Here they are. Let the fodder begin. All lines taken from covers.com.

Doug’s record: 4-3
Mike’s record: 4-3

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 24TH
Doug takes Montreal (-116) over Los Angeles WINNER and Columbus (-137) over NY Islanders WINNER.
Mike takes Pittsburgh (-132) over Buffalo. WINNER

FRIDAY, NOV 26TH
Doug takes Nashville (+102) over Minnesota. LOSER
Mike takes San Jose (+110) over Vancouver LOSER

SATURDAY, NOV 27TH
Doug takes St. Louis (-150) over Dallas. LOSER
Mike takes Chicago (+105) over Los Angeles. WINNER

MONDAY, NOV 29TH
Doug takes Pittsburgh (-115) over NY Rangers WINNER
Mike takes Dallas (-110) over Carolina WINNER and Los Angeles (-110) over Anaheim LOSER

TUESDAY, NOV 30TH
Doug takes Chicago (-140) over St. Louis WINNER and Phoenix (+115) over Nashville LOSER
Mike takes Tampa Bay (-110) over Toronto WINNER and Colorado (-125) over Atlanta LOSER

The pick off has ended in a tie. We will figure out a tie breaker on next week’s podcast. Someone is buying dinner…

Not only did the Sharks win, but Doug and I both were flawless in our hockey picks.  Check out DOH 125 for all the ‘rules’.  Doug mentioned in that episode how much we missed Douglas Murray, and it certainly was apparent last night.  He hit everything, he jumped into the play, he made good defensive stops.  The guy was an animal, and clearly itching to get back in the lineup, especially against the Sharks’ playoff ouster.  Helluva game.  If only the Sharks could play with that energy and urgency on a consistent basis, we might just have something here.

Yesterday, when I heard Niemi was going to start, I though that was a pretty wacky move.  Ok, a dumb move.  Now that McLellan’s gamble paid off, I still don’t understand it.  If Niemi starts this weekend against Vancouver and gets shelled, I’m not sure if anything was really gained.  Chicago is a rival team- to me, it’s straightforward.  You start the guy who is the better goalie at the time, and Niitymaki is clearly that.  Niemi seemed like a good candidate to start against EDM on Saturday, second half of a back-to-back.  Let him build some confidence after a few good starts.  I guess last night’s win kickstarted the recovery, but it still seems like a needless gamble.

Here I am, bitching after the Sharks finally get a win after three atrocious games, and against a tough team.  I should be thankful.  I am thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Hard to feel good when your team can barely beat the second worst team in the NHL.  Maybe I’m overselling it- the Isles are now the third worst since they got a point last night.  Sorry.  Anyway you slice it, it’s clear the Sharks’ doldrums continue, again not scoring even strength, with the only goal coming 5-on-3.  Even the 5-on-4 power plays didn’t look that great.  Pavelski took his schnide to another level, this time actually putting the puck in the net, before Stephane Auger (not my favorite ref, to put it lightly) waved it off due to Logan Couture impeding the goalie in the crease.  I think the next step is Pavs scoring, then God (or Chuck Norris, or a reasonable facsimile) actually turning back time to negate it.

I suppose beggars can’t be choosers, and you got to take two points on a night when you had outshot the opposition by a 2-to-1 margin for most of the night.  Calgary will not be as forgiving, the beatdown we suffered last month at their hands is still pretty fresh in my mind.  Here’s hoping the boys will use that as extra motivation.  Did y’all watch James Wisniewski last night?  I sure did.  Leave your impressions in the comments, or email us (questions at dudesonhockey dot com) so we can talk about it next week.  This weekend’s assignment- Ian White.

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.

Is actually better than the Devil we know.  I picked the Devils to make the playoffs this year, and they looked far from that last night.  Their 5-on-5 play was so bad, which is just what the doctor ordered for the Sharks.  The new cap’n drove the Sharks to a pretty easy 5-2 victory, with four of the goals even strength.  Brodeur is aging, and his normal unpredictable style looked like panic instead of athleticism.  There was a flukey goal at both ends of the ice, with a bad luck bounce off the glass leading to a David Clarkson tap-in on one end, and a strange bounce off the boards at the other end led to Jumbo completing his hat trick.  Five point night for Joe, and the Devils had no answer to the HTML line, reunited (and it feels so good).

As far as the other lines go, B-.  Seto is trying awfully hard, but it’s not going his way.  Didn’t see much out of Pavs.  Clowe is really adept now at using his body to protect the puck, but he needs to turn that into scoring chances instead of just zone time at the periphery.  Good to see Boyle at +2.  Vlasic and Wallin were -1 , but I’ll give them a pass, because that goal was the flukiest goal I’ve seen since JR’s 500th.   Not only did it take a ridiculous bounce off the stanchion, it slowed down right in front of the goal for Clarkson.  Nitty didn’t stray far from the crease on dump-ins after that.  I still give Nitty an A- for last night- that goal was more bad luck than anything. The other goal stemmed from a huge penalty kill scramble that eventually kicked out to Andy Greene after about a dozen shots. Barring the disappointing game #2 performance against Columbus, Nittymaki has been over .930 in every game.  Contrast that with Niemi, who was .938 opening night and has gone .857, .839, and .400 since.  Ouch.  Small sample size, yadda yadda, but right now it looks like DW’s initial goalie signing was well targeted.

The Sharks played the worst team in the NHL in terms of goal differential last night, and Saturday, they play the team with the second worst.  The Ducks have given up 33 goals in 9 games.  Let’s see if the Sharks can get some other lines rolling, and I fully expect another Nitty start.  Gotta stay with the hot hand.

Podcast will be up later today.  I had to get up super early today, and missed my normal Wednesday morning routine that includes uploading and posting the podcast.  I might be able to get to it at lunch, or you might have to wait until EOB (that’s end-of-business for my fellow drones).

In the meantime, I recommend catching up on your sharkspage.  I was wondering what that group of yellow-clad people were on Saturday, and now I know.  Shirts with information that one would think should be kept private.

Na Na Hey Hey Goodbye

According to TSN’s Bob McKenzie, the Sharks waived Thomas Greiss yesterday. Will someone claim him and his 500k salary for this year? I would guess that Edmonton, Atlanta, Nashville might have some level of interest in the German goalie based on their lack of depth or injury situation. It wouldn’t be shocking if Greiss bounced around this year Jay Leach style. Do we hope he gets claimed or do you want Greiss to stay in the system?

Tommy Wingels has also been sent back to Worcester. Is this the beginning of the 2010-11 Worcester Shuttle or has McCarthy really earned the extra forward spot?

Exciting discussion for tomorrow nights podcast awaits!

Just a few quick hits before we all sit down for Game 2 of 82.

• Sharks win 3-2 in their season debut. It wasn’t pretty but a win is a win and we’ll take it this early against a non-playoff team like Columbus.
• Vlasic made the kind of error that continues to make you long for an upgrade in the top four when Ethan Moreau pulled the old “Winona Ryder” and stole the puck from Pickles purse and Umburger tipped it past Niemi.
• Niemi looked good, not great – but he made the saves he was supposed to. I don’t blame him for either goal.
• I didn’t notice Filatov much even strength for Columbus except for when he got hammered by Scott Nichol. Welcome back from Russia, ladybug!
• For those of you keeping track, the Ducks got completely hammered last night in Detroit and Andy Sutton went down with an injury, pushing their blueline from bad to Ishtar. Dallas pulled off an impressive win in New Jersey 4-3.

I’m going to make an official shopping list for a Sharks blueline upgrade in the coming weeks and I’m looking for your suggestions of who should be on the list and who shouldn’t. I’ll keep a running top ten and guys can move in and out based on their performance. We want a legit top four guy, not a Shane Hnidy (no disrespect intended…no, wait…full disrespect intended). We can officially cross Zdeno Chara off the wish list after the news he signed an extension for 7 years/45M. That pulls a premiere UFA off the market and makes our speculation even that more interesting.

GO SHARKS.

They waited until the very last minute as expected.  Joe Thornton is the new captain of the Sharks.  It’s a bit of a surprise, though not to everyone.   After talking with Randy, I’m certainly not as surprised as I would have been if it was announced a month ago.  If one guy ‘stirs the drink’ as Randy put it, it makes sense.  The other contender, Dan Boyle, gets the “permanent ‘A'”, with the other ‘A’ rotating.  Maybe the most surprising thing about the announcement is the news that Clowe will share the ‘A’.  No mention of Pavelski.

Of course this is going to be covered and debated in Sharks Nation with zeal, and we’ve had our fair share of captaincy discussions over the past couple of years.  The more I think about it, the less I think I know about it.  This quote from McLellan is a bit of a clue:

The verbal leadership gets way overrated. We don’t  need cheerleaders on our team by any means. We need people  who speak their mind and then back it up on the ice.

Let’s face it, it’s not about us.  It’s not about how good or bad a guy is at a press conference after a game.  It’s not about whether we think a guy is too sunny, or too laid-back, or too intense.  The captain is the PR face of the franchise, and for that reason, we think we should have a say, and what we see is all there is.  Sure, it’d be nice if those two things agreed, and many times they do.  But the real measure is wins, losses, and Cups.  Warm fuzzies in the fan base aren’t counted.  Would you really want it any other way?

Life’s a big circle, right?  Our old pal Cheech is back, but only sorta.  He’s in Worchester on a pro tryout.  This is a bit confusing, so I’ll try to explain.  Feel free to stop reading if you know this already.  Every NHL team has a contract limit of  50 (not counting junior players).  That’s every single player the Sharks have the rights to- SJ Sharks, Worchester Sharks, Stockton Thunder, European leagues, etc.  As a practical matter, that means everyone on the Worchester Sharks, even though that is the AHL affiliate of the San Jose Sharks, isn’t necessarily SJ Sharks property.  Roy Sommer and the crew over there can sign a limited number of free agents to fill out the roster.  That’s what Cheech might be, and that’s what Claude Lemieux was once upon a time.  He’s not even signed to an AHL deal yet, he’s just on a tryout.   Even if he does make the team, any NHL team at any time could sign him to an NHL SPC (that’s “standard player contract”).  San Jose would have the benefit of a little inside information, being it’s their affiliate, but they would have no priority in signing Cheech to an NHL deal if he happens to regain some of his past glory.

Personally, I’m really pleased about this.  I like the idea of having Cheech back in the Sharks “family”.  And I’m also a little relieved that the big club isn’t on the hook for anything.   But don’t worry, Cheech will be ok- he is getting over a million bucks this year in buyout money from Ottawa.