Bloggers Roundtable and Why Aren’t We the Hawks?
May 13th, 2009, 8:56 am
Check out the first All Star round-table discussion in Dudes On Hockey history, with three distinguished Sharks bloggers: Jon Swenson from Sharkspage and Battle of California, Mike Chen from Kukla’s Korner and BoC, and Jason Plank from Fear the Fin. This heavyweight panel tackles the biggest Sharks questions out there- what the Sharks major problems are, who should stay, who should go, and what question would you ask at State of the Sharks if everyone there took truth serum.
I got an email from my old friend asking me what’s the difference between the Sharks and the Blackhawks – did the Sharks just get a nightmare draw in the Ducks? Would the Sharks be playing still right now if they had drawn the Flames and Canucks? Why are the Blackhawks, who play a similar style to the Sharks and have considerably less NHL experience on the roster, still going strong and the Sharks are sitting at home watching the Biggest Loser finale?
The Answer: The 2nd, 3rd and 4th lines.
The Sharks forwards had 18 points in their first round series, and Joe Thornton, Marleau, and Seto (the Sharks leadership) accounted for 11 of those points, or 61%.
Check out the Blackhawks, with 84 total forward points:
Toews/Kane/Brouwer – 24 (28.5%)
Havlat/Ladd/Bolland – 25 (29.7%)
Burish/Eager/Sharp – 15 (17.8%)
Byfuglien/Versteeg/Pahlsson – 20 (23.8%)
There’s your answer. I’m getting closer to forming an opinion on the changes that I want to suggest, and I think these numbers are telling. Are Marleau and Thornton really to blame? Shouldn’t we be pointing the finger at the 2nd and 3rd lines that did nothing to support them?
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I think balanced scoring, or lack of it, is definitely a part of it. You definitely needed to get more out of Pavelski, Michalek, Cheechoo and Clowe but where the Sharks really struggled, and what was a definite strength in the regular season, was on the PP and I think that can largely be attributed to the Ducks solid defense and stellar goaltending.
In many ways the Ducks were a bad matchup for the Sharks. They had quality depth on defense which helped neutralize the Sharks depth up front. They had a big, strong center in Getzlaf as well as some decent sized wingers which helped neutralize the Sharks big forwards like Thornton and Marleau. And, as I stated above, the Ducks PK pretty much neutralized the Sharks PP.
Would the Sharks have done better against the Flames? Yes, probably so. Canucks? Yeah, probably, though they have good goaltending too (most of the time).
That call for a Milan Michalek-Ryan Whitney trade looks awfully good right now…
I must agree with this one. It’s time to trade Milan, sign Moen, and let Grier, Goc, Plihal, Claude, Shelley, Blake all walk and start rebuilding the Sharks from 2nd through 4th line. It’s also possibly to do it at the cost of someone on the top line, preferably Marleau, and acquire better 3rd/4th liners than this club has ever seen.
It’s also important to point to the Hawks defense. We have Boyle and that’s about it. They have Keith, Seabrook and Campbell – either of those three would be our no. 2 defenseman behind Boyle, and all three contributed greatly to Hawks success.
Once your team makes it to the playoffs, does it matter what round you lose in (assuming you’re not the owner)?
I mean, let’s play a game of “What If?” What if that thrilling Col-StL matchup on the final Sunday of the regular season had gone 1-0 to the Avs instead of to the Blues. Sharks would’ve had the Blues in the first round. They were fodder, so the Sharks advance. …To play Chicago (whose first round was unaffected by the final day), or Anaheim if the Ducks were to beat Detroit. Would the Sharks have gotten out of the second round?
Could this scenario have masked current problems – like Michalek is not a playoff player; Cheechoo cannot play anything but top line; and Nabby was protected by a prolific offense this year.
The front office did a superb job of addressing last year’s hole on defense, now we’ll see if they do a similar job addressing role players who can contribute on both ends.
I agree with David, the Sharks ran into a hot Jonas Hiller and never got their vaunted powerplay going. That was one of the major reasons for their regular season success and it never translated to the playoffs.
I kind of think it’s Chicago’s defence, too. I’m not very high on Campbell, but he is a very competent No. 3-4 defenceman. Plus, Keith, Seabrook, and Barker are all better than anyone San Jose has on the back end, save Boyle.
Watching Vlasic play scared and get manhandled was frustrating. And, Ehrhoff was painfully erratic. Blake is 38 years old or whatever, so it’s kind of folly to lean on him as your second best defenceman, and as we saw over the course of this year, his defensive instincts, while not that strong to begin with, really suffered. Lukowich was pretty bad and while Murray had a physical presence, watching him hold the puck at the line or struggle to chip it out of the defensive zone was overly painful.
Chicago’s defence is physical, fast, and mobile. We saw what a huge difference Boyle made on the blueline this year — the first time SJ had a legitimate No. 1/presence back there. But it’s just Boyle on an island — especially when Vlasic shrinks in the post-season. I’m thinking if anything, Doug Wilson should be focusing on building the defence. I would rather have a $6M defenceman than a $6M forward. I’m talking about Marleau and Nabokov’s salary slots. Not to mention Blake’s $5M coming off the books.
I know scoring was a real problem, and the defensive statistics show that SJ is very adept on that side of the puck, but I’m wondering if that isn’t Ron Wilson residue where the forwards are playing further back and more defensive to help out the defence.
Maybe Bouwmeester is a pipe dream — when is the last big free agent signing for SJ? — but possibly targeting puck-movers like Kaberle, Jovo, or Souray — I know the latter two are making a lot of coin ($6.5M and $5.4M) but I think we could see a big difference in the team with some competent d-men that didn’t need to chip it out of the defensive zone and could either skate with the puck or shoot it.