What can I say, I get excited about Sharks hockey. And there’s only one radio show. Here’s my latest… I talk about the Carle contract, Sharks trade ideas, and the Kings matchup last Saturday (before it happened, of course). Don’t forget to hear the part where I claim the Kings have “horrible goalie problems”, and of course, LaBarbera played great, making 26 saves on 27 shots.

After that loser of a comment, I don’t know why they’d want me back, but I’ll be taking part in the “roundtable discussion” segment of the show this week, with Dan Rusanowsky (voice of the Sharks on radio). Don’t kid yourself- I won’t be going in cold, but I can always use help. If you have an interesting topic of discussion, or questions for Mr. Rusanowsky, please leave them in the comments. I’ll bring them up if the discussion steers that way.

The grinders. The grit. The muscle. These are the guys who you usually find on the ice on an NHL 4th line. The offensive line of a hockey club, doing the thankless work that rarely shows up on the stat sheet. Winning a key face off, delivering a meaningful hit, intimidating an opponents star player. The Sharks lack a truly effective 4th line. We have seen different versions of it the past few weeks, but the combination usually revolves around Goc, Bernier, Brown, Rizz and now the new and improved LW Rob Davison. While Bernier has shown flashes of life and physical play as a 4th liner, the others have rotated in and out of the line up and haven’t performed the duties described above with any consistency or fire. The 4th line is just the collection of players that suck enough to not be on the top two lines, but good enough to avoid being scratched.

I’m not a big Rizz guy – Mike and I both agree that he does everything average and we’ve seen everything there is to see from him. Good guy, tries really hard, but we know what we know about the Rizz. He needs to be replaced. I certainly don’t think he is in the Sharks long term plans. Send him to the press box. I suggest rolling Bernier-Brownie-Davison for now, but this is an area DW needs to address before season’s end.

A few other comments/notes

– Toronto continues to implode. Maybe Mike and my wish for Darcy Tucker could become a reality??? He has never played out West and maybe he has no desire to. We will see…

– Eklund has gone off the deep end, I’ve decided. Today he commented that the Sharks and Ducks are asking Montreal about Huet. Huet now? What do the Sharks want with another #1 goaltender? The Ducks just got rid of one – so now they want Huet? Nonsense. I enjoy reading his blog for fun but his rumors are going sour…

– Hey Ron Wilson? Please no more rolling out seven defensemen please. I would rather see the Sharks call up Kaspar or Armstrong than endure another game of seven D.

See you at the Tank on Wednesday!

You may have noticed that there’s a new little link at the end of each post that says “hype it up”. It’s a tracking mechanism, kind of like Digg (if you know what that is). I registered at a site called BallHype, which tracks sports blogs. If a particular blog entry gets enough ‘hype’ (i.e. readers click on the ‘hype it up’ link enough times) it’ll show up over there, which might just send a few more readers over here. A tiny way for us to get a bit more visibility. And a decent spot to find cool hockey blogs, if you’re into that sort of thing. Which you are, because you’re reading this drivel.

So hype up the posts you like. It’s not gathering personal information on you or anything, unless you sign up over there. I totally understand if you can’t be bothered to click on a link every once in a while- I have a remote control for a fan in my bedroom that is literally three feet away from where I sleep. And here I was using my arms like a sucker.

Again with the losing. The Sharks gave up two power play goals in the first period and went on to lose 2-1. They didn’t really show any urgency until quite late in the third period, when they managed to score. The Kings were wandering around at the end of the game, with the Sharks buzzing, but L.A. managed to run out the clock, barely. I actually turned to Grier with about ten minutes left in the game and said, “They’re playing like the game is tied.” It was 2-0 at the time. The lack of desperation was palpable.

One thing that is interesting is the Sharks again outshot their opponents, this time 27-17. The Sharks have lost eight times in regulation this season, and only three of those times were they outshot. The two losses to Detroit, and the one against Columbus (outshot 18-17). In total, the Sharks have outshot their regulation betters 219-188 (on average 27 to 23).

What this means, I’m not exactly sure. Could they be watching stats during the game, thinking that outshooting the opposition somehow excuses their lack of tallies? That seems pretty unlikely. Eight games is not exactly a sample size, but only being outshot 3 of 8 times seems extraordinarily odd. The Ducks have lost nine games in regulation, and only two of those times they weren’t outshot. The Kings have lost twelve in regulation, and were outshot in ten of those games. It’s a very odd circumstance, but I honestly have no idea what it means. It could just mean the obvious, the Sharks are able to hit the broad side of a barn with the puck, but they can’t actually get it past the goalies.

I have a feeling this might have something to do with their dismal play at home. Their five losses at home they’ve outshot the opposition 165-106 (33 to 21), much more lopsided than the overall numbers above. Are the Sharks just soaking up the adulation at home, knowing the fans will cheer the slightest scoring chance or the most routine save?

I’m pretty well stumped, any ideas?

Resigning Matt Carle is a great way to start the Thanksgiving break. Even though he has been in and out of the doghouse this year, Carle and Vlasic are the future of the Sharks blueline, along with Rivet and Ty Wishart. I think Wilson showed Carle a ton of confidence by making this deal and we could see the results immediately on the stat sheet. I know he got four years – and I’m going to guess he got around 14 million – a similar deal that New Jersey Devils defensemen Paul Martin got in the offseason.

Now Doug has to decide who is next on the list – do you extend Pavelski? Bernier? Do you extend Clowe now or wait and see how he comes back from injury? What does this mean for Ehrhoff and Goc? Well you know my opinion – I think all of these players, except Clowe, are available in trade market for an impact veteran. I think you keep Bernier, especially the way he has recently found out that checking people and standing in front of the net is a good thing for someone his size, and see what kind of impact player Ehrhoff and Pavelski can fetch. I think it could net someone pretty good.

Okay. That’s really it from me until after Saturday’s game, barring some major news to discuss. Happy Thanksgiving!

Before now, I used sitemeter to gather statistics for this site (you can still see the little counter all the way at the bottom of the page). But yesterday, I signed up for for Google Analytics, because they will report not just how many views and visitors you have, but pretty charts and maps and referring sites and all the crap a math-loving dork like me loves.

It takes about a day for the first stats to start rolling in, and I just checked it for the first time a minute ago. As expected, we get referrals from chompboard and BoC, but there was another table that reports which keywords the visitors searched for that ended up here. Here it is. I swear to God I did not Photoshop it.

To our wonderful reader that is looking shave his or her <shudder> ass, stay tuned. I’ll try to convince Grier to write it up.

You’ve probably heard about this story already- it’s been around the hockey media pretty quickly. Just watch the video:

So Ohlund gets a 4-game suspension. FOUR GAMES. I’m not exactly sure how far Colin Campbell’s head is up his ass, but I bet his breath smells like shit.

I guess I thought the NHL was interested in cracking down on some of the extraneous dirty stuff in the league. We see Steve Downie get a 20-game suspension, and Jesse Boulerice get 25. Then this, which makes absolutely no sense.

Let’s give Ohlund the benefit of the doubt. Koivu got his elbow up, and probably deserved a penalty, perhaps a major or even a misconduct. But it’s inarguable that happened during the course of play, dirty though it may be. But Ohlund’s chop had nothing to do with the game; it was revenge. Personally, I don’t care if Koivu was anally raping Ohlund’s mother while pouring sugar in his gas tank- Ohlund deserves a 25 or 30 game suspension, at least. He deliberately broke Koivu’s leg from behind with his stick.

To me, this incident is much worse than the Downie hit, and maybe worse than the Boulerice hit. You could at least make a (poor) case that Boulerice didn’t mean to get his stick up so high. But Ohlund did exactly what he intended. Mission accomplished.

The Mercury News had a great article today where Doug Wilson made an interesting statement that I think should not go unnoticed.

The question Wilson asks himself is this: “Are we getting better as a hockey team at the things that will allow us to be successful at the end of the year?” And his answer? “I’ve seen a couple things recently, but we’re certainly not satisfied with where we’re at,” Wilson said.

Here’s the link.

Hmmm…..We have to remember that even with the recent upswing, Thanksgiving is Doug Wilson’s favorite time of year. Two years ago he brought us a giant Holiday surprise in Joe Thornton. While I certainly don’t expect a franchise altering move like that, I think we should take Doug Wilson seriously. He sees what I see. Yes, the Sharks have been playing harder and the result has shown up in the win column, but is this team better than last year, or the year before, when they have come to a dead stop in the 2nd round? The answer is, unfortunately, no. They aren’t better. They are the same, if anything. This current collection of talent won’t beat Detroit in a seven game series. Wilson needs to tweak the roster, not overhaul – and his comments lead me to believe that this could be coming sooner rather than later. An agitator? The number one D-man Wilson has wanted under his tree for years? A power forward to replace Ryane Clowe? A back up goalie? Take your pick – we have the right combo of NHL ready young talent and cap room to get almost any deal done Doug Wilson desires.

So dig in for a potential exciting end of November – we could be seeing a new face or two in Teal Town – but only if Dougie doesn’t overload on too much stuffing and yams.

Happy Holidays everyone.

…You’re the Next Contestant on the Back Up is Right!

I’m not sure I understand Doug Wilson’s reasoning for playing musical back-ups. Whether its Patzold or Greiss, if Nabby goes down with an injury – the Sharks are most likely busted. Nabby hasn’t played more than 50 games in a season since 2003-04 and he missed fifteen games last year due to injuries. I think we have to expect that Nabby isn’t going to be able to handle a Brodeur type load. With Alex Auld being waived by Phoenix today, why not put in a waiver claim on him? Auld won 33 games for Vancouver in 05-06, putting up solid numbers on a decent team. Can we really judge him for his performance on two poor teams in Florida and Phoenix? Weren’t people saying the same about Ozo and Roenick, two of the best players in Teal this season?

I say claim Alex Auld and let him spell Nabby. What’s the risk? We have tons of cap room (9.6 million) so assuming Auld’s 0.5 million is no big deal. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not down on Greiss – he could be the future netminder for this organization at age 21 and he showed flashes of excellent play in the preseason – but to put the weight of the season on Patzold/Greiss if Nabby goes down is unfair to the rest of the team. At that point, Doug Wilson will have to overpay for Halak or someone else….

THE DUCKS
On a side note, did the Ducks really dump Breezy so they could deal for Brian Sutherby? Not sure I totally get it – now the Ducks have Marchant, McDonald, Pahlsson, Sutherby and Getzlaf up the middle. Is this only the first of other moves in Disneyland?

I called into Teal Spiel again this past weekend, and spoke a little bit about what I think the Sharks still need. I’ve written about it in this space before, but now you can hear me in my eloquent glory here. Here’s the embedded player again:

Comments welcome.