Historic Day
January 20th, 2009, 10:25 am
It truly is a momentous occasion- Claude Lemieux makes his debut for the Sharks tonight. Why, did something else important happen today? Actually, it’s funny because I remember election night- Sharks vs. Wild. And now I will remember inauguration night – Sharks vs. Canucks, with the Lemieux debut. You can say Obama was pathetic at bowling, but I sure wouldn’t want to see him lace ’em up at the Verizon Center, especially after Chris Clark says it’s the worst ice in the league.
Actually, I’m really excited to see Claude, maybe overly so. Roenick said on NHL Live today that he’s in really amazing shape. JR also said post-lockout hockey is based on skating ability, and it looks like Claude can keep up just fine. All I know is, the rotating cast of characters on the fourth line haven’t exactly made huge waves; might as well give the greatest Pro ever on Pros vs. Joes a shot. Anyone who’s willing to high-stick an amateur player in order to win a worthless puck battle on a crappy reality game show is aces in my book.
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I just wanted to share something I noticed. in the ot when the canucks were on the PK the first time they cleared the zone they didn’t change. Nabokov was out to play the puck but backed off and let Pavelski get it and bring it back. The Canucks got it again, threw it out and this time changed. Nabokov saw it and this time played the puck to Thornton on the blue line on the penalty box side of the ice. Jumbo Joe then gave it to Patty alone coming up the middle and a great scoring chance resulted. I just thought it was really smart of Nabokov to take advantage of the Vancouver line change and not show his hand early. Also smart of Thornton to see the change and stretch the ice.
I would even go so far as to say that pouncing on Vancouver’s line change led to the goal. Patrick came in with all three Canucks desperate to catch up and when Luongo made the stop they all practically fell on top of him. It looks like one of them knocked his stick out of his hands and when the puck got freed to Thornton the Canucks were still grouped tightly around Luongo and Luongo was out of position to his blocker side because he was picking up his stick. Patrick is all alone and puts the puck glove side. Just beautiful.
Dear god was that a boring game. Canucks deserved that loss after resorting to the trap to try and break their losing streak. That crap shouldn’t win against playoff caliber teams even if they did try and catch the Sharks on a low after that high flying Redwings game.
This was the first game I had been to in a while, and it seemed like the fans were looking for just about anything to cheer for. By the 3rd period, we were cheering icing calls. But man, a game tying goal with 30 seconds left can get a crowd on its feet real quick…
That Cheechoo-Goc-Grier line has to go. They were on the ice for Vancouver’s goal last night, were on the ice for nearly every one of their scoring chances, and were a collective -8 against Detroit. Having your two slowest players along with your softest player as your checking line seems like a disaster. People seem to be coming around on Goc, and I don’t see why. Other than faceoffs, he is a liability on defense (-7, worst on the team), has no goal scoring acument to speak of (1 goal in 34 games, better than only Shelly), and generally gets pushed around out there. Until the NHL goes 4-4 or gets a bigger rink, his skill set does not justify 3rd line minutes.
When Mitchell and JR come back, maybe McLellan should ditch the checking line idea and go with a 2A/2B lineup something like:
Marleau/Thornton/Seto
Clowe/Pavs/Plihal
Michalek/Mitchell/Cheechoo
Grier/JR/Lemieux
Plihal is a little out of place on the 2A line, but he has some decent offensive upside (4 of his goals were due either to great individual effort or incredible hand-eye coordination, which is basically the only way he can score playing with guys like Goc and Shelly). That 2B line could be awfully dangerous if Michalek is allowed to be creative instead of digging in the corners like how he has to with Pavs/Clowe. Each line would have someone willing to go to the net for the dirty work (Seto, Clowe, Cheechoo). That 4th line can cycle another team to death.
Oh yeah… Marleau and Thornton are so awesome.