The Sharks, after a disappointing effort in Game 6, roar back at home to win Game 7 in a dominating fashion.  The Dudes recap, and look forward to the Blues series.

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The Sharks managed to win in St. Louis, but Mike and Doug don’t feel this signals any real turnaround.  Offense is still anemic, the bottom 6 a shambles, and the coach may be on the hot seat.  The Dudes try to make sense of it all.

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The Sharks blow a 3rd period leave and exit the playoffs earlier than they ever have, in 5 games.  Mike and Doug provide a instant reaction to the Sharks’ disappointing season, along with knee-jerk reactions about what might happen next.

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The Sharks win game 1 in double OT, but get beat fairly badly in St. Louis in game 2.  But the Sharks have home ice for games 3 and 4, so Mike and Doug talk about the keys to winning those games.  Also, there is so much good hockey going on, and other Round 1 stories to talk about.

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The Sharks have made it into the playoff by winning their last four games, the two against the Kings in a wildly entertaining fashion.  But now they face the Blues in the first round, without beating them all year.

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The Sharks slide continues, as they barely beat Philly, but lose to the Sabres and Blues.  Mike and Doug try not to panic, and gauge what the Sharks need to do in order to make the playoffs.

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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.

It’s not like me to use a lot of puns in post titles, but it’s early in the morning, and I’m at San Jose airport waiting for a flight.  Instead of paying $8 for a cup of water, I decided to use the free wifi and do something productive.

The Sharks, through 44 games, are 21-18-5, with 47 points.  Last year at this point, they were 28-9-7 (63).  That’s quite the dropoff.  Instead of going into the myriad reasons why this is so (Mark Purdy’s got a pretty decent theory) I want to compare with some other teams in recent history to see where they might end up at the end of the year.

One is the Philadelphia Flyers.  At this time last year, the veteran Flyers were 22-19-3 (47 points).  They had changed their coach a month before, in early December 2009, and promptly went on a 2-8 tear.  They righted the ship a bit after that, going 6-2 before getting to the 44-game mark.  Of course, we know how the season ends up.  They won on the last day of the season against the Rangers to squeak into the playoffs, and had a historic series against Boston en route to the Stanley Cup Finals, where they lost to the Hawks in six games.

The other is the 2010 St. Louis Blues.  This team of young upstarts that made the playoffs in 09-10 skid the first half of 2010, going 18-19-7 (44) in their first 44 games.  Despite decent years from youngsters Perron, Oshie, and Backes, their best player the year before, Brad Boyes, fell off the table, going from 33 goals to 14.  They stayed inconsistent the rest of the year, and finished five points out of the postseason.

So will the Sharks turn it around a la Flyers (perhaps with a new coach, as some fans are already calling for), or struggle with mediocrity the rest of the year, as the Blues did?  I certainly think the Sharks have much more in common with last years’ Flyers than the Blues.  This isn’t a young team trying to find its footing- it’s a veteran team, like Philly, that just couldn’t find a clear path the first half of the year.  That’s not much consolation for Sharks fans at this point, nor is it any sort of guarantee San Jose will get their heads out of their asses and get this thing going the right direction.  But it’s interesting to know the full gambit of options is still available to the Sharks, using only last year as a guide- postseason success is still attainable, but so is crushing disappointment.

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.

In this corner, weighing in at 6 feet and 205 pounds, the ever testy, the outspoken, the King of the Shootout (Not), Sharks goaltender Evgeni Nabokov.

In this corner, coming in at a stout 6 ft, 1 inches and 200 pounds, the Dill of Defense, the Relish in your Roulade, Marc-Edouard “Why Didn’t You Block That Shot” Vlasic.

In case you didn’t catch the postgame buzz, Nabby was none too pleased that Pickles didn’t block that shot at the end of the Sharks 3-2 shootout loss to St. Louis last night. Vlasic’s point, which is well taken, is that there were five guys who dropped the ball (or puck) at the end last night, and six if you include Nabby.

So, what do you think of the Sharks version of “The Blame Game”?  Personally, I LOVE IT!

Why, you ask? Because it means these guys care. Haven’t we been asking for this? When was the last time we had guys calling each other out? Forcing others to take accountability? This team has been far too private and too laid-back for too long, and last night’s meltdown deserved Nabby’s quote-tastic response. The Sharks should be mad they choked that game away and it might inspire Vlasic, or Huskins, or anyone to do anything possible to win a game – which was not the attitude for the final minute of regulation last night. This team has been remade to win in the playoffs and if someone needs to be called out to pick up his effort, then so be it. Perhaps it is a little bit unfair to blast Vlasic for not blocking a shot, after all with 52 blocks he is tied for 20th in the entire NHL – so it’s not like he’s not willing to go there – but if the knock on Vlasic has ever been anything, it’s been a lack of intensity and flair for the big play. Blocking that shot would have been the big play.

So get amped up guys. You have a big contest with Calgary on Saturday night and you’ve got to bring the fire and then some. I like a little infighting from time to time. After all, we’ve seen what the Sharks “We’ll get them next time, boys” motto got us last year? Nabby’s comments might inspire Vlasic to throw himself in front of anything, if it means winning a Cup.