Yeah, We Won, But.....

Hey, it's a "W." But, heck, what a contrast in styles.

I watched Chicago repeatedly pass and possess the puck and almost
always skate it across the blueline, rarely dumping it anywhere. A
very "Detroit" style.

Then, I watch the Sharks dump and scramble, and that's only effective
when they get all fired up for short bursts and really pressure their
opponents on the boards. That seems to be their only effective
approach, but they don't do it very often.

If not for the power plays, San Jose could have easily lost the game.

One particularly bad play, which typifies the Sharks' get-rid-of-it
style, was on the first Chicago goal. A rebound comes to Ozolinsh,
who rather than possessing the puck and skating it behind the net,
instead, just blindly bats it toward to boards, where it goes directly
to the Chicago point man, who promptly blasts it right at Nabokov, and
the rebound is easily knocked in. (At least Oz scored to make up, in
part, for the bonehead play.)

So, it was a win, but not very inspiring. They need to get much, much
better.

On Wed, 23 Jan 2008 05:17:17 -0800 (PST), tack <thetacker.RemoveThis@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Hey, it's a "W." But, heck, what a contrast in styles.
>
>I watched Chicago repeatedly pass and possess the puck and almost
>always skate it across the blueline, rarely dumping it anywhere. A
>very "Detroit" style.
>
>Then, I watch the Sharks dump and scramble, and that's only effective
>when they get all fired up for short bursts and really pressure their
>opponents on the boards. That seems to be their only effective
>approach, but they don't do it very often.
>
>If not for the power plays, San Jose could have easily lost the game.
>
>One particularly bad play, which typifies the Sharks' get-rid-of-it
>style, was on the first Chicago goal. A rebound comes to Ozolinsh,
>who rather than possessing the puck and skating it behind the net,
>instead, just blindly bats it toward to boards, where it goes directly
>to the Chicago point man, who promptly blasts it right at Nabokov, and
>the rebound is easily knocked in. (At least Oz scored to make up, in
>part, for the bonehead play.)
>
>So, it was a win, but not very inspiring. They need to get much, much
>better.

I'm less concerned about style, and more with results. Dumping and
chasing works fine, as long as it starts an attack of some kind. But
if they don't eventually get the puck to the net, it means nothing.
Detroit was effective at containing Joe because they rushed two guys
towards him as he got the puck, even on the PP, and one of them was
usually Lidstrom. Chicago did a pretty good job on the Sharks
forwards, but the defense stepped up and scored two goals, and that
was the difference. They also had a harder time with Joe than Det. Go
figure.

The Detroit game revealed the Sharks problems, as it always does, and
they have two big ones:

1) No one worries about the Sharks point shots, which allows them to
focus on Joe. You would have thought that replacing Hannan with
Ozolinsh you would have at least got scoring from the point (and at
least 1 major gaffe per game), but it hasn't happened (except the
gaffes). Meanwhile, they lost a considerable amount of defense.
Murray has stepped up, and that has helped, but the Sharks are doing
it with six #3/4 guys as opposed to 1 guy who is a threat on offense,
and a stopper on defense, and the usual mix of other guys.

2) The Sharks offense is too predicable, and a whole bunch of guys are
scoring inconsistently. RW changes line combinations, but the players
still do the exact same things on the ice -- dump, chase, chase,
chase, fall back, defend, recover, get a line change, defend, and
recover again. Its not only boring to watch, but not very effective
either. They need to use their size and speed in the center of the
ice too, making space for a rush, rushing 4 guys sometimes, and then
someone staying at the net to create screens. Joe did that last
night, and Goal.

There are other problems, of course, but last year their offensive
output and PP covered a lot of their sins. This year the rest of the
NHL has figured out how to defend them.

#1 and #2 defensemen are in short supply, of course. The Sharks could
pry McCabe from Toronto, but can't afford him next season. The same
with Redden, and he would cost a lot in trade value too. They might
be able to get Blake from LA, and he might be the best they can do.
That's DW's part of the deal. As for RW, he needs to get creative on
offense. He's shown he can adjust before. Let's see if he can manage
it this time.