DOH 360 – From Bad to Worse
April 2nd, 2017, 8:19 pm
The Sharks have lost 8 of 10 in regulation, and now they’re missing Joe Thornton and Logan Couture.
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Tags: San Jose Sharks
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HI dudes,
i’ve been a listener for years and you continue to deliver quality podcast with fresh outlook. I have few comments that my want to ponder about:
1. the infamous deboer bump come-down. Deboer’s teams have infamously overachieved the first year, then usually not-making or early exit in playoff year after and he gets fired sometime during 3rd year, which would be called retooling/recharging/ or any other marketing word masking a shiny dud, This is playing out to the t. The combination of coaching + personnel compounded by aging stars does project a bleak outlook for the immediate future. Which is fine, btw. There needs to be a change of the guard for real at least once in 10-15 years and Sharks can’t break my heart after blowing 0-3 lead couple years ago anymore. i am immune to whatever happens now with the team.
2. What do you make of the drought? Donskoi, Hertl and pretty everyone else are AWOL.
3. if a team is tanking, since it’ obvious there is no gas in the tank left, and Deboer has to play same goalie with 0.85 save pct over the last 10+games, why not let young kids have a shot?
i totally did not fact checked the claims but i am pretty sure i am not too far off.
P.S. our only saving grace would be playing anaheim in first round. if we can anybody else it’s 5 games tops.
Full disclosure and no apologies: this post is an absolute downer.
The criticism of PDB has been mounting. Mostly it seems to rest on two points: 1) The lack of adjustments made to the power play, which has struggled all year. 2) The inability to set his lines combinations. There hasn’t been a consistently producing line all year. Nothing like the Jumbo-Pavs-Hertl line last year. The coach was just sensational last year. Yet since March 1, he can’t do anything right.
The Sharks’ aging core has been blown up by the long Cup run last year, followed by the international play this year, then the condensed schedule. I’m hopefuly Couture is back by game 1 of the playoffs. As I expect us to get crushed in the first round, I’d be shocked if we see Thornton again this year.
Fortunately, we can turn our attention to the Norris voting and Vegas draft. Doug raises a good point regarding the fact that the West Coast games are not watched as often, which may help Burns in the Norris race. It’s between him and Weber. Remember last year most thought Karlsson’s would get him the hardware, but it went to Doughty. Like Doughty, Weber has never won it.
Agree with you James on the fatigue. Frustrating thing is that this roster was supposed to be designed to deal with it and PDB was so good with minutes last year.
Why is he so bad at managing minutes this year? Why is Burns playing 25+ a night? Why is he on the PK? Why didn’t Dell get 25-30% of the starts in the first 3-4 months of the season. Why carry a 4th liner (Haley) that plays only 6-8 min a night?
Basketball already has this figured out, and baseball is getting there with pitchers: rest is incredibly important. Some coach is going to have the balls someday to sit their #1 center the entire 3rd period of a game that they are up by 3 goals. Yes, they might blow a couple of leads during the regular season, but the rest will show up in the playoffs.
All good points. I’ve been waiting for a Kurz or Merc article about the veteran fatigue issue. Thornton never gets injured, but here we are. And it’s not like Burns and Martin suddenly became terrible players in March. They just look gassed. I don’t blame DeBoer for upping Burns minutes versus last year because he was playing so well. But hindsight is 20/20 and now it looks like a mistake. My silver lining: the Sharks played well coming out of the bye week. The should sit Jones and Burns tonight. I imagine the NHL will put their thumb on the scale regarding scheduling – they don’t want a Sharks playoff series without Thornton. Hopefully the extra rest will help the team rebound. But they need to win some road games, and beat the Oilers, neither of which they’ve been able to do in a long time.
Since March, the Sharks are 1-8-1 against playoff-bound teams.
Definitely glad I was wrong about the Oilers winning the division. They are are a much weaker opponent than the Ducks. But I don’t know many teams that could win a playoff series without their top 2 centers healthy. Here’s hoping for some kind of miracle.