DOH 131 – New Sharks, New Win Streak
January 18th, 2011, 11:16 pm
Two new Sharks joined up today, and the Dudes have much to say about the additions. And does two wins after six losses mean they’ve turned it around, or just another small positive in a sea of negatives? Mike and Doug tackle it all, along with plenty of listener emails.
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Look, despite the laziness, the players know what is going to happen if the sharks miss the playoffs. The coach knows, the GM knows, and the fans know. I dont think this team is completely circling the drain. We’ve had losing streaks before, I believe last year in Feb or March, closer to the playoffs even. And moreover, I’m from the Northwest, how can you Bay Area natives rip this team so hard after you just watched the Giants, with glaring holes in their roster, barely make the playoffs and win the World Series? It’s always after the fact, that people say “Oh well we shoulda saw it coming cuz they were loaded, got hot, etc.” Even w/ the Giants people said that their pitching was paramount, which it was, but timely goal-scoring is paramount late in the season/playoffs and I’m still not buying that this team just decided it didn’t know how to put the puck in the net. We’re still loaded as far as goal-scoring potential IMO and let’s see how this season plays out. I hate to say this when people are paying good money for tickets, but a lot of loaded teams, in any sport really, will take a portion of the season off or a string of games off. It’s called human nature and underestimating any team not as good as you on paper. This team is definitely one of them, from what I’ve seen in seasons past, and they know they have to get it together within the next month or two or they’ll have an uncomfortable off-season.
Regarding the NTCs that Doug Wilson is passing out like candy… Boyle and Heatley were acquired via trade and already had those in their contracts. Wallin is a head-scratcher, but it’s a one year contract so not exactly crippling. And when you look around the league at players with NTCs, Marleau and Thornton are a no-brainer. They both would have gotten more money and a NTC on the open market.
Vancouver has 8 guys with NTCs. Detroit and Dallas have 7. Chicago is tied with the Sharks at 5. Hard to suggest that Doug Wilson is somehow being reckless here, or to draw the conclusion that those clauses inhibit the Sharks from being a successful team.
Talking of the Giants, (& lets face it folks, there’s going to be a lot more comparisons to the Giants made during the rest of this season / postseason?), the transactions the last couple of days remind me a lot of the Cody Ross pickup: Not the big name guy to address what is perceived to be the glaring need, and not even a well planned move, & certainly not heralded by the fans, but an experienced guy who is an upgrade on what you’ve got & could become a key part of the team. The potential upside… Look at how Ross came through in the postseason run & if this seems far-fetched, you mentioned Eager scoring in last year’s SC Finals. The potential downside… the salary cap hit, which as your analysis showed, isn’t much more than the Worcester guys. In my view, this makes the Sharks stronger (or we’ll be making comparisons to the 49ers in a couple of months’ time).
I think Thursday’s game is huge psychologically. After all, it was the loss to the Canucks that started the 6 game skid. Does this make it a good time or a bad time to be playing them again?
Quick question Dudes…
I realize it wasnt talked about in detail, but I caught the comments in the end about calling for possible “big changes” if the Sharks lose in the first round or worse…
Here is my question… If we can’t get value back for the big stars on our team, or it’s a bad idea to simply trade those big names away now… What would be different in the offseason?
I just listened to both of you claim that pulling a trade and parting with Jumbo, for example, would leave is with little talent up front and not much in return, and generally be a bad idea…. Why would that not be the case after the season? They’d still have their NTC’s and NMC’s… and we wouldn’t get other high profile players in return… So what’s the difference.
I’ve never advocated for trading those guys now, but I fail to see how now or at the deadline, if we weren’t gonna make the PO’s, how it would be better or more advantageous to wait till the offseason??
Because from my perspective… DW have them a deadline of ten games… I’m assuming that it means if he isn’t happy with where the teams game is at, he is inferring that anything is possible.
I get the idea how you both see trading those big players would leave us with less talent… But I fail to see how the situation surround those players changes after the offseason.
I dont think there is any reason to assume DW wouldn’t pull the trigger on a move that like around the deadline, IF he felt it was time.
I may be wrong (& I don’t normally try and get inside the minds of the Dudes… I value my sanity too much), but I think the Dudes were talking generally – you have assumed DW would be the one making these changes (OK, probably correctly), but that would be the ultimate change… Roosters’ job? – safe for now maybe, but I’d classify that as a big change which doesn’t necessarily mean trading the big players.
Dudes – my review must only been on British i-tunes, which must have been the reason I didn’t win. I reckon there should also be a T-shirt going for the best Canadian & best British i-tune reviews…
Oh crap, I hope I put my review on US iTunes.
Actually, I have no idea if there is a thing such as British iTunes – I’ll try any underhand tactics to get hold of one of those T-shirts.
Although congrats on your new threads – a worthy winner!
They said SJ couldn’t get fair value back in roster players. It’s an important distinction because presumably you could get fair value (or at least closer to it) back in picks and prospects. But that would totally defeat the purpose of making a midseason trade, which is to shake things up so the Sharks can still make a run this season.
In the offseason, picks and prospects are back on the table because you could also use the cap space in free agency. That mitigates the loss in the short term and helps restock the cupboard for the long term.
That a very good answer. I still don’t see much difference though from the offseason and around the deadline. Which we’re about five weeks away from.
I wonder why DW is giving mixed messages though. He says to Drew Rememda we have a window of three-four years, inferring to the contracts of our stars, but then quasi-threatens banishment to the players for playing bad with a 10 game report card…?
Something is fishy…
To your original point, I think the big difference in the offseason would be the potential change of heart by DW in relation to the big 3. I don’t know his mind, but I think he still has faith that they can get it done. If the Sharks were to lose in the first round to an inferior opponent, that faith could be shaken. I also think more creative trades can be made in the offseason, since the GMs and coaches aren’t bogged down in day-to-day personnel matters.
As to your other point, the 3-4 year window isn’t an unconditional tenured position. I think that’s DW’s current thinking. But as Drew is fond of saying, it’s all about results, and if these guys don’t make changes, plans can change.
WOOOOO I WON WOOOOOOOO! Let me shoot ya an email.
Strong rumor per TSN… Bob M. and D. Dreger….
Hold on to your butts…
Nabby possibly to sign with DETROIT today.
vomit.
Just read that…wowsers
I don’t blame the guy though… the only way to show you can still play in the NHL is to actually play in the NHL. If Detroit is the only one willing to give him a chance, he has to do it.
$10 says someone else claims him a la Svatos and Wellwood. Unless the contract is exorbitant.
Cap geek shows Detroit with zero cap space, so im assuming that Osgood is LTIR… and Nabby cant get much more than what Osgood gets – somewhere in the 1.5m per range… well low enough that I’d be shocked if another team didn’t claim him.
I think the offer, as it stands now, is about 1/3 of that. Osgood’s not on LTIR at the moment. He’s out for 6-8 weeks. Darren Dreger is reporting that the offer is $570K for the rest of the year.
He’ll definitely get claimed by someone else…. but it would give me a good chuckle to see him in red and white because it would kill you guys in the same way it killed Stars fans to see Modano wearing the winged wheel.
To be honest I wouldnt really care where he went.
if only every player in the league got to pick who claimed them on waivers:
“I think I’m going to stay home for now, I’m sticking with my decision,” Nabokov said Sunday. “It’s nothing against the Islanders and their organization. It’s nothing to do with that. It’s just that I’m at the point in my career where I want to help a team win in the playoffs. I don’t see how I could help the Islanders or what I could do for them. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. And I hope they understand that.”
yeah…uhhhh…i don’t think they’re going to understand.
So… Nitty down with random injury and placed on IR this afternoon. Sharks sign some random Joe to a try-out contract to back up Neemo in Vancouver tonight….
Hopefully Nitty isn’t out long… Might need a stop-gap in the mean time….
Hmmmm….. Wonder if there are any cheap veteran goaltenders DW can claim off waivers?…. Wait what?!
Dudes, everyone,
These past years, when a bunch of idiots thought the Sharks would win the Cup, I knew better, thanks to my superior intelligence and eye for the game.
I won’t go back too far, but in 06-07, the Anaheim Ducks (you know, the ones with Pronger, Neidermayer, Selanne closer to his prime, Getzlaf, Perry, Andy Mcdonald, etc) were better than the Sharks, as were the Red Wings. There was no way the Sharks were getting through the Ducks even if they made it to them.
In 07-08, it was always going to be a toss-up against teams like Calgary and Dallas, but Detroit was lightyears ahead of our team. Anyone picking the Sharks to win the Cup that year in particular just doesn’t know hockey. Our team, with Marleau, and Cheechoo slumping, leaving only one legitimate top forward on the roster (Thornton, if he’s even one)… Our team, with one offensive-defenseman (Brian Campbell), vs a Detroit team with Lidstrom, Rafalski, and Kronwall (3 quality offensive defensemen when healthy, which they were)… a Detroit team with Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Holmstrom, Franzen (healthy), Hudler, Samuelsson, whoever I’m forgetting… They were plain better, everywhere, and deeper, and they were always going to beat us if we’d gotten to them. It was obvious. We had zero chance of winning the Cup that year.
In 08-09, the same applies. Detroit was the same team, a little more fatigued towards the end, a little more injured, but with Hossa added. If we had gotten to them, we had no chance. We were never going to win that year. They were clearly better. We didn’t even make it to them because we went up against a team with the best top-line in the NHL that year, and the best defense corps in the last decade quite possibility, maybe tied with Detroit’s in 07-08, while healthy. Pronger, Neidermayer, Ryan Whitney (three #1’s, in essence, or 1b’s in Whitney), Beauchemin, Wisniewski… That team was way more stacked than most realized at the time. They were better also. Clearly better. We had no chance.
09-10, Chicago had an amazing team lsat season. They were always going to beat us. They were always better than us. They dominated us in the regular season. In the playoffs, some of their players slumped like crazy (see Hossa, Kane to an extent, Sharp didn’t exactly light it up), so we closed the gap, but they still swept us. They were always better. They were always going to beat us. We didn’t have much of a chance at the Cup. We were never going to win it. Anyone who thought we were, again, was just ignoring the facts, ignoring the other teams out there.
Now, DOUG, you’re going to love this. The SF Giants were up and down all of last season. Sometimes they played well; sometimes they didn’t. But, much like the Hawks this year, Philadelphia was not the same team as the year before. Neither were the Yankees, or Dodgers. Despite the Giants struggles, when you looked around at the league, there was no top dog out there that looked truly capable of beating the Giants, when the Giants put things together.
And it’s the same now. Who is going to beat the Sharks, for *sure* this year? Detroit, with Nick Lidstrom close to a POINT PER GAME pace, but he is a MINUS 2 in +/-. MINUS TWO! For the people who think he’s still a dominant NHL defenseman, in Norris form… the year he won the Norris last, +40 at the end of the season. But now he’s -2. He’s soft now. He couldn’t handle Clowe, or Thornton, etc along the boards in last year’s playoffs, and he definitely can’t now. Kronwall, another horse during their Cup run, is also much softer now. He’s playing on one knee. Franzen, who carried Detroit through the early rounds in their Cup run at a goal per game pace, he’s playing half injured. Zetterberg isn’t the same player. Datsyuk is the only one who can still bring it the same as he could in 07-08. This team is soft, old, and they’re at a significant size disadvantage compared to us. Offensively they are better passers, more creative, more “skilled,” but we will run all over them physically. Could they beat us in the playoffs? Yes, they could, especially if they’re injured, but it’s no longer a sure bet like it used to be.
Vancouver then? They’er soft too. Clowe didn’t even play last night, and they still couldn’t handle us along the boards. Their top defenseman is Kevin Bieksa, who is almost as overrated as Nick Lidstrom is now. Their problem last year was softness on the blueline, so they brought in Hamhuis and Ballard, two …half offensive defensemen. Very similar to Detroit, their defensemen can bring it offensively as a group, but attack them down low and they’re soft, bad positionally, and often unorganized. This team’s strength last season was their forward depth, but Burrows, Raymond, and so on have significantly dropped off. They’ll probably let in 3 goals per game against us in the playoffs, and unless the Sedins combined for 3 goals a game, we have a good chance against them as well.
So, what am I saying?
I’m not saying the Sharks will win the Cup. I’m just not saying they won’t, which is what I’ve said every year prior to this. Every time I saw a better team out there, I said the Sharks wouldn’t win, and they didn’t. Now I’m not saying that, so… what happens then? This is uncharted territory. The Flyers are obviously the #1 threat, but even they have some big problems. I almost think the Kings would be the biggest threat if they could add some quickness and skill, and maybe a new coach. Not like that’s going to happen though. The Stars, also, although their defense also isn’t fantastic, they’re not quite as soft as Detroit and Vancouver’s, and they have the depth and skill to beat us in a run-and-gun type game. However, they’re far from a sure bet.
So, it’s very typical to make comparisons between your struggling team when your city’s baseball team struggled, but then won the World Series. It’s very optimistic, wishful-thinking, very teal-colored glasses like. It’s something the dudes would say on their podcast. However, this one is actually valid. It’s ironic but I think these 10th place Sharks have a better shot at winning the Cup than any team in Sharks history, included the 1st place teams of past seasons. We’ll see what happens but I think there’s reason to be very optimistic here.
Especially if they’re injured I meant to say.
Sedins combine, not combined
including not included
I’m out of here, but I hope you dudes are doing well. I know you guys don’t like me but I hope you guys didn’t take the losing streak too hard and I hope all is well with you good people. Bye
Also guys, Seto/Pavs/etc would not be the top liners without Heater Jumbo and so on. And free agents do come to san jose. Doug Wilson just hates signing good free agents. He’s said it so many times. “My colleagues are all idiots. UFA day is a day when people spend lots of money and term on players. Idiots.” Doug Wilson hates giving term, especially, which every UFA worth his salt wants. They want security. It’s him, not the players not wanting to come here. Players love coming here. Boyle picked San Jose out of multiple options. Heatley held out for San Jose. Thornton never wants to leave. No one on our team every asks for a trade because they all like it here.
But if we didnt have Jumbo and Heater and Marleau, you have to believe someone would have been signed with that 22 million in cap space. I’m not saying Gaborik, but there would be some other trade or signing/s over multiple seasons. You have to give DW credit for bringing in big name players, but much of it was very fortuitous. Now that he’s not getting these ridiculously lucky situations where everything goes his way, where he has all the bargaining power, where he’s dealing with new owners with a vendetta against their best defenseman, where someone only shops Thornton to him and no one else in the league… now that he’s not getting these lucky situations, you can see he’s just as incapable of trading for a big name player as everyone else, or he would have added a new defenseman a year ago.
Also bringing in big name players just to bring in big name players isn’t always a good thing. He’s brought in these guys, but they’re severely flawed players. He’s targeted the wrong guys. He’s also held on to players like Marleau much longer than he should have. This team is the exact same without Marleau. He’s invisible out there. Trade him for a top defenseman and you’re much better off. But now he has a no-trade i believe, again, Doug Wilson’s work.
he’s done some good work, there’s no doubt, but the problem is that for every good move there is a bad move that negates it. The way to progress to a cup is to make 3 good moves and no bad ones, 10 good ones and 1 bad one, etc, not 1 good, 1 bad. You just stand still that way. For example, good value contracts like the one to Clowe, the one to Setoguchi (in theory), the whole point of those good value contracts are to save you extra cap space to improve your team more than other taems with no cap room can improve theirs, and then you improve to the point where you’re the best team in the league, and you win the Cup. But if for every one of those good value contracts, you waste 2.5 in cap on a Wallin, or 1.7 on a Huskins, well you may as well have signed Clowe to a 3.675 + 2.5 = 6.175 mil (minus 500k = 5.675), or you get the point. Imagine if we spent the balance from the Wallin, Huskins, and take another contract like the Mitchell contract, or the Eager contract now, and spent that approximately 4 million on a #2 defenseman. Joni Pitkanen, if you all recall, was available to us. Edmonton wanted to get rid of him badly when he was an RFA. They traded him for a 3rd line+ player in Erik Cole, but we could have offer sheeted him. Doug Wilson out of desperation ends up offer sheeting Hjalmarsson 3.5 million, but 4 mil was too much for Pitkanen? We surely could have gotten him for that since Edmonton didn’t want him. He was available. I clamored for him but Sharks fans laughed at the notion. No one knew about him back then. Doug Wilson doesn’t have the eye for talent until it’s too late. Brent Burns might be the best deefnseman in the league now. If Doug had figured that out over the offseson, he could have swung something around Seto and a pick, in all likelihood. Now you cna never get him, because his value is obvious to everyone, not just the people with the eye. His combination of size, speed, power, stickhandling, everything really, it’s probably unmatched in the league right now. But DW missed that opportunity. And that’s the point. Burns is making the same cap hit as DW offered Hjalmarsson. That’s just ridiculous.
Oh and movies,
Have you seen either Inception or The Town, Doug? Because without having seen the Fighter, I imagine both of those are better. I mean they’re better than most movies. They’re masterpieces each in their own right.
In all sincerity, I don’t think it’s that anyone here personally dislikes you. Or that people have a problem with your views on the team. But you really need to find a way to get your point across in fewer than 1,100 words (and that’s only your first post – I used Word Count). You could be making the most insightful observations that anyone has ever made about the sport of hockey, and nobody would know, because trust me when I say that NOBODY reads those mega-posts.
No. I read his views for a while. I disagree with him on many of them, like face offs being unfair or penalties being too long. More of the problem is his need to use absolutely horrible analogies to try to explain his point of view.
He’s a literary idiot that has no concept whatsoever on how to convey a point. He’s also a narcissistic prick who is only trying to piss people off. If he just pestered Sharks fans I might believe he’s an overzealous fan, but I saw him pretend to be a Kings fan and piss off a different group of fans. So, what I’m trying to say is fuck that piece of shit. I do dislike him and you should too.
Slander!
If you’re going to make statements like that you need to back them up with proof. I think I vaguely recall what I believe you’re referring to, but I certainly didn’t piss off any kings fan. Also if I said I was a kings fan i wasn’t pretending. I like their young core. They are an intriguing team to me. I will always have more of a connection to the sharks, good or bad, than any other team, but that doesn’t mean i don’t watch the other teams and casually root for some of them.
And Patrick, thanks the words of encouragement and the advice. Trust me I’m not purposefully fluffing out my sentences. I have a lot to say about hockey, so the posts are long. It’s reflective on the amount I have to say, not terrible writing. Although, I have been conditioned on places like here to overly explain everything. I write about some things that are novel and complicated to the average hockey fan, and they have a hard time explaining them. You see that with comments like the one evildoug made. “More of the problem is his need to use absolutely horrible analogies to try to explain his point of view.” This is the type of thing someone says when they have trouble understanding something complex you’ve said. But don’t take my word for it. The proof is in the pudding. His subconscious remembers being dumbfounded and confused by my complex posts, so the way his conscience mind remembers it is that i made a bunch of horrible, stupid, nonsensical analogies. But if you asked him to actually give us some examples, he wouldn’t be able to even find a single horrible nonsensical analogy, because it doesn’t exist. He just remembers it that way. His mind is playing tricks on him, like a Shakespearian typewriter watching Howl’s Moving Castle on LSD (LaSerDisc or d-Lysergic Acid Diethylamide?) with zombie monkeys typing “silly rabbit, mind tricks are for kids!” over and over again.
See what I did there? I said he was just imagining the horrible analogies, but then I actually made one, on purpose! But, okay, excluding this one, he’s not going to have any proof.
Also, Evilducks, I have nothing to hide. I’ve been banned from fearthefin already. Everyone here hates me. If I was “only trying to piss people off,” like you claim, I would have no problem admitting it. If you have trouble understanding my analogies, the concept that most minor penalties are too long–the punishment does not fit the crime, and everything else, that’s understandable. I mean I explained the penalty concept to my friend a week after I first posted it on fearthefin and my friend understood it right away. Same with the faceoff concept.
Faceoffs in hockey, as with kickoffs in football, serves in tennis, etc, are a mechanism designed to distribute advantages EQUALLY off of game-stoppages. By that token, to win more than 50% of faceoffs is by definition an unfairness and a flaw in the game, because it goes against the very purpose of having faceoffs. Starting with the puck more than the other team is an advantage, just as starting with the football more than the other team in (football) is an advantage, just as getting more serves than the other player in tennis is an advantage. In football, because there are only two stoppages the entire game that require the football to be arbitrarily distributed, the method they came up with was to simply give each team the ball once, 50% each, and that has solved the problem fairly. If one team got both kickoffs, it would be an unfair advantage. In tennis, each player alternates serves every game, because serving is an advantage, and if one player got more of that advantage than the other, it would not be fair.
Now we get to hockey. And the same is true with hockey. If every faceoff took place at center ice, they could simply alternate giving the puck to each team at center ice, and they probably would. However, since faceoffs occur all over the ice in order to correspond with the goalie freezing the puck, where the puck went out of play, etc, one can’t just alternate distributing the puck to each team, because if you gave the puck cleanly to the team in the offensive zone, it would be far to easy to get a free shot on net. You would have to weight the various faceoff sites differently, and that would be difficult to do accurately. So because of the higher number of puck distributions off of dead plays in hockey compared to other sports, and because of the changing sites of these puck distributions, we have what we have now, a system designed to still distribute the puck evenly to each team, but without pre-determining each specific faceoff by means of alternating, or flipping a coin such as in football. In other words, the idea is still to distribute the dead pucks evenly, except it’s also supposed to be random. I don’t know who designed the faceoff system, or when it first came to pass, but I can imagine it was on a pond somewhere, before people were analyzing players’ faceoff techniques in video, and using every means necessarily to manipulate the system. People played pick-up hockey on the pond, and when the puck needed to be distributed, two players stood equally apart, the puck got dropped right in the middle of them, and half the team the puck bounced to one team, and half the time another. But now, with all the video and everything else, some teams are manipulating the system. It is a system; let’s be clear about that. It’s a puck-distribution system. If the idea was to give one team the puck 55% of the time, and not 50% of the time, they’d let that team stand 5% closer than the other team to where the puck gets dropped. But they don’t. Two players stand EQUALLY apart. The puck is dropped an EQUAL distance between both of them, so that both players are given an EQUAL chance of winning the faceoff. If you look at how the faceoff system is designed, everything about it is meant to be equal, fair, 50%. Unfortunately this out-dated system is not impervious to being manipulated. It was not designed with video-analysis in mind. It’s an old system, simply meant to distribute the puck evenly and arbitrarily after each game-stoppage, in the same way as every other sport.
Look, here is the best way to understand it. Like I’ve been over, in football, one team gets the ball to begin the game, and one team gets it at halftime. Their kickoff system ensures that each team gets the ball 50% of the time. In basketball, one team gets the ball to begin the 1st and 4th quarters, and one team gets it to begin the 2nd and 3rd quarters. This system ensures that each team gets the ball 50% of the time. In baseball, which is a similar but not exact concept, each team gets 27 outs to bat with over the course of a 9 inning game. This system ensures that each team gets the same fair, 50%, equal opportunity to score runs and win the game. In tennis, each player gets to serve 50% of the time.
So that’s how it works in every other sport except hockey. Now, if we can all accept the thesis that the way they all do it is fair, then how can a team winning 55% of faceoffs in hockey be fair? Either 50/50, like all the other sports do it, is fair, or 55%/45% is fair. It can’t be both. If you still don’t understand this *fact*, then by all means, share with us which part you’re not understanding. The bottom line is that either football’s possession distribution system is unfair, or hockey’s is. And since football’s seems fair, that means hockey’s isn’t. The saddest part of all this is if the Sharks were 30th in faceoffs you’d be calling me a visionary and asking me to fax my work to the NHL Offices. This is a simple concept. What does fair mean in sports? It means even. Equalling 100, what are the only two numbers you can achieve “even” with? 49 and 51 will equal 100, but they won’t be even. Only 50 and 50 equals 100 while being even. Therefore, it is a mathematical certainty that a team winning or losing more than 50% of their faceoffs is unfair. Hopefully I’ve explained it painstakingly enough now for you to understand it.
Anyway, my overall point is, if you don’t understand the things I say, or your bias towards the Sharks (in this case them benefitting greatly from the unfair faceoff system) keeps you from understanding the things I say, I can accept that. But if I was actually doing this to just piss people off, #1. I would have no reason to not readily admit it, and #2. Why would I be talking about the length of penalties in the NHL, and the problems with the faceoff system? Those are intricate hockey discussions that the average fan doesn’t even think of or bring up, not the preferred topics of a troll. There would be a million easier ways to piss people off here than going into detail about the NHL’s faceoff system. The faceoff system isn’t even specific to the Sharks. If I wanted to piss of Sharks’ fans, I would focus solely on the Sharks and slamming them. But clearly I don’t. I wrote the other day that the Sharks have their best chance at winning a Cup, EVER, this season. That’s a pretty positive, make-Sharks-fans-really-happy spin if you ask me. That’s not something someone trying to piss people off would say.
So, in short, EvilDucks, you’re wrong that I’m just here to piss people off, as I just clearly demonstrated. You’re wrong about me using horrendous analogies, as you’ve provided no proof, and it seems like you were referring to things like the faceoff and penalties concepts, when, again, I just explained it all very **clearly**. Everyone else can understand it. It seems to just be you and some other bias Sharks fans having trouble with these concepts. My friend grasped it easily. And on the faceoff note, obviously, you’re wrong about that one. When you say you “disagree” with the “view,” that just shows how little you understand of it. It’s not a subjective view that can be disagreed with. It’s as much a fact as 50/50 being the only even ratio out of 100. I mean that is, it. You can’t disagree with it any more than you can disagree with 2+2=4. All you can do is not understand it, and I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that’s what you meant when you said you disagreed with a fact.
(Sorry for the typos in the above comment)
One last thing. As for how the Sharks are creating the unfair advantage, Ron Wilson, ex San Jose Sharks coach, recently said, “I know how much Joe Thornton cheats on faceoffs.” So there you go. I’m sure Joe isn’t the only one. If one center on the team knows how to cheat that much and get away with it, you can be sure he’s shown everyone else, and there you go, a #1 faceoff team in the league. You think it’s hard work? That they’re just better? Then tell me how Logan Couture, who couldn’t even play with the Sharks last regular season in part because he was poor at faceoffs, is now above 50%, beating out veterans who have been in the league 15x as long as he has, and who have practiced faceoffs 15x more than he has. What, you thought he practiced faceoffs more in one year than these vets have in 15? It doesn’t hold up to inspection, that’s for sure.
His first appearance on FTF where he got banned, then created a new account to pretend that that other guy, who is totally not the same person, really, that got banned had some good points, even if he disagreed with them.
http://www.fearthefin.com/2010/8/6/1610132/coyle-turning-heads-at-usa-world#43868199 (posting as sharksrule15)
Pretending to be a Kings fan:
http://www.jewelsfromthecrown.com/2010/11/15/1815229/thats-some-bad-hat-harry-game-thread-sjs
(posting as buttercrunch7)
Compared Slavery to Penalties:
http://www.jewelsfromthecrown.com/2010/11/15/1815229/thats-some-bad-hat-harry-game-thread-sjs
(posting as Sharkfin8888)
so, purposefully trolling both sharks and kings fans and horrible analogies. I can link plenty of his other long winded shit, but yeah. There is plenty there to illustrate my point on why he’s a douchebag that you should actively dislike.
As for faceoffs. Lacross has them, and is probably the closest to hockey of the sporting world. Soccer and Basketball have throw ins, where instead of location on the ice for the faceoff hurting the other team, the other team gets to throw the ball in, but that in no way guarantees posession, many basketball and soccer teams pressure for the ball immediately or outright intercept the ball. Unlike Tennis, Volleyball doesn’t alternate serving, you have to earn a serve and can only score on the serve. It is feasable that a team may never give up the serve for an entire game. Nascar has a polling race and then starts the fastest cars in the first positions, giving already better drivers an advantage over the slower ones. I can keep going.