Thursday, April 30, 2009

Thursday Morning Cupcheck - R.I.P. San Jose Sharks, 2005-2009

By Todd Maternowski

For shame, Anaheim Apparently Mighty Ducks, for shame. For you have taken hockey's great paper tiger, the San Jose "I Can't Believe It's Not Hockey!" Sharks out of the playoffs far sooner than most pundits predicted. And this in a year when the Sharks were supposed to meet the Canadiens head-on in the Battle of Predetermined Inevitable Champions!

And shame on you for bringing me so far out of my Dallas Stars-lovin', no-playoffs-for-you shell to actually cheer wildly for a division rival. I've not rooted for the Ducks since, uh... well, actually I root for them plenty, now that I think about it. Basically every time they play, and soundly thrash, the Red Wings always brings a ray of joy into my dark, soulless shell of a heart.

Not all superpowers are good for all situations

And the way the Ducks play --crashing the net at every opportunity, slamming opposing forwards against whatever unmovable objects that may be near by, absolutely mauling enemy forecheckers in the corners, and making timely saves on too-pretty scoring chances-- leaves me confused and aroused, like Rob Blake at a furries convention. So with no 'dog in the race' this year, so to speak, it's time to officially nominate the 2008-09 Anaheim Ducks as my Team I Would Like To See Win One More Round Before Bowing Out.

What's that you say? You say that the Sharks-Ducks series was more about one team's collapse than one team's unlikely triumph? You would be correct, sir: as I've been stating publicly to both of my readers since mid-October, the Sharks were spending all season getting all "winned out", and setting themselves up for colossal, epic failure. President's Trophy winners rarely win it all, but hell, most of the time they at least win out a round or two before their inevitable 'upset'. Combine the President's Trophy curse with the already well-established San Jose Sharks playoff curse --as well as the curse I put on them with my $4.99 Slitherin wand I got at that gas station in Tuscon-- and you've got a Rachel Ray-level recipe for disaster.

The problem? The Sharks are not built for the playoffs. Period.

Sure, they're incredibly talented. And massive. And play physical, smart hockey. With dominant special teams. And a world-class goalie capable of stealing games on your team's rare off-nights. But does any of that actually translate into the one aspect of playoff hockey that really matters?

Watch the games: which team's superstars are flying recklessly into the corners to fight for pucks, getting sticked in their man-pretty faces and coming out of the pile with the puck, only to get clobbered milliseconds later? Which team's role players are momentarily forgetting their supposed lack of offensive hockey prowess, fearlessly charging the net, fighting through massive defensemen to get there? Which team has corazon, cajones and pinchay cabrones?

Quick hint: it wasn't the Sharks.

The Sharks suffer from what I like to call The Scouting Sickness: in the NFL or NHL, often a kid with great speed and size and ability will enter the draft, and get snatched up by some team desperate looking for physically-perfect 18 year-old boys. More times than not, these 'workout warriors' flame out --somehow despite their amazing 40-yard dash times and bench figures-- and the team that selected them is out several million and a high-round draft pick.

Emergency consultants have been called in to help San Jose's 'little queens'

Meanwhile, unnoticed in the bottom of the sixth round, a far smarter team finds a smallish, slowish player that seems to produce far above their head, selects them and five years later is hailed as a drafting genius.

And then there's teams that find those draft gems in the first round: immensely talented kids with the hearts of the 7th rounders. Kids who were not handed their hockey careers on a silver platter, the Sons of Entitlement who cannot be bothered to chase their linemate's errant pass to negate an icing.

And ultimately that is what this San Jose Sharks team lacks: heart. 'Heart' is not just a willingness to go into the corners to retrieve the puck; it's the willingness to go into the corner to retrieve the puck for the fiftieth time despite getting bodyslammed into the boards the first 49 times. 'Heart' is the willingness to exert yourself chasing down a puck even after you tried and failed for the first 57 minutes of the game; it's the kamikaze-like disregard for your own health flying towards the enemy net when two or three huge bruisers are a half-second away from sending you to the trainer's room with a well-placed open-ice check.

What 'heart' is not: sacrificing your body to go into the corners once or twice, getting creamed twice in a row and then trying 'something else' the next time. Skating full-speed-ahead into the offensive zone, seeing hulking behemoths in front of you and 'wisely' using your puck-handling skills to deftly avoid one while heading to the boards and preparing to make a pass to a winger streaking towards the net.

And therein lies the Sharks' problem: in the regular season, Joe Thornton makes beautiful passes to streaking wingers resulting in highlight-reel goals. In the playoffs? Joe Thornton's passes are still unicorn-pretty, but those streaking wingers are being held up at the blue line by clutching and grabbing forwards, have been flattened by opposing d-men 30 feet from the puck, or are just unwilling to crash the net after they got high-sticked in the face the first five times they tried it, and are 'going around' to where the 'open ice' is.

The result is always the same: missed passes, missed opportunities, missed scoring chances, and early playoff exits. Rinse, lather, and repeat.

The hockey pundit world is annually shocked and appalled that a regular-season phenom could so predictably fall flat in the playoffs, but to those of us who watch this team on a regular basis, the only real surprise is that it happened in the first round, rather than the usual second round. Of course, having played some truly horrible teams in years past like Nashville and Calgary might have artificially inflated the Sharks' playoff runs in years past.

The solution? Trade Marleau to the Stars for Mark Parrish. Put Thornton on waivers. Nabokov for Tobias Stephan straight-up (ok, ok, Sharks throw in a 3rd-rounder to sweeten the deal). Having players that need to work just to keep their jobs is the way to go. In the meantime, we'll take those perennial playoff underperformers off your hands. Consider it a favor. You'll owe us later.

Well, that's it for this week's all-encompassing, all-inclusive Cupcheck. Tune in nex--wait, what? There were other rounds, other teams, more drama, more amazing storylines? Really? Oh, allright, since I was so spot-on in my last batch of predictions (I even got two of the sweeps predicted right and was just one meaningless game off on two more! Take that, Nostradamus!): Wings in six, Canucks in six, Penguins in seven, Bruins in six. Sorry, broom salesmen: no sweeps in this round. Tune in next week when I review Spike Lee's latest hockey documentary: Blue Dynamite: The Sean Avery Story.

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• Thursday Morning Cupcheck — excuses, excuses (Oct. 1, 2009)
• Thursday Morning Cupcheck - A Complete Guide to the Old West (Sept. 10, 2009)
• Thursday Morning Cupcheck — Trash-Talking Primer (July 30, 2009)
• Thursday Morning Cupcheck: The Curious Case of Mr. Sergei Zubov (July 16, 2009)

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