This the time of year when we all realize how much of a crapshoot the NHL really is. For our long-time readers, both grier and I predicted the division standings way back in September. Today is the day to be accountable for the destruction we have wrought. As a good little math nerd, I put a spreadsheet together to calculate how we did. To determine how bad a prediction was, we just take the difference between the final standing and the predicted standing. By far the worst prediction of the year was made by yours truly, picking the Lightning to win the division, when in fact they finished last, and last in the conference too. So that would get a 4- the difference between actual (5) and predicted (1). The lowest combined total wins.

After all that work, it’s a friggin tie. If the stupid Wild managed to win against the Avs today, two good things would have come of it: 1) I would have won and proven my superiority over grier once and for all, and b) the Sharks would be facing the Avs in Round 1, clearly a better draw than the Flames.  Thanks for nothing, Wild.  Have fun losing in the first round.

It had to happen at some point, right? The Sharks finally lost a game in regulation, for the first time in 21 games they didn’t get a point, and I think it was a good thing. Why? Because this team has to remember how to bounce back after a loss – and a lackluster effort – and we don’t want this challenge to come for the first time after they lose a game in the playoffs.

Bottom Line – The Sharks are facing one of the most difficult paths to the Stanley Cup Finals in recent memory – with Calgary as their most likely first round opponent. That means if Colorado beats Minnesota in the first round (which I think is likely) then San Jose will have to go through Calgary, Anaheim and the Red Wings in order to reach the Finals. Brutal. Last year the Ducks had Minnesota and Vancouver in the first two rounds, which is a cake walk compared to what lies ahead for San Jose. I look at the more difficult path the Wings had last year, with Calgary and San Jose in the first two rounds, and wonder how much that took out of them when they had to face the Ducks in Finals. The Wings had two more games than the Ducks and were engaged in a very physical first round series with Calgary. Should Sharks fans expect the same from the Flames this year, if that is who we draw….um – yes. Calgary is the 5th most penalized team in the NHL this season and thrives on a physical game. They won the season series 3-1 vs. San Jose, winning three straight where the Sharks suffered meltdowns at the end and gave the games away BUT all of these games were played B.C. (Before Campbell) and we Sharks fans know this is a much different team now.

The Sharks needed to lose last night so they can refocus, look at the task at hand and prepare for what is bound to be an exciting, but extremely challenging, playoff run.

Lot’s of buzz about the Vezina race right now. Article in the Merc, article on ESPN.com, and others are putting in their two cents. Time for mine, although they are only worth 1.87 Canadian cents now.

Rob Neyer has done something similar in baseball to ranking pitchers, and a I know I read a breakdown like this before, though I can’t find the post. Either Mirtle, PuckStopsHere, or BoC. Sorry I can find the cite, but the message is this- I didn’t invent this system.

For the major categories, you just put the ranking of each contestant, not their stats, and you can use the average ranking as a way to compare. Here goes:

Now if you strictly took the top three as Vezina Finalists, you’d have Brodeur, Giguere, and Nabby. We all know that’s not going to happen. Luongo will be a finalist, no question. He’s viewed, not rightly so in my mind, as a slam-dunk finalist. It does bother me that some players get anointed as great regardless of their actual results. If Luongo was named, oh, I don’t know, “Lundqvist” or something, we wouldn’t be talking about this in the same way.

It’s really hard for me to be objective here, because I know Nabby is the MVP of the Sharks. Without his consistent play, the trials we witnessed in November through January would have been a hell of a lot worse. The unbelievable streak we are on is in no small part to Nabby’s performance.

My prediction is that Nabby will not be named a finalist, for a two reasons:

• The Sharks play on the west coast which doesn’t get as much media attention as the East Coast or Canadian teams. Nabby technically did have a shot at setting a wins record, which helps his cause. However, I think people will argue (rightly or wrongly) that his wins are more of a result of him playing so many games.
• I think this comment by puckstopshere in a comment on his blog is indicative of a sentiment: “Nabokov may be a good goalie, but any Vezina chances he has are largely a product of playing a lot of games behind a good defence, as opposed to being a Vezina worthy goalie.” Rant time. Nabby may be a good goalie? Can anyone honestly present an argument that Nabby isn’t a good goalie that won’t make me blow milk out of my nose? Also, It bugs me that this standard isn’t applied consistently. When Brodeur puts up good stats when he’s behind the #1 ranked conference defense (by GA) in the East, he’s a great goalie. When Luongo puts up good stats behind the #5 ranked defense, he’s a great goalie. When Giguere does it behind the #3 defense (only one more goal allowed than the Sharks), he’s great. When Nabby does it behind the #2 defense it’s because of the defense, not because he’s great. Give me a formula, heuristic, or methodology to explain that, and let’s discuss it on merit, instead of some voodoo feeling.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter, because Brodeur is going to win it, and he should.

Quick note, Teal Spiel fans – the host, Chetan Chaudhari, will be on Sharksbuzz  tonight – an  internet radio show run by the Sharks bloggers at hockeybuzz.com.    They have a mechanism to call in as well.  Ask Chetan if he’s figured out how to put on hockey pads yet.    Don’t worry, he’ll know what you mean.  And I’m certain he’ll be thrilled with the question.

You know who I mean. Jody Shelley. To me, he’s an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a toothless visage. Ok, not entirely toothless. As some might know, I made an over-under bet with grier on how many points Shelley would get for the Sharks this year. When he joined the Sharks, he was averaging less than one point per 10 games. We set the over-under at 5, and I cunningly took the under. Needless to say, I lost two weeks ago, after only 23 games. I mention this now because he got yet another point last night in the win over the Kings, assisting on Curtis Brown’s goal. Speaking of Curtis Brown, he’s suddenly turned into a sharpshooter. Each of his goals in the last three games had eyes for the corners.

But I digress. We were talking about Shelley. Last night he got into a scrap against Raitis Ivanans, his sixth as a Shark. As the popular vote at the be-all-end-all hockey fight site indicates, he’s won none of them (0-2-4). In the case of the fight against the Boogeyman, he lost badly. Frankly, he hasn’t looked good in any of the tilts. I’m not sure if it’s a strategic move, but it appears that after the initial fist-full-of-jersey jab thing most fighters do these days, Shelley seems to wait. And wait. Maybe he’s hoping for the other guy to get tired and let his guard down. But what tends to happen is the guy throws a barrage of punches, most of which don’t do any damage, and then ties up Shelley and falls down, ending the fight. As someone who’s never actually thrown punches during a hockey fight before (although I have dropped the gloves) I’m not exactly qualified to give advice here. But maybe it’s time for Shelley to lean on the guy a bit more, and punch earlier in the bout. Just a suggestion. I know I’m digressing again, but why doesn’t anyone throw body shots? Kidney punches could be deadly, and shoulder pads don’t usually cover that area too well. Even a hard punch to the stomach could do some damage through the pads.  I’m not sure if there are Rules in The Code about such things.

Besides his unfortunate results as a pugilist for the Sharks, I’d still rate Mr. Shelley (after my critique of his fights, he’s Mr. Shelley now) as a must-have in the postseason lineup. He still throws his body around with complete disregard to his own safety (and that of others as well). As Ron Wilson has said, “he’s a better hockey player” than Scott Parker. In an age of hockey where the tough guys tend to ride the pine during the postseason, take this as a call to the Sharks to keep Mr. Shelley around. Lord knows how the cap situation will pan out this offseason, but if it’s possible, I would want to see him again in Teal for the 08-09 season.

Big Joe put one in only 15 seconds in, and the Sharks continued to roll, effortlessly. The Sharks easily set the franchise record for most wins in a month, with 13. They’ve gotten 32 out of a possible 34 points in the last 17 games. You’re not going to see another streak like this in the NHL for a while, folks. It’s time to enjoy it a little.

Looks like grier and I are both eating some crowe on the Clowe situation, haha. And we discovered last night why neither of us are running the Sharks. This guy just made the Sharks even better, and the rest of the West must be swallowing hard right now. This is a team clicking big time, with the depth to bounce back from a physical series. And the way things are looking, we’ll get one in the first round against Calgary, easily the toughest team in the bottom four seeds.

Just wanted to give a little more detail on the blogger contest. Here’s the link to the archive. The way it’s going is they have a blog post with the two entries of a given matchup – it looks like they are working their way through the “Northeast” bracket right now. Then there’s a second post on who won the matchup. They’ve decided to do three matchups per day, Monday through Friday. Even at that rate, we might not even see grier’s this week. But let’s put it this way, it’ll make an impression. If you read the “articles” they’ve posted so far, all have a certain tone, style, and pacing that is fairly “professional” in nature. I put that in quotes because it seems the entrants are trying to write for a newspaper, not a blog. Personally, I like the casual style of blog posts, and the entry you will see from grier reflects that style. I’d put the chances of that backfiring pretty high, but we don’t care. We aren’t getting paid enough to care. It’d be nice to win some matchups or the whole contest, but if that means the posts have to to adhere to some style guide or usage document, no thanks. Homogeneity is not a selling point.

Last night, I went to the Tank expecting the Phoenix Coyotes to fight for their lives. If they lose, they are eliminated from Stanley Cup playoff contention. Instead, the Coyotes had little bite and could have been renamed “The Dead Cockroaches” for the way they rolled over and played dead last night. No hard hits. No fights. No chance. For a team that has scrapped all season and survived on a mantra of hard work and overachievement, Phoenix quit last night on the Great One. I’m always stoked about a Sharks win, but I was disappointed that Phoenix didn’t give our Big Boys more of a run for their money last night. Wayne must have been thinking about his next baseball parlay….oops, sorry I mean his wife Janet, the Great One doesn’t bet, right? A lousy way for Phoenix to end what really was a season where they played above expectations, especially mine. Scoring Breezy for nothing from the Ducks was a major addition, and I do believe that if they are able to add one or two experienced forwards to put the puck in the net on a regular basis, this is a playoff team next year. They will have some major league cash to throw at players like Marian Hossa or to make a trade for a high priced and expensive forward, like Martin Havlat.

I admit I was wrong about Clowe – he looked good last night but I would slide him up to the 2nd line with Marleau and Pavs and see how that goes when Grier comes back. Who is the odd man out if Clowe reclaims a spot in the line up? Looks like Goc and The Gooch will be watching the playoffs from the pressbox, not bad to have those guys in reserve in case someone gets hurt. The only wildcard is will RW shelve Shelley like he used to with Scott Parker come playoff time? My gut says no, because Shelley is a better player than Parker is, as RW has admitted himself. His is able to contribute so much more than just fights, and his punishing hits will keep the game honest against a team like Calgary or Colorado, and it looks like one of those two will be our first round opponent….Shades of playoffs past….

So I drove all day to get down to SoCal, hit brutal L.A. traffic, but still managed to make it to my friend’s with time to spare.  When I drove back today, I hit traffic again.  At 11:30am.  On a Saturday.  How Los Angelinos deal with this is a mystery to me.  I wanted to get all L.A. Story on everybody- whip out my gun from the glove compartment, and open fire.

But we made to the Honda Center about half an hour early (after waiting in more traffic on “the” 5) in order to watch the teams warm up.  At this point we’ve wandered the concourse a bit, introduced myself to Earl Sleek (Sleek, that green shirt is like a friggin’ beacon, you can see it from anywhere in the arena) and I’m already making mental notes on what I like about the Honda Center, and what I don’t.

I suppose I should have at least a paragraph on the game.  I’m not sure it really meant as much as we wanted it to- both teams were missing some key people, and both backup goalies played.  The Ducks in particular were yielding lots of space in their zone, which is very uncharacteristic for them.  It was a nice win in enemy territory, and the Sharks have earned the privilege of relaxing a bit for the next two.  I was irate that Semenov played, and not Carle.  Ridiculous choice.

Enough of real content.  Here’s the list:

How the Pond is Better

• You can get chili with your nachos.  Big plus.
• Two concourses, so there are many more bathrooms.
• They post a lot of good stats on the Jumbotrons, and have little stats crawlers during the game on the “ribbon” screens.  The Tank people need to copy this.
• Two words: Ice Girls.  I really don’t want to see that mustache guy in tight pants, so get rid of him and use the Saberkittens or something.
• They are very kind to the many Sharks fans.  Of course this is a backhanded compliment.  I didn’t take hardly any abuse at all, which I was a bit disappointed about.  One guy booed at me when when I cheered a Sharks goal, and some drunk guy yelled “Sharks suck penis!” a few times as I walked by.  Not the most innovative insult I’ve ever heard.

How the Tank is Better

• It doesn’t look like a mall on the inside the way the Pond does.
• Better sight lines from the upper deck, and people don’t lean forward as much.
• Two words: cup holders.  How can Honda, a car manufacturer, put its name to an arena with no upper deck cup holders?
• We fill the arena.  It might have been technically a sellout, but I saw whole rows empty, and the two seats next to me in 410 were empty.  A Sharks-Ducks Friday night game in March, and you can see whole groups of empty seats?
• Living in a city that’s often maligned for ignorant fans, we don’t seem to wear it on our sleeves the way the Ducks fans behind me last night did.  They did the whole “Mick-a-lick” pronounciation the whole game, and spent a good 45 seconds trying to decide how to pronounce Pavelski.   As a capper, they made fun of “Gock’s” name too.  Something tells me they don’t watch the “On the Fly: Final” too often.

All in all, a great night.  Hopefully the first of many away Sharks games that I attend.  I think grier and I are planning on making one trip each season to a different arena.

Last night’s game was a thriller at the Tank. The Sharks stood their ground and Dallas imploded in overtime, thanks to Turco’s four minute high sticking penalty. You could see this coming a mile away, as the Sharks were harassing Turco all night, crashing the crease. The crowd was all over Marty and he whined a few times to the refs – he really lost his composure after playing a great game. My gut tells me that last night was a first round playoff preview, #2 San Jose vs. #7 Dallas. The Stars have Phoenix twice, which is no cake walk as we saw on Tuesday, the Ducks, the Kings and us one more time. Last night’s demoralizing loss couldn’t have helped a dressing room that is dealing with a 2-8-0 slide.

Tonight is not a must win, but it sure would be nice. A win tonight and it’s all over – Sharks win the Pacific Division and could stand to rest a few veterans with bumps and bruises in the final games. A loss tonight and the Ducks still have a heartbeat, all-be-it a faint one, to get the #2 seed. This blog will be represented in person tonight at the Pond, for as I’m typing Mike is driving down to Anaheim for tonight’s game. I’m expecting he’ll see the Sharks lay it all on the line while hammering Kunitz every chance they get. I’m thinking there won’t be a blatant retaliation, the Sharks aren’t that type of team, even with Jody Shelley – San Jose can’t afford a five minute major or risk someone getting a suspension. David Pollack of the San Jose Mercury News has hinted that Ron Wilson is going with Brian Boucher tonight. I don’t think that would be a bad move, the Sharks have worked their asses off whenever Boucher has been in net and The Waterboy has looked strong. I think San Jose wins 3-2 tonight. Bring home a “W” Mikey and don’t wear the Matt Carle jersey!!

As for the Next Great Hockeyblogger contest we are entered in, it appears that the public isn’t allowed to vote but you are welcome to post comments to sway the judges. Who the judges are – I don’t know – but it appears that Eklund is one of them. My first entry is a revised version of who I want the Sharks to face in the playoffs. Check it out and thanks for supporting us! The matchups can be found on The Fan Blog.

The Sharks got caught with their playoff pants down last night in Phoenix. No excuses, even without Cheechoo and Rivet the Sharks should have beaten Phoenix. The Coyotes are no joke anymore, they have improved vastly since the beginning of the season and if they can get develop or acquire some top scoring talent, this is going to be a tough team to play against in future seasons, no doubt – and the Sharks still overlooked them. With two huge games coming up against Dallas and ‘Da Ducks – San Jose took the first two periods off – but I do believe there is a silver lining in this OT loss. The Sharks could have checked out but JR and Thunder Joe wouldn’t allow it – they clawed all the way back from down 3-0 and got a point out of this mess. I think the team and the coaching staff have to take Sunday’s game very seriously against the Yotes. With the Pacific Division all but in the bag, it is possible that the Sharks will draw the streaking Canadian version of Phoenix, the Edmonton Oilers, in Round One. While I think it’s a long shot and the Oilers will cool off in the next week and fall just short of Colorado and Vancouver, IF the Sharks get Edmonton – they better be ready for more of the same business they got last night. Young team. Tough coach. Hard play all night. The Sharks, once they got their act together, were able to put a beating down in the final period, outscoring Phoenix 4-1 (and the Phoenix goal was all Nabby’s fault – he deserved to be pulled). Consider this a warning shot Sharks. Learn a lesson from last night.

A few minor observations. Ron Wilson has no confidence in Matt Carle. Only twelve minutes of ice time last night. I have a sneaking suspicion that Carle will not be a Shark next year, if Ron Wilson is still the coach. Also, it looks like Ryane Clowe might be shelved until next year, and I think it’s the right call. Maybe he will be on the playoff roster and if a top line player goes down, they might run him out there – but it appears Clowe just isn’t ready for action yet. Why rush an important part of the team’s future when he isn’t needed right now. Where would he play anyways? Do you bench Jody Shelley? Setoguchi? Rissmiller? No, no and no.

Big game Thursday. A little taste of revenge for San Jose after Dallas has man-handled us this season. Look for a big win at the Tank.