Sorry, our schedules won’t permit it.  There literally isn’t an hour between 8am and midnight free for both of us any day this week.  As for the Wings game, it was depressing to witness first hand, but my kneejerk reaction is, how can you expect to beat the best team in the west with half of an AHL blueline?  Don’t want to beat up the new guys, but there were several times where that was readily apparent.  More later.

Here they are. Let the fodder begin. All lines taken from covers.com.

Doug’s record: 4-3
Mike’s record: 4-3

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 24TH
Doug takes Montreal (-116) over Los Angeles WINNER and Columbus (-137) over NY Islanders WINNER.
Mike takes Pittsburgh (-132) over Buffalo. WINNER

FRIDAY, NOV 26TH
Doug takes Nashville (+102) over Minnesota. LOSER
Mike takes San Jose (+110) over Vancouver LOSER

SATURDAY, NOV 27TH
Doug takes St. Louis (-150) over Dallas. LOSER
Mike takes Chicago (+105) over Los Angeles. WINNER

MONDAY, NOV 29TH
Doug takes Pittsburgh (-115) over NY Rangers WINNER
Mike takes Dallas (-110) over Carolina WINNER and Los Angeles (-110) over Anaheim LOSER

TUESDAY, NOV 30TH
Doug takes Chicago (-140) over St. Louis WINNER and Phoenix (+115) over Nashville LOSER
Mike takes Tampa Bay (-110) over Toronto WINNER and Colorado (-125) over Atlanta LOSER

The pick off has ended in a tie. We will figure out a tie breaker on next week’s podcast. Someone is buying dinner…

Not only did the Sharks win, but Doug and I both were flawless in our hockey picks.  Check out DOH 125 for all the ‘rules’.  Doug mentioned in that episode how much we missed Douglas Murray, and it certainly was apparent last night.  He hit everything, he jumped into the play, he made good defensive stops.  The guy was an animal, and clearly itching to get back in the lineup, especially against the Sharks’ playoff ouster.  Helluva game.  If only the Sharks could play with that energy and urgency on a consistent basis, we might just have something here.

Yesterday, when I heard Niemi was going to start, I though that was a pretty wacky move.  Ok, a dumb move.  Now that McLellan’s gamble paid off, I still don’t understand it.  If Niemi starts this weekend against Vancouver and gets shelled, I’m not sure if anything was really gained.  Chicago is a rival team- to me, it’s straightforward.  You start the guy who is the better goalie at the time, and Niitymaki is clearly that.  Niemi seemed like a good candidate to start against EDM on Saturday, second half of a back-to-back.  Let him build some confidence after a few good starts.  I guess last night’s win kickstarted the recovery, but it still seems like a needless gamble.

Here I am, bitching after the Sharks finally get a win after three atrocious games, and against a tough team.  I should be thankful.  I am thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving.

After a good week last week, the Sharks respond by losing all three games to Colorado, Dallas, and Columbus.  The Dudes try not to get too down on the whole thing, and explore why fans may be not as enthusiastic this season as much as past seasons.  After some listener emails, the Dudes detail their new picking games contest, and address some fantasy issues.

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The Sharks have strung together some good wins, including one against the Pacific division leaders, the Los Angeles Kings.  The Dudes try and pinpoint what caused the turnaround, and where they go from here.

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Hard to feel good when your team can barely beat the second worst team in the NHL.  Maybe I’m overselling it- the Isles are now the third worst since they got a point last night.  Sorry.  Anyway you slice it, it’s clear the Sharks’ doldrums continue, again not scoring even strength, with the only goal coming 5-on-3.  Even the 5-on-4 power plays didn’t look that great.  Pavelski took his schnide to another level, this time actually putting the puck in the net, before Stephane Auger (not my favorite ref, to put it lightly) waved it off due to Logan Couture impeding the goalie in the crease.  I think the next step is Pavs scoring, then God (or Chuck Norris, or a reasonable facsimile) actually turning back time to negate it.

I suppose beggars can’t be choosers, and you got to take two points on a night when you had outshot the opposition by a 2-to-1 margin for most of the night.  Calgary will not be as forgiving, the beatdown we suffered last month at their hands is still pretty fresh in my mind.  Here’s hoping the boys will use that as extra motivation.  Did y’all watch James Wisniewski last night?  I sure did.  Leave your impressions in the comments, or email us (questions at dudesonhockey dot com) so we can talk about it next week.  This weekend’s assignment- Ian White.

The Dudes talk about the big news of the week and a genuine NHL controversy- the suspension of Joe Thornton because of a blindside hit on David Perron.  Of course, there are Sharks games to discuss, and the worry starts to creep in…

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So Joe gets two games for the hit on David Perron last night, let’s take a look:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJr33aaE_MM[/youtube]

To me, this hit looks fairly similar to the one Mike Richards put on David Booth, probably not as bad.  Richards knocked Booth out for an extended period of time, and got no suspension.  Joe got two games.  Truly, the NHL justice system is probably a bunch of monkeys throwing darts, or perhaps typings stories (“It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times?!  Stupid monkey!”).  I predicted to Doug yesterday that Joe would get at least a game, and maybe two.  Whee, I was right.

Despite the public outcry about the hit, either for or against the suspension, I think there’s a more serious issue in play.  Take a look at Perron after the hit.  He’s facedown on the ice, not moving.  The trainer comes out, Perron’s on one knee, then slowly back to the bench.  It’s not disputed that Perron was in fact hit in the head, and that he lay motionless on the ice.  After that, Perron takes his next shift only one minute later in game time (probably 5-10 minutes later in real time).  I’m no health care professional, but I’ve read enough about concussions to know that the symptoms can be widely varied, and the severity of the initial symptoms don’t always correlate to the severity of the concussion.  Most importantly, the incidence and severity of future concussions is greatly increased if a person hasn’t fully recovered from a previous one.

That being said, one of the following two statements has to be true:

1. The Blues’ training staff played very fast and loose with David Perron’s health.  Seems difficult to believe that a thorough neurological exam could take place in the space of 5 minutes.
2. David Perron faked his injury.

Either one of these is a serious problem for the NHL.  Jamie Baker said in his post (he’s certainly on the side that Perron faked it) that this is becoming a trend- to fake injuries to draw penalties.  All I know is, if the league is going to come out and say there will be stiff penalties for these types of hits, they have to know players will take advantage of that.  Whether Perron did or didn’t here, there’s no way to know for sure.  But I got my eye on you, Mike Ribero.

It’s been a great week for Bay Area sports- the Giants win the World Series, and the Sharks win two games (against admittedly inferior opponents).  The Dudes revel in the victories, and read some listener email.

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Is actually better than the Devil we know.  I picked the Devils to make the playoffs this year, and they looked far from that last night.  Their 5-on-5 play was so bad, which is just what the doctor ordered for the Sharks.  The new cap’n drove the Sharks to a pretty easy 5-2 victory, with four of the goals even strength.  Brodeur is aging, and his normal unpredictable style looked like panic instead of athleticism.  There was a flukey goal at both ends of the ice, with a bad luck bounce off the glass leading to a David Clarkson tap-in on one end, and a strange bounce off the boards at the other end led to Jumbo completing his hat trick.  Five point night for Joe, and the Devils had no answer to the HTML line, reunited (and it feels so good).

As far as the other lines go, B-.  Seto is trying awfully hard, but it’s not going his way.  Didn’t see much out of Pavs.  Clowe is really adept now at using his body to protect the puck, but he needs to turn that into scoring chances instead of just zone time at the periphery.  Good to see Boyle at +2.  Vlasic and Wallin were -1 , but I’ll give them a pass, because that goal was the flukiest goal I’ve seen since JR’s 500th.   Not only did it take a ridiculous bounce off the stanchion, it slowed down right in front of the goal for Clarkson.  Nitty didn’t stray far from the crease on dump-ins after that.  I still give Nitty an A- for last night- that goal was more bad luck than anything. The other goal stemmed from a huge penalty kill scramble that eventually kicked out to Andy Greene after about a dozen shots. Barring the disappointing game #2 performance against Columbus, Nittymaki has been over .930 in every game.  Contrast that with Niemi, who was .938 opening night and has gone .857, .839, and .400 since.  Ouch.  Small sample size, yadda yadda, but right now it looks like DW’s initial goalie signing was well targeted.

The Sharks played the worst team in the NHL in terms of goal differential last night, and Saturday, they play the team with the second worst.  The Ducks have given up 33 goals in 9 games.  Let’s see if the Sharks can get some other lines rolling, and I fully expect another Nitty start.  Gotta stay with the hot hand.