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Game #35 – Sharks vs. Hawks Q&A: Bus Station Resident

By Sam Fels 1490 0

@ItWasThreeZero followed us home one day. We fed him at the back door of the building. He won’t leave us alone. We figure we can at least use him to get Sharks info. 

Three points behind the Flames isn’t where the Sharks were supposed to be. Everything metrically looks great, so is their lack of taking off simply down to Martin Jones?

 A lot of it is. It’s hard to win games when your starting goalie is throwing up a sub-.900 SV% for the majority of the season. That said the Sharks are also top third in the league at yielding high-danger scoring chances so they haven’t been doing Jones or Aaron Dell many favors. The team adopted a higher-risk, higher-reward style of play in the middle of last season in response to Vegas’ success and while it’s made them infinitely more bearable to watch than the previous iteration of Peter DeBoer hockey, it’s also resulted in giving up quite a few more five-alarm chances. Still, it’s not unreasonable to expect Jones to at least be within striking distance of league average and once he starts trending in that direction the Sharks theoretically have the offense, possession numbers and penalty killing to run away with the division.

Is it really worth complaining about Erik Karlsson, as some have done, when he’s got 21 points and appears to be driving the play as he always has?

 Nah. Karlsson has clearly been the team’s best overall player to anyone watching the games and controls the pace of play every time he’s on the ice. What is concerning is that, over a third of the way through the season, the coaching staff still hasn’t quite figured out how to use him. They’ve paired Karlsson with Brenden Dillon at even strength despite how dominant the pairing of Karlsson and Marc-Edouard Vlasic was to start the season. They haven’t figured out how to best combine Karlsson and Brent Burns’ talents on a single power play unit, often having Kevin Labanc quarterback the struggling man advantage instead. Then they turn around and throw arguably the two most offensively dynamic defensemen in the league out there together in bizarre situations, like on the penalty kill or a defensive zone faceoff. I don’t think the Sharks are a serious Cup contender until the coaches can figure out how to get the most out of Karlsson.

Meanwhile, Joe Thornton is average a near career-low in points per game. Just getting that old? Reason to worry?

 2018-19 is in all likelihood the Joe Thornton Farewell Tour so by those standards he’s been surprisingly effective. It helps that the Sharks haven’t really needed him to be more than a third-line center and occasional contributor on the power play and he’s played both of those roles admirably. Really the only goal with him is ensuring he’s healthy for the playoffs after missing the majority of the last two postseasons due to knee injuries.

What’s up with Timo Meier‘s breakout?

 Meier has always put up an insane shot rate going back to junior hockey and has taken that strategy to a new level this season. He’s currently third in the league in unblocked shots per minute at even strength, and with those shots going in at nearly twice the rate that they did last season it’s not surprising that he’s on pace for 50 goals. I don’t expect him to maintain that shooting percentage but based on the shot rate alone, and more importantly the types of chances he’s getting, Meier is going to blow away his previous career high of 21 goals and should easily clear the 35-goal mark as well. The biggest key is probably that his line with Logan Couture and Tomas Hertl has the size and cycling ability to get Meier those chances in front of the net that are his bread and butter but they also have the speed and passing to create chances off the rush that Meier really didn’t generate much of last season.

 

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Watching The Party – FFUD’s 2nd Round Preview: Sharks vs. Knights or That’s About Enough Of This

By Sam Fels 2423 0

 vs. 

SCHEDULE: WE DON’T KNOW BECAUSE THE NHL IS A BUNCH OF STUPIDHEADS!

HOW THEY GOT HERE: The Sharks fustigated the Ducks in 4, and the Knights did worse to the Kings in 4

At some point, the bubble has to burst. Thanks to the Kings deciding to play their first-round series like they were relegation fodder, the Knights got to simply waltz into the second round in their first playoff asking with barely a sweat. A steam-room for half an hour would have been more taxing. The Sharks won’t be as cowardly or stupid, but then they don’t have a horseshoe and salt and a rabbit’s foot jammed in their colon like the Knight have had all season. The Sharks come with no less playoff savvy than the Kings had, they just have a much better roster. One hopes this is where the Knights dance of the seven veils finally comes to an end, because this has been a bit silly.

Goalies: Whatever we said about Sergei Bobrovsky, the opposite just might be true of Martin Jones. He threw a .970 at the Ducks in the first round, though to be fair the Ducks didn’t post much more of a threat than a veiled suggestion at him. But this follows his .935 in the first round loss last year to the Oilers, and his .923 in the Sharks’ run to the Final in ’16. Jones just might be a playoff goalie, and he’ll get more support than Jonathan Quick got.

You used to toss all sort of jokes at Marc-Andre Fleury, and then he’d let those jokes pass by his glove or through his legs into the net. Not so now. Fleury was even better than Jones in the first round with a .977, but then again he faced even less of a threat than Jones did as the Kings barely sent one forward over the red line all series while Dustin Brown looked at things with his Dustin Brown face. We can say for sure that Fleury will get tested more here, but this is the same guy who backstopped the Penguins through the first two rounds last year. Where and if the Knights break, it’s unlikely to be in net.

Defense: While it doesn’t get the pub outside of Brent Burns, this is the Sharks’ strength. It’s not as good as it could be, as for reasons he can’t even understand or explain Peter DeBoer has eschewed Joakim Ryan for the smoldering husk of Paul Martin to play with Brent Burns which is a really bad idea. The Sharks defense actually spent a lot of time on the back foot against the Ducks, though with all of the Ducks merely looking at their watch the whole series they didn’t give up a lot of good chances. You’d still take this top four, and Vlasic and Braun have a better chance at nullifying the Knights’ top line. It’s not the quickest outside of Burns, making the not-playing of Ryan even more curious, and they might have to play it cautious to keep from the Knights getting behind them a lot. Which was the Kings’ problem.

I feel like I’m done trying to explain anything that goes on with Vegas. On paper, this defense sucks. Nate Schmidt is the only one you’d want. Maybe Shea Theodore if you’ve had one too many, which is the state I assume most NHL general managers operate in. But McNabb and Engelland suck and we know this. I couldn’t pick Colin Miller or John Merrill out of a lineup. And yet because the Kings didn’t do anything other than occasionally try and spread germs to them, they were untested in the first round. You’d think they’ll get no such breaks from the far deeper Sharks, especially as Donskoi and Hertl seemed to get going in Round 1. This has to be the weak point the Sharks can exploit.

Forwards: Hanging over this series is when and if Joe Thornton will return. The real question is whether the Sharks are better without him right now. Pavelski has been a much better center than wing, and he was a pretty good wing. The Sharks play faster without Thornton, and their goal-, attempt-, and scoring chance-rates have all risen since Thornton got hurt. If the Sharks jump out to a lead in this series they can hold Thornton back even longer, though it sounds like he’s never going to be healthy. Even without him, this is a deep team. The Sharks got contributions from all four lines in their ass-stuffing of the Ducks, which has been a calling-card of the Knights. When Thornton does come back it’ll be interesting if they don’t try and simply get what they can out of him and just have him replace Eric Fehr on the fourth line. For right now, they’ve got enough.

The Knights were a little more top-heavy than the Sharks in Round 1, though given the way the Kings tried to play a Panic Room game there weren’t a lot of chances to go around. They only needed seven goals to get through. Seven goals won’t get it done here, and while the Sharks will be more open than the Kings were the Knights are going to have to get more from the likes of Eakin, Nosek, Haula, and the bottom six to get out. Because the likelihood is that Pavelski, Kane, Hertl, Donskoi are going to match whatever the Knights’ top six does.

Prediction: This one’s going to go a while, because both goalies are playing too well to see either team get out of this in four or five. Each will get at least one goalie win. And while everything seems to be breaking the Knights’ way, I trust the Sharks’ defense and bottom six more than theirs. The Sharks also probably get an emotional boost from Thornton’s return, especially as it looks like it’ll happen, in whatever form, at home in Game 3 or 4. Sharks in 6. 

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Game #64 – Hawks vs. Sharks Spotlight: Martin Jones

By John Pullega 1974 0

When success has a name as common as Martin Jones, it’s easy to overlook. But here we are, with Jonathan Quick’s former backup giving the Sharks a tenuous grasp on the second slot in the woebegone Pacific Division.

But it hasn’t been free roses for Jones all year. You may remember that there was something of a goalie controversy for the Sharks back in December, when Jones found himself swimming around with an 88+ SV% for the month. Much like the to-do the Hawks had after the 2015 playoffs—in which people yelled themselves hoarse for Darling over Crawford in an ethereal dance that simply never, ever seemed to end—the unwashed in the Bay brayed and spat for Aaron Dell to start. And start he did, only to prove why he was an undrafted pick up in the first place. BUT THAT’S NOT WHY YOU CALLED.

Since the December dregs—which those in the know think was a result of an undisclosed injury—Jones has gone on to post one of the better stretches of his career as a starter. After a mixed bag January that saw him post a shutout and a 43-save shootout loss among a couple of putrid attempts, including allowing three goals on six shots against the Coyotes and a five-goal shin-kicking against Colorado, Jones has caught fire in February, posting a 93.2 SV%. Over the last eight games, he’s only allowed more than two goals once, and that was in OT against the Wild. Over that stretch, he’s gone 5-2-1, and the Sharks have needed every bit of it as they try to ward off the Army of the Damned that is the Kings, Ducks, and Flames on their tails.

Yet, despite this hot February, Jones’s SV% sits at about average: He’s currently at 91.7%, whereas the league average is 91.4%. But it makes sense, given how wildly Jones’s performance has swung this year. He bookended his horrid December and below-average January with save percentages no lower than 92.5% each month.

Jones is the Hot Pocket of goaltenders: either ice cold or scathingly hot, never quite finished cooking, and only satisfying to those who consider gastrointestinal distress a virtue. Unless, of course, he’s playing the Hawks.

In eight career games against the Hawks, Jones has posted a 93.3 SV%, a 2.00 GAA, and a 3-4-1 record. All 16 goals he’s ever given up against the Hawks have been at evens, but knowing what we know about the Hawks’s constantly confounding PP, that’s hardly a surprise. As has been the word all year, the Hawks will have to look to attack him at evens if they want a shot at solving this league-average riddle of theirs.

To borrow baseball parlance, Martin Jones is about as close to a spot starter as you can get. But given the Sharks’s outstanding special teams play, that’s really all he ever has to be. At 28, he probably doesn’t project to get much better than the literal league average, which is just fine for regular season wins. But when the games really matter, average usually doesn’t cut it. And unless Jones can show some consistency in the stretch run here, which he has not been able to do on the whole this year, the average goaltender with the average name will contribute to the average finish the Sharks seem to fall into year after year, and Jumbo Joe will continue to pine after the one trophy missing from his mantle.

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Game #62 – Sharks vs. Hawks Q&A: Some Punter From The Bus Station

By Sam Fels 1692 0

@ItWasThreeZero seemed lost and confused and wandering around. We figured that was the best type to answer our questions about the Sharks. Just another Bay Area refugee who can’t understand the outside world.

First look we’ve gotten at the Sharks. Somewhat comfortable in second in the Pacific, and yet we don’t know if they’re actually good? Are they good?

At this point the better question might be “is anyone in the Western Conference good?” Nashville probably is but unless William Karlsson and Erik Haula are gonna keep shooting at Mike Bossy levels for Vegas, the Predators might be the only legitimate Cup contender in the conference. The Sharks are clustered alongside eight or nine other teams with postseason aspirations and it wouldn’t be a surprise if they finished anywhere from second in the Pacific to 11th in the West and out of the playoffs.

The main issue with the Sharks is their lack of offensive firepower as most of their former high-end scoring threats are firmly in the “old as balls” and/or “signed a three-year contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs last summer” stages of their respective careers.  That said this is a deep roster that can capably roll four lines even in the midst of key injuries and has eight NHL options on defense. Combine that with good goaltending and strong special teams and you have a solid if unspectacular team. That might be enough to make the playoffs and even a win a round or two in the West this year.

Kevin Labanc has 31 points this season. Is he a thing?

 Labanc is the most recent late-round gem the Sharks’ scouting staff has unearthed and he fits the mold of previous finds like Joe Pavelski. He’s a smaller dude and far from an effortless skater but what he lacks in size and speed he makes up for with puckhandling ability, vision and a heavy, accurate shot. Labanc scored over 250 points in his final two OHL seasons and was a point-per-game player as a 20-year-old in the AHL last year getting his first taste of pro hockey. The kid is legit and seems to have a bright future as a middle-six scoring winger. He’s basically Kirkland Signature Alex DeBrincat.

Timo Meier is getting his first serious run in the NHL. We know there are high hopes for this kid. What have you seen?

 Everyone knows the Sharks should have taken Mathew Barzal 9th overall in the 2015 draft. What this answer presupposes is…maybe they shouldn’t have? Okay they definitely should have but that doesn’t mean their actual selection, Timo Meier, hasn’t been a valuable addition to the team. He’s a big kid who always showed a preternatural ability for generating shots in junior and that’s carried over to his nascent NHL career. He currently has the 20th best 5-on-5 shot rate of anyone in the league (min. 200 minutes) and while his actual finishing ability could still use some work he should flirt with 20 goals this year, which is all you can ask for from a 21-year-old winger in his first full professional season.

Joe Pavelski only has 15 goals so far. Is this anything more than Thornton being hurt for part of the season? He is 33, is this the decline?

Pavelski has actually scored five of those 15 goals in the 14 games since Thornton went down with a knee injury so it’s not that. In fact, he’s played his best hockey of the season since being moved back to his natural position of center in Thornton’s absence. Some of his decline in production can be blamed on injuries he was playing through earlier in the year but the reality is Pavelski, like many of the Sharks’ key players, has probably aged out of his scoring prime.

He’s still a useful player but it’s likely he’ll never score 30 goals again and that’s something Doug Wilson has to plan around this summer. Pavelski is still a big name and it might be worth it to the Sharks to get some future assets for him while they still can. On that note it’s a shame the NHL didn’t send players to the Olympics this year because the whining from Toronto over Mike Sullivan or whoever giving Pavelski more minutes than Auston Matthews would have been hilarious.

The Sharks finishing second means they’ll probably see a pretty flawed team in the first round. They then could get Vegas or a wild card if the bubble bursts on the Knights. Could the Sharks simply fall upwards to a conference final?

 It would be the most Patrick Marleau thing ever to play through 20 years of increasingly painful heartbreak with the Sharks only to have them turn around and fall ass backwards into a Stanley Cup the year after he leaves, thanks to a weak playoff field and Steven Stamkos’ leg falling off or something. Now I’m convinced this is going to happen.

 

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Your Friends And Neighbors – ’17-’18 NHL Team Previews: Silicon Valley Bubble Burst

By 1960

In about five years, if you’re not already, we’re all going to look back and just wonder how in the hell the Sharks ever came out of the West. It was the perfect storm for them I suppose, as the bottom dropped out on pretty much every other team that had kept them down for so long and they were able to rise by standing still. It might be as good as things get for the Sharks for a while. Teams aren’t supposed to be completely handcuffed by the departure of a 35-year-old, one-dimensional scorer. It’s the kind of thing you buttress your team against. And yet, here the Sharks are, still holding a bouquet of flowers for Patrick Marleau in the rain, unaware that they’ve completely wilted now and wondering just where their love went. And it hasn’t allowed them to come up with too many answers otherwise either.

San Jose Sharks

’16-’17 Record: 46-29-7  99 points (3rd in Pacific, coldcocked by Oilers in Round 1)

Team Stats 5v5: 51.1 CF% (8th)  51.8 SF% (4th)  51.4 SCF% (9th)  7.8 SH% (14th)  .924 SV% (12th)

Special Teams: 16.6 PP% (25th)  80.6 PK% (16th)

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Do You Still Hate Me? – Hawks at Sharks Preview, Mini Van Taxi Reservation

By 1541

 at 

Game Time: 9:30PM CST
TV/Radio: CSN, WGN-AM 720
The Ol’ Diamondback Sturgeon: Fear The Fin

Now that the All Star wank-fest weekend has concluded in L.A., the NHL resumes what can be construed as the beginning of the end of the 82 game road to nowhere- the month between the the break and the trade deadline. And the Hawks will begin this stretch in San Jose at the start of a six game road trip while looking to correct some mistakes made to some of the also-rans of the league last week.

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Too Many Puppies – Hawks 4, Sharks 1

By 1423

Box Score
Natural Stat Trick

At this point in this era of the Hawks, there are no statement games. Ownership on down has given an organizational mandate on the standard to which this team is to be held, and that’s silver and parades. That being said. with this being the third game in four nights after playing a back and forth affair in West East St. Louis last night, it could have been very easy for the Hawks to kind of pack it in tonight without their 2nd line center, but that didn’t happen.

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Mirror Stares Back Hard – Sharks vs Hawks Preview, Tech Crunch Awards After-Party

By 1477

salsa shark vs evil empire

Game Time: 7:30PM Central
TV/Radio: CSN, WGN-AM 720
Optimal Tip-To-Tip Efficiency: Fear The Fin

Due to a fortunate bit of scheduling, the Capades’ stand at the United Center coincided with the NHL All Star game, and as a result the Hawks’ only played four games away from the West Side in their 16 days since last being at home. And they’ll do so tonight against the Sharks, a team no one can figure out what exactly it is they’re doing.