Todd McLellan has mentioned in the press several times that the Sharks had to play a serious game of catch-up last year in the second half.  Lolling around at 12th in the West in early January, they had to rip off a massive hot streak in order to secure their 2nd seed playoff position.  After all of that emphasis, it seems the Sharks decent start has been held to two periods.  After 40 minutes at home versus Phoenix, the Sharks were up 6-1, and just dominating the Coyotes.  Since then, the Sharks have been outscored 7-2, and dropped the last two games against teams we think will miss the postseason.  Both the Ducks game and the Blues game seemed to have the same symptoms- sloppy passing, not a lot of physicality, and giving the opposition too much space, especially on the power play.

This is just an observation from a guy in the stands, but last night there seemed to be a lot of 5 and 6-foot attempted passes underneath Blue skates and sticks.  Many of those passes didn’t work out.  A lot of tricky and slick attempts went nowhere, and even turned into scoring chances the other way.  Now I go and read the game recap, and T-Mac agrees:

“We weren’t prepared to play a grind-it-out game,” McLellan said. “We wanted to play this fancy puck possession stuff against a team that wanted to grind it out.” Later, he added: “We choose to be the Globetrotters in the first seven or eight minutes of the game, and it doesn’t work that way.”

Lots of east and west, not enough north and south.  We clearly got the shot differential, but Greiss did not have a Quality Start, while Brian Elliot was close to having a Goalie Steal.

On the good side, it’s nice to see the fourth line playing quite a bit (Winchester 9:54, Andrew Murray 10:17, Andrew Desjardins 9:54), and the third line, especially Torrey Mitchell, has been good as well.  Mitchell had another point last night, and giving him two more points on the season than Joe Thornton (0).  Joe especially was a big offender in the Globetrotter department.  While he did make several passes that had me scratching my head, wondering how he got that through, he also had several that had me scratching my head, wondering what the hell he was thinking.  I guess it’s a fine line.  Overall it almost seems as though the Sharks think they have such a talent surplus over the other team that they can not commit as much to the unpleasant parts of the game, like getting hit, forechecking aggressively, and doggedly working the boards and corners.  As the Blues and Ducks have both proven the last 48 hours, it just doesn’t work that way in the NHL.  Kent Huskins will hurt you with a laser wrist shot.

I just had a desire to do some photoshopping, and I figured this was appropriate.

Know Huskins, know hope. No Huskins, no hope.

Save the opening ten minutes of last night’s game, the Sharks put in a really good effort.  The second and third periods were more or less how we expected the entire game to be- fast, end-to-end, with dynamic chances.   After the longest layoff since mid December, the Sharks started the game flat, which certainly includes Nabby.  They coughed up three goals before you could say “Kris Versteeg douchey sunglasses.”  While the first goal was clearly a missed assignment, leaving Byfuglien alone in the high slot for an open shot, I thought the second two were mostly on Nabby.  He had plenty of time to get in position on Brower’s first of the night, leaving the near side open.  Then, on the third goal, a shot came from a sharp angle, and instead of Nabby kicking it to the corner or directing it behind the net, it was kicked back to Hossa, who passed it to Ladd for the tip-in.  I might have pulled Nabby right then and there.

But give the boys some credit- they woke up, and managed to tie the game eventually on the NHL’s #1 team in terms of shots and goals against.  Going back to the formula that beat the Hawks in their barn on December 22nd, the Sharks were shooting high all night on Huet, and several missed seemingly by millimeters.  All this without Marc-Eduouard Vlasic, who Doug and I only noticed wasn’t out there in the middle of the third.  He actually only played 7:25, his normal load for the first, and never came back for the second or third.  The fact that Huskins had more ice time than he’s had all season (25:46), Murray third most all season (23:54), and Blake third (24:26),  seemed particularly evident on the last play of the game, when Murray rushed the puck deep, the Hawks produced a turnover and an ensuing rush, and Murray looked even slower than usual in getting back in the play- from where I was it looked like dead legs.

I can’t find a single report that even mentions Vlasic’s injury, much less the extent of it.  I expect Pollak should have something on his blog today.  All I can say is, Boyle, we missed you, and Vlasic, get well soon.  Hurt even more because he had another strong offensive night, being in exactly the right place and passing the puck perfectly to Pavelski.  Say that three times fast.