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Confusion
It's Not Bad, And That's Good
| 11/24/15 - By Ken Smyth -
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Is it hard to figure out this season's edition of
the San Jose Sharks? Yes. Laying it all out: they tear up the league the first
week, then lose Logan Couture to a practice injury and proceed to go 4-8 over
the next four weeks. Just as everybody was declaring that they were sinking to
their proper level and it was time (again) to trade Patrick Marleau they roll
off six straight wins on a 10-day road trip back east, establishing themselves
as a force in the Atlantic Division. They return home Wednesday night for a
game against the defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks. The Hawks
are 1-2 so far on their own 6 game,11 day road trip. We can all hope that the
Sharks confuse them as well.
Confusion is a lot better than the
resignation we've all been feeling, and that "we" includes the 3000 or so empty
seats who show up for most home games. In spite of the younger, faster team
stuff General Manager Doug Wilson was mumbling in the 2014 off-season, he was
apperantly confused, too. The major player moves in summer 2015 were signing 34
year olds Joel Ward and Paul Martin to three and four year contracts; and
trading away the 2016 first round pick for goaltender Martin Jones.
The new coach is Peter DeBoer, best known for pumping life into Florida and New
Jersey teams that were getting stale. This is clearly a team that was put
together to try and do something over the last two years of Marleau and Joe
Thornton's contracts.
This looked like a stopgap rather than any kind
of rebuild. In two years Marleau and Thornton's contracts are off the books and
maybe, just maybe there's a better idea of who among the collection of guys on
the Sharks' third and fourth lines plus the SJ Barracuda roster are going be as
NHL'ers. Joe Pavelski and Logan Couture are the leaders up front and
Marc-Edourd Vlasic is the stalwart on the blueline. But meanwhile, the players
added by Wilson are doing well.
Ward and Martin look like the right pieces plugged
into the Sharks' liineup to allow other players to go back into more suitable
roles. Martin Jones has been scary when he's on. If Jones stays this good, and
Bruins goaltender Tukka Rask continues with his ugly season, Bruins GM Don
Sweeny may feel the wrath of Bruins fans about another bad trade with the
Sharks.
All this comes as the Golden State Warriors have won a
championship and are playing incredibly entertaining basketball. (Five years
ago, did any Bay Area sports fan ever expect that sentence to be uttered in
their lifetime?) Because of this and the Sharks' reputation for playoff failure
there are plenty of empty seats in the Tank.
If the Sharks are hoping
that casual fans will give them rat's asses for Christmas they'll be
disappointed. But between now and then they play 13 games, 11 of them against
teams the were in the playoffs last April. They could run the table or drop
back, go 4-9 and have the questions start all over again. But a confusing team
is much better, and more fun than a depressing one.
Contact Ken
at at kensmyth@letsgosharks.com
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