Everything Else

Game #2 – Sharks vs. Hawks Preview – Shield Your Eyes

By Matt McClure 1332 0

vs

Game Time: 7:30PM CDT
TV/Radio: NBC Sports Chicago, WGN-AM 720
Trillions of Tech Dollars Won’t Solve Homelessness Because It Is Cruel: Fear The Fin

No, unfortunately the season isn’t already over after one game 8000 miles away a week ago. In fact, there are still another 80 of these to get through after tonight’s home opener against the visiting Sharks, which will kick off a seven game homestand, which might be the longest this team has had in over a decade. And fortunately for them, tonight’s opponent comes in as an abject mess.

Hockey

Game #2 – Sharks vs. Hawks Spotlight: Is Martin Jones Broken?

By Sam Fels 1088 0

For most of last year, if you paid attention to the underlying numbers, or metrics, or analytics, or whatever other scrabble word you use, you knew that the Sharks were one of the best teams in the league. In fact, by those measures they were basically blowing away the Western Conference, and somehow losing the division to the Flames was basically a crime. They always had the puck and were creating most of the chances.

You also knew that they were being let down by simply horrific/comedic/surreal goaltending, with Martin Jones putting up a .896 SV% on the season. Aaron Dell wasn’t any better, and all the good work the Sharks skaters were doing was undone a lot of the time by Jones and Dell whiffing and whatever puck was half-heartedly flung in their direction, with opponents apologetically celebrating the goals they never saw coming or considered were a possibility.

There weren’t a lot of options for the Sharks at the trade deadline, and you could see why they stuck with Jones as well. In his three years as the Sharks starter previous to last season, he had never been below .912, and also had been dynamite in the playoffs. In San Jose’s run to the Final in 2016, he was .923 in 24 games. The following season he was .935 in a first-round loss to the Oilers, and then .928 as the Sharks went out in the second round. The policy of keeping the faith made sense, or at least was defensible.

Still, Jones wasn’t very good in the playoffs last year, and had he even been average perhaps the Sharks find their way past the Blues (GRRRRRR….). Again, the options in the offseason weren’t exactly shiny and must-have. Perhaps they should have put in a call to Robin Lehner, as Sergei Bobrovsky would have been out of their price range. Perhaps they wanted to give Jones another half-season to prove he can come back to what he was. And only at the next trade deadline will they pull the trigger if it’s warranted.

Still, it’s hard to find a comp of a goalie that fell apart at 29 and then rediscovered it. As a warning, these should always be taken with a grain of salt, because Jones is his own man and whatnot. His season won’t be affected because of what other goalies did in the past. As Fifth Feather would say, it’s like deciding what the next hand of a blackjack will be because of what’s going on at another table. The odds say one thing, but they don’t actually force certain cards to be turned over. Still, let’s take a look.

Since the great Lockout of ’05, Jones’s season last year was the 12th worst for goalies 28 or above who made 40 starts or more. Ben Scrivens had a worse season at 28 after being pretty good, and was out of the league in less than a year. Marty Turco struggled out of the lockout at age 30, posting a .898. He recovered a very little, posting a couple .910s but never coming close to the Vezina form he had before. And really that’s about it for comparable age and falling off a cliff at said age.

The Sharks would happily take that .910 Turco put up after his stumble, as given what else they are capable of that would be more than enough for another 105-110 points. If Jones can’t get there, and he is indeed this broken bumper car now, the options again aren’t great. Would they take one of the Hawks’ goalies if they indeed have to sell at the deadline (or would even admit to)? If the injuries to the Penguins become too much, would Matt Murray be available? Laurent Brossoit from Winnipeg? These are all reaches in terms of availability.

The Sharks clearly don’t have much time. Even with Joe Pavelski put on his bike, Logan Couture, Joe Thornton, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Brent Burns are all over 30. Erik Karlsson will be soon. They probably can’t toss away another spring on the hopes that Martin Jones finds it for no reason other than HOCKEY.

The opening signs aren’t encouraging. Getting blitzed by Nashville and Vegas twice isn’t exactly shameful, but those are the teams the Sharks will have to get through come springtime. It was a rough opening for sure, but the Sharks might have liked it if Jones had stood tall in any of the games. And he only faced over 30 shots in one of them.

This is a game of chicken the Sharks are playing with themselves. Someone is going to have to swerve or the whole thing is going to pieces.

Hockey

You Ain’t Shane, You Ain’t Mook – ’19-’20 NHL Team Previews: San Jose Sharks

By Sam Fels 1119 0

It’s not often a team loses its captain and its leading goal-scorer and is still considered among the conference favorites. But such is life in the West where no one has really jumped forward aside from the Colorado Avalanche. The San Jose Sharks return Erik Karlsson, which if he can remain upright for even 60 games and more importantly the playoffs, is about half the battle in itself. While Joe Pavelski may be gone, they still return a host of nifty forwards who can fill the net on at least three lines. Brent Burns might be overrated by a factor of 12, and losing Justin Braun may turn out to be nearly as big as Pavelski. Still, this team never felt like it clicked for very long last year and ended up with 101 points and in the conference final (WHERE THEY FAILED US ALL MISERABLY AND SHALL NEVER BE FORGIVEN). Can they do it again?

2018-2019

46-27-9  101 points (2nd in Pacific, lost in conference final)

3.52 GF/G (2nd)  3.15 GA/G (21st)  +31 GD

54.9 CF% (1st)  54.3 xGF% (4th)

23.6 PP% (6th)  80.8 PK% (15th)

Goalies: The only reason the Sharks didn’t end up with 110 or more points last season was their goaltending. Martin Jones was simply awful, Aaron Dell wasn’t any better, and the Sharks had to overcome it most nights. And most nights they did. Doug Wilson has bet that Martin Jones simply can’t be that bad again. And with good reason.

In the three seasons as Sharks starter before that, Jones never had a SV% below .912. That’s the thing with the Sharks, they don’t need Carey Price back there. They don’t need a Vezina finalist. They just need league average. Jones couldn’t even manage that in the playoffs and they still got to the conference final. Jone will turn 30 during the season, so it’s hard to imagine last season was the begin of age-related decline. It feels like a very weird and ugly outlier, and the Sharks need to hope so. Dell isn’t going to ride in like Mighty Mouse if Jones is coughing up his esophagus again, which would mean Wilson would either have to look for answer at the deadline or close his eyes, clinch a towel between his teeth, and hope his team can plow ahead dragging Jones along.

The Sharks always have the puck as well, giving up the least amount of attempts last season and in the top half in expected goals against. The job is just about as easy as it can be for a goalie. And they merely need to pass on a pass/fail course. Do that, and the Sharks can take this division.

Defense: That doesn’t mean they’re without questions. The first is will Erik Karlsson ever finish a season healthy? His groin having all the gremlins doomed them in the playoffs (NEVER FORGIVEN), and he missed large chunks of the season. He hasn’t managed a full slate of games in four seasons. They’re nowhere without him, so expect him to get a regular slate of games off to try and preserve him for April and May. When he’s on the ice he still dominates, as his metrics were seven or eight points ahead of the Sharks as a whole, who again, were one of the best possession teams in the league. He’s still otherworldly when on song.

After that though…Mar-Edouard Vlasic loses his main defensive running buddy in Braun and there isn’t an obvious candidate to take the hard shifts with him or to cover for whichever of Burns or Karlsson Pickels doesn’t. Brendon Dillon is a post. Tim Heed and Dalton Prout are seat-fillers at best. Jacob Middleton is a kid that will get a look, but coach Peter DeBoer famously hates any young d-man. One outside candidate is rookie Mario Ferraro, but he’ll also have DeBoer to overcome.

Burns was completely exposed as a runway in the playoffs last year, and there’s no reason that won’t be true this year. He’ll pile up a ton of points again, which will be close to empty calories. This unit could use some buffeting at the deadline too, because Burns can’t really be trusted with anything than a third-pairing yahoo deep in the playoffs.

Forwards: Losing Pavelski is a ballsy call. This is still a team that features Logan Couture, Timo Meier, Tomas Hertl, and Evander Kane. It shouldn’t hurt for goals, it just might not have a wealth of them as it did before. Kevin Lebanc stepping up into a top-six role would help the cause, and maybe they think he’s ready for that. Joe Thornton is back for another go-around, and while he can still make a play here and there his days of being a genuine top-two center on a team are gone. Luckily, Couture and Hertl don’t require him to do that. There are enough foot soldiers to fill out the bottom six without standing out. But the Sharks always seemingly round out their bottom six with pieces from their system.

Prediction: It doesn’t feel like the doomsday machine they could have been last year but fell short of. The loss of Pavelski and Braun will be somewhat canceled out if Martin Jones can escape from whatever pod person took over his body last year, but not entirely. They look short a top four d-man and maybe one forward.

But there’s more than enough here to win the division and conference. The Flames haven’t gotten away from them, and whether the Knights want to admit it or not they have the same questions in net and on their blue line. Another 105-110 points seem on offer if Karlsson can manage 60-65 games or more. The bet is that Couture and Hertl at center can take some wingers with them even if they’re not Pavelski. Perhaps. But nothing the Sharks do will be judged until they get into April again. They could be in any kind of shape by then.

Everything Else

You Were So In, With The Out Crowd – Playoff Previews: Knights vs. Sharks

By Sam Fels 1049 0

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SCHEDULE

Game 1 in San Jose tonight, 9:30

Game 2 in San Jose Friday, 9:30

Game 3 in Vegas Sunday, 9pm

Game 4 in Vegas Tuesday, 9:30

I suppose I should stand my ground, as I’ve believed in the Sharks all season, until their late-season pants-filling without Erik Karlsson. The fact that they finished where they did and their metrics are where they are despite having the worst goaltending in the league is a testament to how good they actually are. All they need really is league-average goaltending and not only would they come out of the West, they’d probably amble or mosey out of it. And yet the universe seems intent on shoving the Knights down our throats even though it took their GM less than two seasons to completely bork a blank cap situation and no one cares. Mark Stone showed up, everyone lost their mud, and he scored at a 22-goal, 50-point pace, which is fine, except it’s not fine  for the $9.5 MILLION DOLLARS HE’S GOING TO GET PER SEASON WHY AM I THE ONLY ONE FLABBERGASTED I MUST BE ON THE WRONG DRUGS!!!

But Stone’s contract doesn’t have much bearing on this series. His play does. And boy does this seem a nightmare for the Sharks, and could potentially swing the direction of the entire organization.

Goalies: Before we get to the disaster that is the Sharks’ net, Marc-Andre Fleury is reasons 1-4 the Knights made it to the Final last year. While some want to attribute it to magic dust or a genius front office or a secret style of playing or Ryan Fucking Reaves, just about any thrown-together bunch of fuckwits can win a series or three when their goalie is going .945, as Fleury did in the first three rounds. When he stopped doing that, you’ll notice the Caps dispatched them tout suite.

Fleury was a tick above league average, with spotty health all season. He was marvelous in five March starts, and bad in three April starts, so current form is hard to diagnose. Fleury’s playoff pedigree is also hard to figure, as there’s just as much buffoonery as there has been brilliance. If anyone thinks he’s a sure bet just because of the last two seasons, you’re not paying much attention. It would not be a shock if he’s terrible. He was just a short time ago February.

That still makes him a better bet than Martin Jones, who was just woeful this year. The Sharks had the worst goaltending at evens this year, and in fact were the only team lower than .900. You can’t roll into the playoffs with that and expect to do much. If there’s any silver lining, it’s that Jones’s playoff pedigree is rather strong. In three tries with the Sharks he’s at .926 over 42 games. At 29, he really shouldn’t be in a career abyss. Maybe the fresh start of the playoffs lets him reset everything mentally. That’s the only thing the Sharks can be counting on right now.

Defense: You’ll never get me to buy into the Vegas defense. But I’ll also readily admit they basically take them out of the equation, by just asking them to get the puck up to the forwards as quickly as possible and not much else. They don’t get a ton of scoring from there but they don’t have to. And the forwards have the puck so much that they don’t have to do that much defending. But the Sharks have the puck a ton, too. And the more you’re asking Colin Miller and Brayden McNabb and Deryk Goddamn Engelland to do in their own end, the more likely it is they’ll turn back into the players we’re fairly sure they still are. Because I have to believe eventually things return to as they are, no matter how much of a fantasy land Vegas is of dreams and money and tits.

If Erik Karlsson is healthy, then the Sharks’ blue line is way better. He appeared for the last game and says he’s ready to go, but premature returns from a groin injury have sent him back to the darkness twice already this season. With him, the Sharks boast three pairs the Hawks would honestly kill for. Maybe Vlasic and Braun are a touch slow to deal with the speed of the Knights over a long series, but they know how to take the dungeon shifts. If they can keep the roof from leaking, Karlsson and Burns can get up in it. And they do the scoring the Vegas’s back end doesn’t. Yes, the Knights have four lines, but the Sharks are the rare team with three pairings. If anyone’s equipped…

Forwards: I still may be in denial or not “get it,” but there’s a reason the Knights are here again. They just have a lot of speed and depth. Wild Bill may have crashed back down to Earth, but it’s a real boon to have a second line of Stastny, Pacioretty, and Stone. The Ginger Ninja lurks on the third line with Alex Tuch, and somehow Bellemare and Reaves and whatever other jackass they punt out there come up with big goals. And there’s never a break in pace. It’s so much to deal with when it’s on song.

But again, if you sift through the mishegas, the Sharks have the same depth, but better. The Sharks boast six forwards with 55 points or more. The Knights have two. There are four 30-goal scorers in teal. The Knights don’t have one. They can annoy the piss out of you too with Meier and Sorensen. They could even match center depth by moving Pavelski back to the middle if they so choose. Nyquist performed at the same pace Stone did in Vegas and yet I didn’t see anyone erecting statues of him in their publications like they did with McPhee and Stone. Starting to get the impression the Sharks have better skaters?

Prediction: Last year’s series, after the 7-0 Game 1 in Vegas for the Knights, was pretty even. Fleury made a huge difference. The Knights are maybe better than they were last year, though without William Karlsson and Smith doing what they did maybe not? The Sharks definitely are. Jones could undo it all and they could be done in four. But the possibility of Fleury having a gasoline fight with him are higher than most think. But honestly, I’m tired of the Vegas story and I think the Sharks have just been twiddling their thumbs waiting for this. And once they snap into gear, everyone in the West should be awfully worried.

Sharks in six.

 

Everything Else

Game #77 – Hawks vs. Sharks Preview/PTA Meeting: What’s Your Definition Of Bad?

By Sam Fels 1202 0

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RECORDS: Hawks 33-33-10   Sharks 43-24-9

PUCK DROP: 9:30pm

TV: NBCSN Chicago

ALSO FAKING THEIR VOICE LIKE ELIZABETH HOLMES: Fear The Fin

If you were to ask both fanbases, both would tell you their team is a mess, a disaster, an embarrassment. One has lost six in a row, and one has lost four of its last five. Neither is living up to the expectations the front offices themselves set for their respective team. But really, only one of these teams is a true mess.

The Sharks are the ones who have lost six in a row. They’ve lost touch with the Flames at the top of the division, and the Bay Area faithful are already chewing their nails down to the quick over a first-round matchup with the Knights (who happened to paste the Sharks a few games ago, at least on the scoreboard but as analytics have told us that doesn’t count). Erik Karlsson won’t play until the playoffs, and it’s no guarantee he’ll be 100% then. And rushing him back is what got them in this predicament in the first place. Joe Pavelski has missed the last four games, isn’t a sure bet for tonight, and nagging injuries with 10 days to go to your best forward who happens to be 34 doesn’t set anyone’s nerves at ease.

What’s really causing the angina-kicks in San Jose is that the Sharks can’t get a damn save anywhere. Both Martin Jones and Aaron Dell have gone Little-League-Outfielder-With-The-Glove-On-His-Head in the crease, and the Sharks have the worst SV% at even-strength in the league. Which makes their 95 points and glittering metrics something of a wow, and also exemplifies how good this team really is. If they were getting league average goaltending, they’d probably be able to see where the Lightning are. Most nights, the Sharks demolish teams, and then watch Jones or Dell either make it much harder than it should be or ruin the work altogether. Even in this six-game punt, the Sharks have carried a 56+% share in every game and the same in scoring chances save one.

So yeah, the Sharks bet that Martin Jones would figure it out as the spring invaded seems a shaky one right now (and Jones has the playoff pedigree where you could see the logic). And the Sharks have more riding on these playoffs than just about anyone. Karlsson’s a free agent. Thornton’s a free agent and might retire. Pavelski is a free agent. There’s a heavy now-or-never feel to this.

As for the Hawks…who knows? The season is officially toast now. When you’re tired with the Oilers with six to go, you’re toast. Them’s the rules. So what do you watch for now? I don’t know. There’s nothing that Dylan Strome or Brendan Perlini or the like are going to do in the last six games that’s going to make you feel any differently about them come next year. You already know what the defense is. Maybe Crawford will get a day off now, or the chance to close out the season strongly.

So I guess the thing to watch is the emotional response. Do the Hawks chuck it and mail in the last six games? Do they still try and play well and be professional about it? It might give you some indication about what the players as a whole think of Coach Cool Youth Pastor. If this team isn’t going all out, then the results for these last games could be ugly/hilarious/high art. And also make for a very curious tone heading into camp next year. Once you chuck it on a coach, it’s nearly impossible to get it back. Recall that the Hawks showed some spikiness at the very end of last year for Q.

There’s no doubt the Sharks would be looking at this as their get-well night. They’ve pulverized the Hawks twice already, and they never looked like they had to get out of second gear to do so. And they probably want to get right, because their next two are Calgary and Vegas, and they at least need to throw down a marker for themselves in those. Otherwise, if they somehow puke this one tonight, they could be looking at eight or nine games biffed in a row, and that’s not how you want to enter the last week and playoffs.

I’m still high on the Sharks, but it’s more out of hope than expectation now. If Pavelski and/or Karlsson are iffy, and the goalies are the goalies, it’s quite a challenge. You would expect the antenna will be up for San Jose tonight. That’s probably very bad news for a questionably interested Hawks team.

 

 

 

Game #77 Preview Suite

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Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

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Game #77 – Hawks vs. Sharks Q&A: Gentlemen…This Thing

By Sam Fels 1139 0

@ItWasThreeZero helped us out a couple weeks back with Sharks info. We’re using that again because quite simply we can’t afford the vaccinations it takes to get back where he hangs out. 

Did the Sharks err by not getting a goalie at the deadline? Martin Jones‘s playoff record is stout but this regular season has been awfully bad…
There’s no question that goaltending has been the Sharks’ Achilles heel this season. Frankly it defies logic that the Sharks have the fourth-best record in the league while ranking dead last in both overall and 5v5 SV%. In fairness to Martin Jones (and Aaron Dell), the team adopted a high-risk, high-reward style of play this season that would deflate any goalie’s numbers. System changes alone don’t explain or justify both goalies sporting sub-.900 save percentages in March though. I think the hope, both organizationally and among the fanbase, is that Jones’ playoff numbers will more closely resemble his career average of .912. That’s probably why we didn’t see them make a move at the deadline despite rumors of interest in Ryan Miller. It’s easy to envision how this team, with its elite offense, possession numbers and special teams, could make a Cup run if the goaltending can be anything close to average. But it’s hard to have any confidence in Jones pulling that off at this point.
Did you like the pickups of Nyquist?
Despite having the league’s third-best offense, the Sharks don’t have a Nikita Kucherov or Johnny Gaudreau or even a Mark Scheifele or Filip Forsberg-calibre player up front. In order to have a chance at beating the teams that do have elite forward talent they need to continue to score by committee (led, of course, by huge contributions from Burns and Karlsson on the back end). The addition of Nyquist allows the Sharks to roll out a top nine that features six players on pace for 60 or more points this season plus two others scoring at a 50-point pace. Throw in double digit goal scorers Marcus Sorensen and Melker Karlsson on the fourth line and you have arguably the best forward depth in the league that the addition of Nyquist makes even deeper.
Brent Burns is on track to blow past the 76 points that got him a Norris two years ago. Should he be in contention to get another one?
To the extent that the Norris Trophy just goes to whichever defenseman puts up the most points these days, sure. If we’re talking about whether Burns has been the best overall defenseman in the NHL this year, it’s hard to make that argument. He starts over 70% of his 5v5 shifts in the offensive zone, usually against opposing second and third lines. That’s not a knock on Burns at all – the luxury of having both Karlsson and Burns on the same blueline has allowed Peter DeBoer to deploy him in the kind of specialized offensive role he’s always been best suited for and the results speak for themselves. Burns has unquestionably been a huge part of the Sharks’ success this season but he hasn’t quite had the same all-around impact as defensemen like Mark Giordano or Morgan Rielly who aren’t far behind Burns in terms of production either.
It looks like the Sharks path is going to have to go through Vegas and Calgary to even get to Winnipeg or Nashville. Is that just too daunting for a pretty old team?
It’s a brutal road and underscores the importance of winning the Pacific Division to avoid that 2 vs. 3 matchup, a feat that may be out of the Sharks’ grasp at this point depending on the health of Erik Karlsson. This is, at least on paper, the best roster in franchise history though. And while the Sharks’ average age might be a little high, key players like Karlsson, Hertl, Kane, Couture and Meier are at least theoretically still in their respective primes and it’s not like age has slowed Burns or Pavelski down significantly either. They should be good enough to beat Vegas and Calgary if they can get anything resembling average goaltending. If last year’s Capitals can win the Cup after running the gauntlet of Columbus, Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay there’s no reason this Sharks roster can’t pull off a similar achievement.

 

Game #77 Preview Suite

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Spotlight

Q&A

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I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Game #66 – Hawks vs. Sharks Preview, Debit Card Replacement – Digging The Grave

By Matt McClure 1374 0

at

Game Time: 8:00PM CST
TV/Radio: NBC Sports Chicago, WGN-AM 720
Elon Musk Is A Sociopath: Fear The Fin

To the remaining 8 people who still held onto any kind of reasonable playoff aspirations for the Hawks, yesterday’s display should have disabused anyone of that notion with a defensive performance against one of the worst offenses in the league that one would have go lunge into oncoming traffic to call “embarrassing”. They’ll get to follow that up tonight in Northern California against one of the prohibitive favorites to come out of the West in the Sharks. Terrific.

Everything Else

Game #66 – Hawks vs. Sharks Spotlight: When History Is Your Only Plan

By Sam Fels 1081 0

One of the biggest watches before the trade deadline is what the Sharks would do about the goaltending situation. Though they are amongst one of the best teams in the league in every metric and points-total, they have the worst goaltending in the league, at least at even-strength. At evens, they’re the only team under .900. At all strengths, only the Panthers are near them, and they’re both tied for worst in the league. Considering where the Sharks are, it’s a borderline miracle.

So would they opt for Jimmy Howard? Would they make even more of an all-in push than they had already and go after Sergei Bobrovsky? Maybe try to wheeze one last run out of Roberto Luongo?

It appears they’re hoping that history repeats itself.

The Sharks didn’t do anything, and will go into the playoffs hoping that Martin Jones just has some kind of awakening in the postseason. He certainly has the pedigree, as in three playoff runs with the Sharks he has a career .926 SV%. But then again, those all came with solid regular season numbers before them. Now, he’ll be rolling into the playoffs after being dog meat for the regular season. The only thing that suggests he can just turn it around is hope, and that Braden Holtby did it last year.

The similarities between the two are striking. Both had been starters for only three seasons before suffering a regular season brain bubble. Holtby was 28 when things went south on him, and Jones is 29 this year. Holtby was coming off a higher platform, as he was coming off a Jennings Trophy and a second-place finish to backing up his first Vezina with a repeat. Jones was merely good last season. There was really no inkling that such a thing could be coming.

Holtby put up a .907 SV% last year during the regular season, 18 points off what he had done the season prior. Jones is at .896 this year, 19 points off what he put up last season. But whereas Holtby at least had the safety net of Phillip Grubauer’s breakout season last spring (and Grubauer started Games 1 and 2 in the first round), it’s all going to be on Jones this time around. Holtby responded by coming in and putting up a .922 for the Caps’ run to the Cup. What will Jones do?

The thing is, Jones doesn’t need to do that for the Sharks to get to 16. Whereas the Caps needed just about every save they got, playing as they did kept them on the margins, the Sharks dominate play to such a degree that league average goaltending probably sees them through. Even just league-average play in net this season would have seen them give up 29 less goals at even-strength, which by some models is nearly 10 points in the standings. In a playoff series an additional goal, or a goal less, every two games doesn’t sound like much, but as you know it can be.

The teams are in different situations as well. Whereas it was thought the Caps were nearing the end of their window, they certainly didn’t feel like an all-in team. The Sharks are, thanks to the trade for Erik Karlsson and the ages of the important players. So why not keep going for the Cup that has eluded them their entire existence? The Sharks have based this on loyalty. The  Caps can claim they did, but that wouldn’t be true as they only turned back to Holtby when Grubauer wasn’t up to it. It somewhat lifted the pressure off Holtby. Jones will have no such relief.

Doug Wilson seems to have staked his entire legacy on this one. That’s a lot to ask of loyalty.

 

Game #66 Preview Suite

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Game #66 – Hawks vs. Sharks Q&A: A Creature Of The Night

By Sam Fels 1215 0

You know those people that you only see at punk shows? Like you never run into them at the store or on the street? You don’t know where they come from? That’s @ItWasThreeZero. He’s our Sharks guy. 

Did the Sharks err by not getting a goalie at the deadline? Martin Jones‘s playoff record is stout but this regular season has been awfully bad…
There’s no question that goaltending has been the Sharks’ Achilles heel this season. Frankly it defies logic that the Sharks have the fourth-best record in the league while ranking dead last in both overall and 5v5 SV%. In fairness to Martin Jones (and Aaron Dell), the team adopted a high-risk, high-reward style of play this season that would deflate any goalie’s numbers. System changes alone don’t explain or justify both goalies sporting sub-.900 save percentages in March though. I think the hope, both organizationally and among the fanbase, is that Jones’ playoff numbers will more closely resemble his career average of .912. That’s probably why we didn’t see them make a move at the deadline despite rumors of interest in Ryan Miller. It’s easy to envision how this team, with its elite offense, possession numbers and special teams, could make a Cup run if the goaltending can be anything close to average. But it’s hard to have any confidence in Jones pulling that off at this point.
Did you like the pickups of Nyquist?
Despite having the league’s third-best offense, the Sharks don’t have a Nikita Kucherov or Johnny Gaudreau or even a Mark Scheifele or Filip Forsberg-calibre player up front. In order to have a chance at beating the teams that do have elite forward talent they need to continue to score by committee (led, of course, by huge contributions from Burns and Karlsson on the back end). The addition of Nyquist allows the Sharks to roll out a top nine that features six players on pace for 60 or more points this season plus two others scoring at a 50-point pace. Throw in double digit goal scorers Marcus Sorensen and Melker Karlsson on the fourth line and you have arguably the best forward depth in the league that the addition of Nyquist makes even deeper.
Brent Burns is on track to blow past the 76 points that got him a Norris two years ago. Should he be in contention to get another one?
To the extent that the Norris Trophy just goes to whichever defenseman puts up the most points these days, sure. If we’re talking about whether Burns has been the best overall defenseman in the NHL this year, it’s hard to make that argument. He starts over 70% of his 5v5 shifts in the offensive zone, usually against opposing second and third lines. That’s not a knock on Burns at all – the luxury of having both Karlsson and Burns on the same blueline has allowed Peter DeBoer to deploy him in the kind of specialized offensive role he’s always been best suited for and the results speak for themselves. Burns has unquestionably been a huge part of the Sharks’ success this season but he hasn’t quite had the same all-around impact as defensemen like Mark Giordano or Morgan Rielly who aren’t far behind Burns in terms of production either.
It looks like the Sharks path is going to have to go through Vegas and Calgary to even get to Winnipeg or Nashville. Is that just too daunting for a pretty old team?
It’s a brutal road and underscores the importance of winning the Pacific Division to avoid that 2 vs. 3 matchup, a feat that may be out of the Sharks’ grasp at this point depending on the health of Erik Karlsson. This is, at least on paper, the best roster in franchise history though. And while the Sharks’ average age might be a little high, key players like Karlsson, Hertl, Kane, Couture and Meier are at least theoretically still in their respective primes and it’s not like age has slowed Burns or Pavelski down significantly either. They should be good enough to beat Vegas and Calgary if they can get anything resembling average goaltending. If last year’s Capitals can win the Cup after running the gauntlet of Columbus, Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay there’s no reason this Sharks roster can’t pull off a similar achievement.

 

Game #66 Preview Suite

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Because Something Is Happening Here But You Don’t Know What It Is, Do You, Mr. Jones?

By Sam Fels 1586 0

You miss most of their games because they’re on late. You might have seen on Twitter this morning that we got awfully close to a Joe Thornton cock-trick last night. He had a hat trick and there was an overtime to add to it, and hockey twitter waited with anticipation you could cut and serve as a side dish.

You’ll also notice they lost in overtime on a night they gave up just 20 shots. And this is the problem for the San Jose Sharks.

The Sharks are the best team in the Western Conference. By any measure, it’s not even all that close. Whatever metric you want, the Sharks are top-five in and most likely top-three. They limit attempts, shots, and chances while creating a fuckload of their own. They roll teams most mights. The Sharks recently had a stretch of six games where they were below water in possession. Shockingly, Erik Karlsson missed all of those games. They also won all of them.

But the one thing the Sharks can’t get is a save. They’re last in the league in even-strength save-percentage, and the only team below .900 in the category. Overall in every situation, they’re second-worst behind only Florida. Even just league-median goaltending of .902 overall would have seen the Sharks give up 20 less goals. That’s about six points in the standings or so, which would have them well clear of the Flames in the Pacific (though still 10 points behind the Lightning, who aren’t even playing the same sport right now).

And the Sharks have six days to decide what they’re going to do about it.

There are some parallels to last year’s champs. Martin Jones’s collapse, much like Braden Holtby’s last year during the regular season, came out of nowhere. Jones has been as solid as you could ask in San Jose, with a .915 over three seasons. At 29, he certainly wasn’t poised for a dive over the cliff due to age. And it’s not workload either, as Jones is seeing less shots per game this season than he was last year (28.3 vs. 27.8). And the types of chances Jones is seeing are just about the same, as the differences in scoring-chances per hour and high-danger ones that the Sharks are surrendering are negligible.

Now, I’ve already been on record that Jones will pull a Holtby, and follow up a subpar regular season with a playoff rescue act and everyone will quickly forget that he was so bad during the 82. Jones has been more than reliable in the playoffs with the Sharks, sporting a .926 across three forays, including a .923 during their run to the Final in 2016. If the Sharks want to count on that, there’s evidence. And the Sharks, given what they’ve been doing, really only need average goaltending to beat most anyone. Their first round is likely to see them beat up on any of the remedial class in the West (assuming they can beat the Flames out for the division). Even finishing second will see them find Vegas who have been woeful of late and Marc-Andre Fleury is doing the humpty-hump in net.

A second round dance with the Flames is unlikely to see the Sharks get goalie’d either, as Mike Smith will be Neymar’ing everywhere or David Rittich will be seeing all of this for the first time. Stranger things have happened of course, but you wouldn’t bet on it.

It’s beyond that where the problems lie. Connor Hellebuyck or Pekka Rinne are both capable of going Iron Curtain for a series, and in the Final you’re most likely trying to keep the Lightning’s Punisher collection of weapons at bay. Can’t do that with even average goaltending, you wouldn’t think.

But if you’re the Sharks, everything is on this year. Conference final isn’t good enough. Neither is just a Final appearance. You’re here to do the damn thing. This is Joe Thornton’s last year, most likely. Erik Karlsson doesn’t seem guaranteed beyond this spring. Everyone else who matters is over 30. This is the one. So what do you do, hotshot?

The answers on at the deadline aren’t plentiful. Jimmy Howard out of Detroit can be serviceable, and behind a much worse team. But his last attempt at the playoffs was three years ago and it saw him get clocked so heavily he was pulled as starter. He hasn’t had a decent playoff run since 2013 when he nearly helped pull the wool over the Hawks’ eyes, and only a Seabrook speculative off of Kronwall’s stick kept him from doing so. He’s far from guaranteed.

Maybe you see if Luongo has one more run left in him before he hits the beach for good? But he’s been ouchy and bad all season, and if one of those goes TWANG! again you’d be back to Jones anyway. Jonathan Quick is signed for a million more years. Craig Anderson is also old. There isn’t much else to find.

But that’s ok, the Sharks’ entire legacy is only riding on this…