Anaheim. Stop me if you've heard the one about Bay Area teams going up in smoke in a town best known for a theme park...and the 3-2 pitch to Spiezioooo. I think the die hard fan in the Red Wings jersey and Ducks hat pretty much sums up what this win means to the average Southland hockey fan (read: nothing). This entire region of the country is predicated upon the power of pretend, and their fans did not disappoint by bravely upholding that phony standard, and then being rewarded for it...just like in the movies.
The Sharks were badly outplayed in all facets to a player and lost every little battle culminating in an epic choke for the ages. From loose pucks lost to sloppy passes to unfinished checks to letting a team run your goalie unabated, this one had it all. But hey, the Sharks shot more, and if I hear another stat extolling the virtues of merely shooting more impossible angle prayer shots, I might snap. I mean, Custer probably shot more before he and his bunch were put in the mother of all left-wing locks so to speak (substituting Crazy Horse for Corey bleeping Perry).
The Sharks won all year and secured the best record because of the following trinity: GA, PP%, PK%. What people are not talking about are the GF category, because the Sharks were pretty pedestrian in that category and almost 50 total goals scored behind Detroit for the year. So, if you knock out one of the stool legs, then the Sharks get real average...knock them all out, and it's going to be a lot easier than that as average will quickly degenerate into lousy. Goals Against speaks for itself: 18 for the Ducks and 10 for the Sharks in the series, with two shutouts by a rookie goalie who last was in the playoffs somewhere in the Swiss Alps against a team I can't begin to even pronounce. Hiller, like the Spiezios before him, played totally over his head and will never do it again and it won't matter a damn if he doesn't...he'll be eating fondue and running a goalie camp in Davos in a couple years. Power Play Percentage was 17% for the series versus 24% for the year and they killed off a whopping 77% of their Penalties versus 82% for the year...broken down a different way: top five in the three categories over the regular season and bottom tier in playoffs. Put that together with a lack of true scoring talent, and the scoring talent you actually have mired in a slump and it equals big problem.
The Sharks lost because of Jonathan Cheechoo, or what he embodies, a lack of guys who can just put it into the back of the net...not a locker room leader or a gel guy or an attitude guy...but a sniper. Yes, Evgeni, there's a lot of blame to go around, but in Cheechoo (Andruw Jones) you have a guy that went from a 56 goal scorer a couple years back to 12 last year! Blue Line is strong provided it stays in tact and unretired, and JR is a great, dumb commercial making grit guy with maybe 1 more year before hospice, but we need goals. Joe Thornton is still the heart of this team, but Jumbo needs a sniper to dish to. It's like Stockton without Malone, Joe is part I of a great combo, but can't do it alone. Setoguchi was awesome last year and maybe he grows into that guy, but Joe needs a true scorer capable of 50+ goals right now, not 30 maybe if the Sharks are ever going to have a prayer of advancing.
Scoring is one of those things that makes everything else alright. You can still stink up the joint with your special teams just as long as you have a one track guy(s) who can bail you out with goals in crunch time. Oh, and they don't give out goals for picking fights with guys either, and on that, Ryan Getzlaf was totally over matched and knew it going in, but stood in there and took his beating like a man and never quit. Joe, on the other hand, looked like Johnny Lawrence beating the hell out of Daniel LaRussa...you start almost feeling sorry for Getzlaf until you realize that towards the end of the movie, Joe will probably get his ass crane kicked out of the rink.
What do you call a stool with no legs?...a cutting board.
