Anticipation Growing… Growing… waning… Growing!
September 23rd, 2009, 9:24 am
We’re ready for the season to start, so listen to the latest podcast. Although our boy Nick Petrecki got sent down to Worchester, which is a little disappointing, it’s hard not to be excited about October 1, and a very different Sharks team. Also, for those of you still bummed about the Ducks loss (ok, that’s probably all of you), I found this take at Puck Prospectus:
For Sharks fans, it has been tough to not focus on the playoffs, but I can’t get too worked up over their first round exit against the Anaheim Ducks last year. There have been 33 similar first round series’ since 1980 where one team had a pythagorean winning percentage between 80 and 120 points higher than their opponent – and they won just 20 of them – 61%. The Ducks were significantly better than their goal differential indicated, so what was perceived as a 1st seed versus an 8th seed matchup was nearly a toss-up.
Nonetheless, the Sharks actually dominated the play: they outshot the Ducks, on average, 51-40 (Detroit outshot them by even more and still took seven games to beat them.) They got the same number of power-play opportunities, and spent more time on the man-advantage than the Ducks did. Even though the Ducks have undeniably good defensemen and defensive forwards, the Sharks’ expected shooting percentages were still better-than-average: 5.7% at even-strength (vs 5.3% for the league) and 9.5% on the power-play (vs 8.6% league-wide.) No, the problem was the unfathomably good goaltending of Jonas Hiller, who somehow managed to let in an unsustainable 3.3% of the shots the Sharks directed at the Ducks net. At the other end of the ice, Evgeni Nabokov let in 7.5% of Anaheim’s shots at net. That’s the entire story.
So if you accept that the Sharks’ playoff “choking” means very little, what moves do you make in the offseason? Well, you couldn’t do much more than the Sharks did: they kept eight of their top ten scorers, they’ll miss Milan Michalek, but not Christian Ehrhoff, who was a liability at even-strength; they picked up Dany Heatley, one of just four players to score 50 goals twice in the last decade; and they gave themselves the best face-off crew in the league by signing the undervalued Manny Malhotra. The Sharks won’t win the President’s Trophy again, but they substantially improved the team over last year.
Read the whole thing, it’s worth it.
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Hey dudes,
I got the chance to attend all three days of training camp this year, and I have to say that Nichol, Shelley and Ortmeyer was actually a great looking fourth line. They had tones of energy and were constantly in your face. The coaching staff kept that line together for, I believe, all of camp.
I think that perhaps Ortmeyer has not been playing in preseason because his spot on the fourth line is locked up. Him and Nichol and Shelley were chatting all camp like they already knew they needed to get their teamwork down for the season.
I think the bottom four might end up like this, if they can pull it off with the cap:
Jamie McGinn, Manny Malhotra, Dan Hinote
Jody Shelley, Scott Nichol, Jed Ortmeyer
Thanks dudes, great podcast as usual.
-Chris, formally from Boston
Why is he saying we won’t win the President’s trophy again, especially since we’re much improved team? That makes no sense. Shall we remind whoever wrote this that since January our team was nursing every little injury filling holes with McGinn, Vesce, Cavanagh, Kaspar and whoever else and yet we still somehow remained on top? What if the team stayed healthy during the 2nd half of regular season like it did in previous years?
While I think he makes a good point justifying the outcome of the Ducks series, I can’t erase that series from my memory, just like I can’t forget Dallas or Edmonton or even Calgary series in the Western Conf final. On paper we were clear favorites in those matchups, and yet for one reason or another we choked, without even making it to game 7. The only series I can easily forget is Detroit because they were a better team on paper, and it showed in the series.
Until we overcome these daemons and win the Cup, our reputation will follow us.
Sharks will win the Presidents Trophy again barring injury to Nabby, Thornton, Heatley, or Marleau.
The tough thing about the ANA loss was that it was the latest one. I think “choke” can be fairly used to describe the series against EDM, and maybe even Dallas.
ANA, though, was probably just the reversal of the Sharks getting a little lucky from Feb-Apr. Except for game 4, it was like a video game out there, where you swear that the computer is cheating to keep the game competitive. Game 2 took me back to those games in Madden where the computer linebacker would cover 15 yards in three steps, pick off my pass, shake off three lineman tacklers, and take it back 65 yards for a TD. I broke a few PS2 controlers over things like that, and my TV remote almost suffered the same fate.
But I do agree, Ivan, fair or not that rep will follow the Sharks until they at least make it to the Cup finals, and probably until they actually win it all.
Yeah, I pasted this section mostly to try and make myself feel better about the Sharks playoff loss, and didn’t pay too much attention to the President’s trophy prediction.
Malhotra signs for one year and $700,000. WOW. Doug Wilson does it again kids. Believe me, he is going to be a monster missing piece on this teams Cup quest.
http://www.capgeek.com/players/display.php?pid=25931&pos=F
How about this Ferriero kid. He’s impressed me all preseason and continues to be the only Shark consistently finding the net no matter who he’s playing with.
I’m starting to think he ends up starting on the 3rd line until Mitchell is 100% and when Mitchell does make it back he may give McGinn a run at the permanent spot.
for everyone who didn’t get in the fantasy league or wants to join another, i created one on yahoo. league name gosharks, password is duckssuck
From DP:
“*McLellan also expressed some disappointment with defenseman Kent Huskins’ play to this point as well as his conditioning. McLellan said there’s basically a battle for spots five through seven on the blue line and grouped Douglas Murray, not Huskins, in the Top Four with Dan Boyle, Rob Blake and Marc-Edouard Vlasic.”
Wow… Pretty significant development if Huskins isn’t guaranteed a roster spot. Let alone isn’t considered on the top four. I’d say based on his play he doesn’t deserve to make this team.
Anybody know if they have options with his contract in term of waiving him or sending him to Worster? God I hope we arent stuck with that 1.7m if he is gonna be a scratch…
Tom: He doesn’t have an NMC so he can be placed on waivers and, if not claimed, sent to Worcester.
The problem at that point becomes calling him back up to the NHL when teams could grab him on re-entry waivers and the Sharks will foot the bill for half of that contract for the next two years.