Steve Bernier has already been demoted to 4th line duty in Buffalo. He couldn’t even crack the line up tonight, sitting out as a healthy scratch. Could Buffalo be the most mismanaged franchise in the NHL? They should be running Stevie B. out there every night on the top two lines to see if he adds anything to their future – they do have to make a decision about resigning him in the offseason. Stupid, stupid, stupid. They deserve to not make the playoffs and, if they keep this up, Buffalo is going to have a “Brian Campbell” situation on their hands at the 2009 trade deadline with their franchise goalie….Why would Ryan Miller want to stay in Buffalo?

Sharks will make it nine in a row against Minnesota on Sunday and take the 2nd seed away from Dallas. Here’s hoping they never give it back.

The Tank has been a different place this week. Fans are smiling, the team is playing loose and our newest Sharks have been a home run success. All the signs were there for the old Sharks to come out tonight – the slow start, the deflating 3rd period power play goal by Ottawa, outshooting the Sens and still trailing on the scoreboard. Last month, the Sharks would have lost this game at home. This new team would not allow it to happen. They scrapped, they refused to lose and beat one of the best in the East. This win streak isn’t ordinary, it is something to hang their hats on. Beating Detroit, Pittsburgh, Montreal and Ottawa is no joke. Doug Wilson is seeing his roster come together before his eyes.

The addition of Brian Campbell has overshadowed the fact that Marleau has been revived by playing night after night with The Gooch and Little Joe. Since Campbell joined the team in Columbus, this 2nd line has gathered fourteen points collectively. The effort is exciting and once JR is healthy again (word is he has the flu) he will take Plihal’s spot on the 4th line. When is Ryane clowe coming back? Mike and I were discussing it on the way out of the game and the answer could be….not soon. Why mess with what the Sharks have going to force a talented young player on the ice when he’s not ready. I’d rather see Goc or The Gooch at 100% then Clowe at 60%. It would not be shocking if Clowe didn’t see a ton of action the rest of this season, especially with Shelley watching Joe’s back these days.

This road trip could start rough for us. I’m thinking the Sharks go 2-1, with a loss against the red hot Blackhawks and two wins in Nashville and Minnesota. I have to admit, I don’t see how the Wild are so good. They don’t scare me at all and, from the first two games this year, they don’t match up well against San Jose. We’ll see how this potential playoff matchup turns out on Sunday.

Hmm. Yeah. I was, uh, wrong. Big time. But I’m glad about it. Pessimism rules- you’re right, you get to bask in your glory. You’re wrong, the thing you really wanted to happen happened. Get your Brian Campbell jerseys right here!

Last night’s game was the most exciting game of the season at the Tank, by far. Lots of scoring, good chances, dazzling plays, and key saves. When I think about it now, I still smile. The best thing about it was, from a Sharks fan perspective, it seemed like a battle of conference powerhouses instead of the Sharks measuring a top team to see how they stack up. San Jose played as if they knew they could beat this team, a team with formidable weapons. As we saw last night, the Sharks have their fair share of weapons too. Actually, now it looks like more than their fair share.

As the title refers to, the theme of the game was individual Sharks players going up against individual Habs, and making them look stupid. Teabagging is the technical term. Big Joe teabagged Price on two occasions, but the second was the best. On the PP, with no screen, he took a slap shot from the right circle, and it got through Price. It trickled to the far post, and literally sat on the goal line for a couple of seconds, before it was cleared to the corner. Quickly, it was passed back to Joe, in the exact same spot. He stared down Price for the second time, took the same shot as before, and beat Price again, this time for a goal. How those nuts taste?

A little later, Cheech had his own Earl Grey moment when he took a pass from Joe at the blue line, and made a amazing power move right past our old friend Josh Gorges. He pretty much jumped over/around Gorges, muscled body position, cut to the middle, and roofed the shot. Hey Gorges, I think you got something on your face.

Then later in the third, a goal that will be talked about for years to come. Again on the power play, Campbell streaks into the zone with his hair on fire. By the way, this is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping Campbell would do once he came to town. The other team can’t just stand up on the blue line anymore when they are on the kill. Campbell will just go right past them. So anyway, Campbell proceeds to pull a spin-o-rama at full speed between the circles and buries the backhand low. Price didn’t even go down. The Tank went absolutely friggin crazy, me included. Denis Savard would have been proud- Campbell made everyone else look like they were playing bantam hockey for that moment.

The Sharks have to do more than just show some flash from their top players. But right now, they are. They are getting good play from all of their top players (even Marleau scored last night, on a strong move), and playing well positionally. The agonizing wait we endured throughout the season looks like it’s starting to pay off.

The two home games this week are a crucial yardstick. We’ll see a top-two PP in the Habs vs. a top-two PK in the Sharks. It will be fun to watch. And we might finally get a real look at the Sens after a crazy shakeup. Will the Sens be able to right themselves, or will the storm surrounding Paddock and Emery continue to affect this absurdly talented squad?

The Sharks are about evenly weighted in home vs. away games the rest of the season, with the longest homestand being only two games. After the trip at the end of this week to Chicago, Minnesota, and Nashville, all the games will be on the west coast (if you consider Phoenix. I do. Close enough). This means the Sharks actually will need to win consistently at home to hold onto their playoff spot. A friend emailed me this morning expressing nervousness about his Ducks holding onto the fourth seed. I just don’t see that happening- the Ducks have been on a tear since their two “I just want to play half the season” guys came back. Dallas, as of now seven points ahead, is more or less uncatchable. If the West weren’t so tight, I might advise dumping a couple of games late and sneak into the postseason as a six seed. I like our chances very much against the Wild.

Different message boards have been singing the praises of Steve Bernier and how the Sharks might regret giving him up in a trade for Brian Campbell at the deadline. The key word here is “might”. I think that sentence should be re-written as such.

The Sharks will NOT regret giving him up in a trade for Brian Campbell.

Steve Bernier wowed the Sabres fans with two goals in his debut but they soon will see the Stevie B we know all too well. He can score in bunches, but then he disappears and ends up in the press box. After three seasons, he had every shot to impress and DW used him perfectly as a pawn to get a number one defensemen that has made an enormous impact on the future of this team. While he is young, Bernier is nothing more than a 2nd/3rd line power forward who will never live up to his top billing. As for the number one pick the Sharks gave up in the 2008 draft, I have a feeling DW is going to use either Ehrhoff or McLaren as a pawn in a package during the offseason to get that pick back from some other team.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, my head is saying the recent upswing with Campbell has included wins against two non-playoff teams and a Detroit team decimated by injuries, playing without Shark killers Chelios, Rafalski and Lidstrom. BUT….my heart is saying….you have to admit – this is a different team with Campbell. This is a better team. This is a legitimate Stanley Cup contender. For the first time all year, I am actually starting to believe that we might….”might”….have a shot at the big prize.

With Brian Campbell, the Sharks are 3-0 and he has two assists. These wins are different than the two against Philly and Pittsburgh on the road trip. Those were ugly, boring, pre-Brian Campbell wins. With Campbell, the Sharks look like an offensive hockey club instead of just plain offensive. For the first time all season, the power play is clicking with four PP goals in three contests. Campbell is fun to watch and what a difference watching him effortlessly bring the puck into the attacking zone instead of Carle/Ehrhoff making a poor pass or dumping the puck in. Everyone’s game has stepped up. My complaints about a 2nd line have been quenched because there is actually some stability on the lines with Bernier out of the picture. Little Joe has found a home at Marleau’s side and running the point with Campbell on the PP and The Gooch has been effective in his two games back. And, thank you back-up netminder gods, Brian Boucher appears to be able to spell Nabby down the stretch. Great game tonight by The Waterboy.

The team effort has changed. Vlasic, Carle, Ehrhoff all have stepped up their game since Campbell has arrived, because they’re not being asked to do things they’re not ready to do. This is the real deal with two HUGE home games coming up this week. The Tank is sure to be rocking on Monday night for the Habs game, welcoming a historic hockey team and our new star player Brian Campbell to San Jose.

Teams in the West should take notice. Brian Campbell may have awakened a potential Cup contender.

ESPN and The Toronto Globe are reporting that the Sharks had a deal in place to send Kyle McLaren to the Leafs for Pavel Kubina. Yesterday on TSN, several analysts believed the Sharks were not done after acquiring Campbell and that they might still be in the market for a “right handed shooting defensemen”. Former Leafs GM, John Ferguson Jr. mentioned several times that the Sharks liked Kubina, and he would know, since he probably had conversations with DW about several deals while he was still on the job.

The TSN guys bagged on Kubina, calling his recent play awful and he is mentally a liability, and his canon of a shot might not make up for it. Others pointed out that on a good team, example the Stanley Cup winning Tampa Bay squad, he was a +9 and this year with 23 minutes of ice time a game, he has an even +/-. So how bad is he? Would this have been a good move, he’s as tough as Kyle and huge at 6-4 and 240. How would you have felt if the Sharks got Kubina for McLaren?

It makes you wonder what else DW had on the stove that didn’t pan out. He filled two out of three pressing needs, but couldn’t come up with a 2nd liner scorer. Now Plihal is keeping Clowes seat warm since his return is coming “shortly” according to reports.

I’ve been asking…no pleading, begging for Doug Wilson to do whatever to takes to get Brian Campbell in a Sharks uniform. It ends up whatever it “took” was only Steve Bernier and a 1st round pick. Really? That’s it? I was bracing myself for losing another young roster player. This just reminds us all how good of a poker player Doug Wilson is and that he got the best defensemen, and the best player moved today not named Hossa for an underachieving RFA forward and a late 1st round pick.

Chalk another victory for Doug Wilson on the trade scorecard.

There is no way, none chance that DW is going to let Campbell walk away at the end of the year. This is the player he’s been searching for the last three years, the defensemen in the “Doug Wilson” mode and now Campbell will be here to stay. He will only make Carle and Vlasic better, let’s not forget that. Both have looked lost without Hannan, and while Campbell isn’t a blueliner in the shutdown mode, he is solid and will shine on the powerplay. I am so excited and this could bring new life into the locker room and something positive for the fans.

After the deal went down, I told Mike that I was fully expecting Ehrhoff, Vlasic or Carle to now be moved in a deal to get a 2nd line scorer. I thought a logical partner might be Philly after they lost out on Boyle and Campbell and they might send Umburger, Carter or Upshall our way for a young D-man. The deadline has come and gone, and the Sharks now have a huge logjam on the blueline – who is the odd man out? Do you send down Vlasic? Do you bench Carle? Perhaps McLaren’s knee is much worse than we know….so on that front I’m a little surprised – but I’m not disappointed. Nope. Not one bit. The Sharks got much better today, much, much better.

I’m sad to see Davison go, but he was replaced by the upswing in Murray’s play and the trade for Jody Shelley. He should be a nice role player for Ted Nolan and the Isles. Signing Brian Boucher is a move that should have happened months ago, like in October. I have to think that DW might have been chasing a back up this whole time (Halak) and when Montreal traded Huet, the deal went dead.

The Sharks are a clear winner today, along with Washington, Colorado, Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh. Washington must believe they can win their division and added some solid pieces in Cooke and Federov without giving up anything major. Colorado got older but nastier on the blueline with Foote and Salei but gave up nothing to do it. Their blueline is scary deep with Leopold, Hannan, Liles, Clark, Salei and Foote. I think, if the old farts can stay healthy, Colorado could be dangerous in the playoffs….although, as Mike would be quick to point out they have goaltending issues still. Tampa Bay got good return for an expensive struggling player. A starting goaltender, which they desperately needed, a 3rd liner and a 2nd line scorer. Add that to Vinny L. and St. Louis and this team just got better. Pittsburgh didn’t give up their two best young assets (Malone and Staal) to get Hossa, so that makes them a winner already. Hal Gil adds depth. They got better.

The Losers – Montreal and Los Angeles. What the #$%& is going on in Montreal? Bob Gainey repays the team after that awesome tribute by trading away their starting netminder for a 2nd round pick – and within their own conference might I add. And then, he struck out on getting Hossa. Doh! I think Dean Lombardi thought he had the market cornered. He had a bunch of UFA veterans to sell, playoff tested and ready for action – and what was he able to get in return? Nothing. A pile of steaming @#$&. Draft picks for Stuart, Aubin and Modry. If I were a Kings fan, I would want some answers.

The Jury is Out – Dallas. I’m not convinced this is going to help them. Losing Halpern and Jokinnen might not have an effect on the stat sheet, but it could be felt in 3rd/4th depth. To me, it is like us trading Grier and Mitchell for Brad Richards. That was a heavy price for a player that has the worst +/- in the NHL…..

Great day for San Jose. It’s good to be a Sharks fan today.

He comes to town, with Steve Bernier and a 1st round pick headed back to Buffalo. Huge deal, and a great one for the Sharks. With Doug Wilson’s and Campbell’s shared close ties to the Ottawa 67’s, I have to believe that Campbell will sign an extension here.

Doug Wilson, great job. Again.

It’s  before 6am, and both grier and myself are awake and tuned to TSN’s “Tradecentre ’08” coverage on the NHL network.  I’m just pissed I have to go to work today.