I'm just like the Coyotes. I feel a blowout!

My daughter is now 16 days old and I feel like I’m living in an alternate universe. My days revolve around keeping track of how many times this small version of me poos and pees, singing silly songs about poos and pees and washing poos and pees off my Dudes on Hockey t-shirt, which appears to be her favorite target….not sure what she’s saying about our podcast….

I’m also pretty sure that I feel fairly poopy and pee-pee about the LA Kings making the Stanley Cup Finals, which is a virtual certainty at this point. Is this really happening? Are the Sharks really keeping T-Mac as head coach and thinking that adding Bryan Marchment will fix the disturbing penalty kill? Why am I still covered in doo-doo?

As I stumble into next weeks podcast, we are creating two Dudes on Hockey award categories and we would like your help in forming the nominations. Let us know your nominees in the comment thread below and we’ll run with it.

KING DOUCHEBAG

What NHL player is the lamest, either on or off the ice? An obvious nominee would be Patrick Kane, for his drunken escapade after Round One in the playoffs coupled with his classic Vancouver limo incident and punching a cab driver in the face in his native Buffalo. Plus he’s just a tool in general. That’s my nominee.

Who is your King Douchebag? State your case and provide your evidence.

THE DIRTY DIAPER AWARD

Which current San Jose Shark player would you like to see NOT return next season. No rules apply here, no logic, or trade clauses. Just you being able to toss this player into the Diaper Champ like a nutty surprise on the NHL landfill. With the new CBA, there could be an amnesty clause that would allow you to dispose of this dirty diaper. You could also choose to not resign this players soiled baby shorts as a UFA or RFA.

Who is your Dirty Diaper and why do they stand out from the other Pamper nightmares?

We will be back next week. Until then, my hockey friends…I reek of Boudreaux’s Butt Paste.

Sorry, looks like the podcast isn’t going to happen this week.  Doug has some terrible excuse, like caring for a brand new small person that constantly cries and demands attention, furthering the human race.  My own reason is much more noble- I ate a lot of bacon this morning and feel sleepy.  I’m going to try and get Doug to post something at his most sleep-deprived, which should be entertaining.  I’m hoping for a new episode early next week.

Suggestions for topics always welcome, either here in the comments, or through Twitter or email.

No baby yet, so I thought I’d kill some time.

I noticed this release today on the Sharks official website, confirming what we all assumed was Step One in the offseason plan. Doug Wilson’s J-O-B is safe and he will be the point man for the changes this summer.

STATEMENT FROM THE OWNERSHIP GROUP OF SHARKS SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT:

“The on-ice results of our team this season are not acceptable to our fans, our organization or our ownership group. We will not lower our expectation that every San Jose Sharks team we put on the ice is capable of winning the Stanley Cup. Despite the fact that our team has experienced a tremendous amount of success over the past eight seasons, we are not satisfied with those results and neither is Doug. The ownership group has confidence that Doug will make the necessary changes to ensure our club remains among the NHL’s elite franchises.”

So Step #2 we’d all assume is will Doug Wilson continue with T-Mac as the teacher in his hockey classroom? You’ll notice T-Mac did not get the same vote of confidence from the ownership statement.

Mike and I are on record on this weeks podcast that we think it’s time for a change. Despite four years of making the playoffs, the lack of consistency, the brutal drop off on the penalty kill, and the apparent change in winning style in the NHL could steer DW in a different direction – especially if he’s stuck with many of the same players. It certainly will be easier to change the coaching staff than trade some of these contracts (Marleau, Thornton, Niemi) in an unknown CBA climate.

If T-Mac gets thrown overboard, one name I want to throw out is St. Louis Blues assistant coach, Brad Shaw.

Who the hell is Brad Shaw? Well, he’s an assistant coach on a team that whipped the Sharks fannies eight out of nine times this year and we know what a fan Doug Wilson is to paying homage to teams that are successful. Brad Shaw was voted by the 2011-12 NHL Players Association players poll as the assistant who most deserves a Head Coaching job. He played 377 NHL games as a defensemen and was Co-Captain of the Ottawa Senators in their second year in the league, something DW can relate to as a Captain of an expansion team himself. Maybe the most important connection between the two men is they both were dominant defensemen for the Ottawa 67’s under coach Brian Kilrea, a brotherhood that DW appears to take pretty seriously when evaluating hockey talent given his draft history. Maybe he would consider it when looking for another coach…

Nothing to see here yet…but if T-Mac gets canned, I would see if Doug Wilson has Brad Shaw on speed dial.

In this corner, representing the salty Sharks broadcasting team, the bald, the beautiful – Drew Remenda.

In this corner, representing fed up Bay Area media, weighing in at a light 123 pounds…with one foot on the scale – Ray Ratto.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o5BF9nWNHY&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

Last night after the Sharks kick to the groin loss in Phoenix, Ratto spoke words that echoed how I was feeling after the game and you can see, Drew turns about as red as a Canadian can get.

It was the most entertaining part of the game, no question.

Because Drew was there, I can understand him getting caught up in the emotion of the moment. I guess he was upset that Ratto was implying the Sharks didn’t give it a full effort last night. So, are we saying that the Sharks did try but they just aren’t that good – that’s the response? In Drew’s own statement he says the Sharks were good not great and can’t score.

I never thought I’d type this, but I agree with Ratto. I was infuriated too. They couldn’t finish, they didn’t play their game, they weren’t physical, and it didn’t appear that their season was on the line. The Sharks should have the Pacific Division won by now. They should be resting key players. They should not be in this position…but the facts are they have been awful on the road, two of their best players in Couture and Marleau couldn’t score with a drunk Snookie right now, and with their season on the line – the Sharks went into Phoenix and played Phoenix’s style. Drew said the Sharks established their game. They did? Doesn’t that involve scoring and executing on the power play and not giving up a goal to the WORST power play in the league? Good teams don’t play right into another teams strengths and right now the Sharks just aren’t good enough to dictate their style of play. We saw how it worked against Phoenix at the home opener. It’s possible…just not right now I guess.

Who do you think is right?

After three good wins, the Sharks manage to lose two critical road games to Anaheim and Phoenix, and they are back out of the playoff picture.  We can go over what they did wrong, how Mike Smith is the second coming of Ken Dryden or whatever, but the fact is this:  if the Sharks can’t beat Dallas and L.A. for the next four games, they don’t deserve to be in the playoffs anyway.  Should they manage to limp in without winning those four games, they will almost certainly get crushed by whomever they face in the first round, playing either St. Louis or Vancouver with no home ice.

Doug and Mike talk about the last three games, all of which the Sharks won, and go over the current playoff picture.  Also, Mike recounts his experience as a fantasy camper at the Shark for a Day event.

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After two terrible games against division opponents this week, the Sharks staunch the bleeding somewhat by edging the defending champs, the Bruins, 2-1.  Just when you think the Sharks are ready to give up the ghost, they come back like a Monty Python sketch.  “But I don’t want to go in the cart!  I’m not dead.”

There are still several signs that are very troubling about this team, mostly in the scoring department.  The last time the Sharks won a game by more than one goal was five weeks ago, against the Caps (thanks Kevin Kurz).  That’s also the last time the Sharks have scored more than three goals in a win.  The last time they scored more than three goals period was also five weeks ago, in a 6-5 loss in OT to the Lightning.  That’s 18 games ago, almost a quarter of the season.  In those 18 games where the Sharks didn’t score more than three, they scored three goals (supposedly the magic number) only four times.  Let’s put that a different context.  In the 55 games previous to that, the Sharks scored 3 or more goals 33 times, or 60% of the time.  That doesn’t include wins like 2-1, 2-0, etc.  Since, the Sharks have scored three or more goals only 22% of the time.  That’s not a decline.  That’s an anvil falling out of the sky.

The good thing about last night is they stayed step for step with the Stanley Cup Champions, and the 4th line was more than just a non-liability.  They were an asset, matching up well with the Bruins very respectable fourth line of Dan Paille, Shawn Thornton and Greg Campbell.  The bad thing is the Sharks still are not scoring in bunches.  They score once, have some good quality chances not go in, then slowly fade.  Whether they hold on or chip in another one seems to be a coin flip at best.  Looking at the stat sheet, another bad thing was the return of Michal Hanzus.  He was -1, and lost 5 of the 7 faceoffs he took.  T.J. Galiardi can’t come back fast enough.

There’s no more time for the Sharks to turn this around.  They have to be going in the right direction now.  Another game or two of disappointing losses will put them in an ugly position to make the playoffs.  Let’s hope the win against Boston was the turn, and now the Sharks are sailing in clear waters and strong wind to the finish line.

The Sharks have thirteen games to play, and 78 points.  Here’s the point totals of the 8 seed every year since the lockout.

For the math nerds, the West average is 94.17, East is 92, overall average is 93.08, and standard deviation is 2.5.  The conventional wisdom is that the Sharks need 95 points to make the playoffs, and these numbers support that.  However, assuming the distribution is normal, there’s about a 15% chance the 8 seed will need 97 points to make it.

To get to 94 points, the Sharks need to go 8-5-0, or 7-3-2.  To get to 95 points, that’s 8-4-1 or 7-2-3.  To get to 97, that’s 9-3-1 or 8-1-3.

The last time the Sharks got 16 points or more in a 13-game span was January 5th to February 2nd, which included 8 games against teams that are not currently in the playoffs.  The final thirteen, the Sharks will have 6 games against such opponents, and three of them against the Kings, with whom the Sharks are tied.

Ain’t gonna be easy.

Here we are, in all of our glory, with some of our esteemed colleagues.

For those of you that wanted to hear some ‘real’ opinions (or as real as DOH can get), try that on for size.