develop, but this year may be put-up-or-shut-up time. And as well all can attest to, getting it done in the regular season only is practically worthless.
Vlasic was doing the same thing at the World’s as well. But defensive stability and mental toughness comes with age. None of the elite defensemen in the league are as young as Vlasic.
Even the so-called all-star Phanueff has a terrible playoff outing and there are people in Calgary demanding him to get traded.
Weber – we don’t know since he didn’t play.
I would decrease his minutes in playoffs and increase Boyle’s just like the Niedy and Pronger were playing crazy minutes.
NOT ONCE DID ANYBODY SAY, HEY WHY DO SHARKS DUMP AND CHASE GET THE PUCK DEEP MAKE D TURN AND HAVE 4 LINES THAT DUMP AND CHASE.
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
ALSO A CAPTAIN OF A TEAM IN SPORT IS HIGHLY OVERRATED. YER BEST PLAYERS ARE THE ONE WHO LEAD BY EXAMPLE. ASK ANYONE WHO’S BEEN IN THE MILITARY. THEY HAVE GREAT LEADERS BUT THEY AINT THE ONE CHARGING UP THE HILL.
STYLE OF PLAY KILLED THE SHARKS AND THE COACH IS TO BLAME. I FEEL FOR COACH MAC CAUSE THE TEAM REVERTED BACK TO ITS BRAINWASHING DAYS OF RW STYLE OF PLAY 2ND HALF OF YEAR. AND HE COULDNT SNAP EM OUT OF IT.
Shutter at your unapologetic and offensive use of all caps CJ, few things in this life are more annoying.
HEY PHER, SUCH PEOPLE AS YOU ARE PATHETIC AND WORTHLESS, TO PLAY GRAMMER POLICE AND BE “SHUDDERINGLY ANNOYED” BUY MY “OFFENSIVE….?? LMAO” USE OF CAPS.
OHH I GET IT YOU MUST RUN THE SHARKS WEBSITE CHAT ROOM. THE INNER CIRCLE OF THE LOCAL BOOBIE HATCH
MORON
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I agree with Ivan on Vlasic. Kid is barely old enough to buy a beer, was probably the team’s best defensive D-Man during the regular season, but got a little spooked in the playoffs (though, sadly, probably played better than he did last year in the playoffs). I think trading him now would be a huge mistake.
Michalek is definitely going to be shopped. He still has the upside that will be attractive to GM’s.
I’ve been reading that some of the media in Vancouver is really crashing down on Roberto Luoungo. If Luoungo is in any way available, DW needs to try to make that into a Joe Thornton situation and capitalize. How that city doesn’t recognize they currently have the #1 goaltender in the world playing for them is beyond me.
Ok, I can understand what you mean about Vlasic, but Ehroff wasn’t great either, and frankly didn’t make a big impression during the regular season either. It was scary enough him having the puck before the playoffs, during them it was a downright heart attack every time he touched it. Including the almost own-goal.
Luko wasn’t a whole lot better in my opinion. He was slow getting to the puck, and while he was great in 2-1 situations (despite scoring on himself twice on bad breaks) just really didn’t impress.
At the same time, Boyle except for heart wasn’t that great either. His puck movement up ice and the number of bad decisions he made in that area was costly. hard to separate the bad events though from who were playing and how they forced us into making bad plays. Plenty of blame to go around.
I think the discussion re: Vlasic illustrates the illusion of defensive depth on the Sharks. Boyle is obviously your top guy, but who do you pair him up with to “shut down” the other team’s top line to preserve a lead in the dying minutes? You can say he was playing with Lukowich because of familiarity and experience, but that’s not a pair I am confident in.
On occasion, Boyle and Ehrhoff teamed together, and I liked their skating ability, but I don’t think any Shark fan wants or expects Ehrhoff to be a top pairing guy. Similarly, with Vlasic, he doesn’t seem like a guy that will project offensively OR physically to mature into a top pairing defenceman. And, I don’t know if you can tie up that much money in a defenceman that doesn’t bring either of those tools.
I understand Vlasic’s GA/60 numbers are exceptional the past few years, but all SJ players have had really great numbers there because the team allows so few goals comparatively. I get that he might have something to do with it, but to watch him get mandhandled for the second straight playoffs was disheartening. He’s young, so you can understand that a little bit, but this year, he got rattled to the point where he was making Ehrhoff-like decisions with the puck, which was just so shocking to see coming from Vlasic. Which continued in the World Championships this year.
Would look into trading him for Tomas Kaberle, definitely. If there was any way to pry Erik Johnson or Jack Johnson by building a bigger trade package around Vlasic — Pavelski and Seto are cheap and have value — that would be interesting. At least with Pavs you have a potential replacement in Couture.
More Staubitz, more grit and power that’s how they won at the start of the season, somebody finally saw what I have seen all year, and I don’t even play hockey? Staubitz has played against Perry and Crosby
in the OHL and knows how to deal with them. Can hardly wait to see
more young guys playing and making a difference, at least they try, AND won’t get pushed out from in front of the net. CAN the old geiser Lemieux, for goodness sake he is my age and I can’t keep up with a 24 year old. More Staubitz, More Staubitz!