The Revenge of the Flames
January 7th, 2009, 9:09 am
Bit of intensity difference in that first period, huh? I don’t think the Sharks had a single possession in the offensive zone in the first 15 minutes. And as we all know, they didn’t have a shot in that time either. It was a few minutes into the second when the Sharks finally woke up, and they had already spotted the Flames four goals. Not exactly a winning game plan.
We talk about all that and more in the latest podcast. Frankly, I think swapping all the lines around had something to do with the Sharks’ collective incompetence in the first period, and we saw Marleau and Thornton on the same line again late in the first, and from then on. But McLellan has a response for that:
(On the poor showing the same night the lines were revamped) “If that shuffling affects our team that much, then we’ve got bigger problems than we can imagine. There’s been a number of teams throughout the years that continually shuffle there (sic) lines around and continue to win.”
True enough, but those teams ‘continually’ shuffled the lines. They probably didn’t keep the same lineup for 30 games, then shuffle the deck against one of the hottest teams in the league. Maybe the Sharks do have some serious problems, but I still think the monkeys-with-typewriters method of line combinations hurt the team here. And frankly, McLellan realized it, made a change, and the Sharks played much better. If he wants to go all Ron Wilson on us and swap lines around according to the tides, that’s his perogative, and I’ll probably blast it every step of the way. It’s the change in system yesterday that did ’em in.
Of course, the total lack of effort, positioning, and physicality probably didn’t help either.
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I guess I never understood the idea of “line juggling” to create a spark. To me, its the equivalent of baseball managers bunting with just about anyone but the pitcher, or football coaches sending in the special teams on 4th down no matter what. It’s “the thing to do” when the team is struggling. And honestly, I don’t think I have EVER seen line juggling work in turning around a game. The problem isn’t the chemistry, its the effort. And unlike football, where you can bench the starting QB and bring in the eager backup, the same guys who are giving no effort still have to get back on the ice.
I have to admit, Drew and Randy have been hammering on the Sharks to “keep it simple” and to “get pucks behind the defenseman”, and I don’t understand why. If I remember correctly, the Sharks weren’t doing that at the beginning of the season. They were skating hard, carrying pucks past d-men, making creative (sometimes risky) passes that led to free flowing loose offense. It just seems the Sharks have went through about a 3 week period where those passes have been getting knocked down, the puck has been bouncing a little bit more, etc. But the dump and chase was a Ron Wilson staple, I thought Todd McClellan was a “puck possession” guy? How can you be puck possession when you give up the puck every time you enter the zone? Maybe the Sharks would put in a little more effort if they were allowed to have fun like they were at the beginning of the season.