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Sour grapes
This season most disappointing ever
5/9/07 - By Paul Krill
OK, I'm going to be right up
front with what you will get with this column. Sour grapes. I am flat-out
bitter about how this season ended. This is worse than the second season's
11-71-2 team, because not much was expected from that squad.
But this one was tooled to win the Stanley Cup. All the pieces were in place.
And everything seemed to work, including the Mike Grier, Craig Rivet and Curtis
Brown acquisitions. Until there were 33 seconds left in Game 4, with the Sharks
up by a goal. Then, the Wings scored and I, for one, knew there was no chance
of the Sharks winning in OT after that.
They went on to score a grand total of one goal in the next two games before it
was time to clean out the lockers.
So, it appears the Sharks did everything right and still didn't get one step
further than last year. Perhaps it is time for a new mascot that more
accurately reflects the lot in life of this franchise. Don't get me wrong - SJ
Sharky is the greatest. But I was thinking of Dick Dastardly, a cartoon
character in the 1960's TV series, "The Wacky Races."
If I recall correctly and it's been a long time, obviously, Dastardly would try
all sorts of tricks to try to win the race. But each week, he would lose.
(We'll forget for a minute that Dastardly was cast as the villain of the
series. I don't see the Sharks as villains, just as hapless when May rolls
around.)
It will be interesting to hear what the Sharks brass tells us at the annual
season ticket holder "summit" meeting. It's not like they didn't already do
what needed to be done after last season, shoring up the penalty kill, getting
tougher and tightening up the defense.
Still, the results were exactly the same: Goodbye after game six of the second
round.
I am looking for optimism here but simply can't find any. The Sharks gave up
two first-round picks to make a run at the Cup and it didn't do any good. Now,
I fear things will only get even worse. What I mean by that is Anaheim, where
there probably shouldn't even be an NHL franchise, stands a good chance to
become California's first Stanley Cup winner. (Sorry, there was and is no need
for two NHL franchises in the Los Angeles area.)
Meanwhile, Sharks fans still wonder what it must be like to attend a Stanley
Cup Finals game. Only one franchise older than the Sharks, the Phoenix Coyotes
(formerly Winnipeg) has never been to the Cup Finals. Several younger
franchises (Anaheim, Florida, Tampa Bay) already have been there. Ottawa may
join that bunch in two weeks.
Maybe some day, the Sharks will squeak into the eighth spot of the playoffs
with a superstar-less squad that overachieves and goes on to bring home the
Stanley Cup.
You never know.
Contact Paul at at pjkrillsharks@yahoo.com
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