Game 8: Don't Bring a Hat You're Not Willing to Throw

Congratulations to Joe Pavelski and his wife, Sarah, on their newborn son!

In other news:

The Sharks are once again at 500! They improved their record to 4-4-0 with a big win over the Devils and looked okay doing it! The gameplay wasn't all that smooth overall, but even though the Sharks aren't at the strength they were at this point last season, Devils are almost completely in shambles. Trading away a veteran defenseman for Ilya Kovalchuk and then signing him to a prohibitive, career-ending contract with a no-movement clause seems like madness to me. To add to their miseries, the NHL decided to disallow one ridiculous contract, allow a second ridiculous contract, and then punish the team for one of the two (does it matter which?). I don't understand that at all. At any rate, the Devils look awful.

Joe Thornton had a hat-trick (you don't see that every year) and a point on all five goals. And what do I see the rest of the night? Thousands of dickweeds still wearing baseball caps. But what am I supposed to do, walk up to each of a thousand people and say, "Hats off, Jackass. I know that Giants cap was expensive and you just bought it in the last two days, but can you at least take it off? The man just scored three goals for your stupid ass."? It seems disrespectful to me to flaunt your hat after somebody scores a hat-trick. Even for the other team. Apparently, that's just me, though.

Games 5-7: "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad"

All-in-all I thought that was about as good a road trip as we had any right to expect, based upon the first four games of this season. The Colorado game was a little shaky at times, but a good win. The Edmonton game, besides the embarrassment of that short-handed goal (the one highlight from that game showed repeatedly on NHL network), was a gratifying blowout. In fact, one could say that the Sharks “responded well” to the bad play early in the game. The Calgary game was only bad for a little over ten minutes. The Sharks controlled most of the rest of that game and took the crowd right out of it, only thwarted by the outstanding play of Miikka Kiprusoff. Did anybody else hear how quiet it got in there? It sure didn’t sound like a 4-0 game. I wasn’t even prepared to own up to the fact that the Sharks were probably not going to come back until half-way through the third period. Antti Niemi can’t carry the blame for the three he let in and Niittymaki, who looks like he might have a leaky right pad, looked really solid the rest of the game. In fact, if that puck hadn’t been rolling on only one of its edges there’s no way it would have gone in for the one goal against him. It was close enough that I’d call it a fluke. The only worrying thing is that that makes two flukes in four games for Niittymaki. Despite the loss, I thought it was a confidence-inspiring road trip. And as I begin to look forward to tonight’s game against the NJ Devils (completely ignoring game one of the world series for today), I leave these words for those still looking back on the road trip:

Don’t be sad, ‘cause two out of three ain’t bad.

Game 4: Home-Ice Advantage Nowhere to Be Found

Another disheartening loss in San Jose. By my count, the Sharks are 1-3-0 at this early point in the season. Starting goalie Antti Niemi looked pretty solid in the 5-2 loss tonight. That's how bad the Sharks' play was. The Hurricanes had been on a skid so they came to play hard and they outmatched the Sharks from the start. The first goal of the game was a short-handed goal against, leaving us all feeling like we were picking up right where we left off against the Thrashers. Sometime in the second period the Sharks got their act a bit more together. They kept giving up the odd-man rushes, but successfully got in the way of the Hurricanes' passes across. Also Marleau scored two goals to bring the Sharks within a goal of tying. That kept the game interesting for most of a period.

I like the new lines! Rather, I really like seeing Marleau/Thornton/Setoguchi back together. I still like seeing Couture getting time on the second line. McGinn/Pavelski/Mitchell aren't loooking too bad. It is, however, at this time, when Mayers is injured and McLaren is scratched, that I can't help but fantasize just a little about how monumentally super bad-ass it would be to have Owen Nolan trolling the bottom two lines for under a million dollars right now.

I also can't help but feel that we may have lost our Home Ice Advantage. We miss Nabby. He was key to our home ice advantage. He was steady, homegrown (if drafting someone from Kazakhstan makes makes them homegrown), and fans loved to cheer him. Sid feared him and he was the last goaltender Ovie had never scored on (right up until he did it twice in 24 seconds). For the first time in a while, expectations seem to be lower than the year previous and the fans are a little more hesitant. Some of them are still cheering for Nabby from the rafters. The line juggling has also cost us some familiarity. In the end it means we lost our first two home games and looked bad doing it. And a big part of what made the HP Pavilion the most vaunted arena in the league* was not just the travel or the noise-level of the fans; it was the knowledge that it is the home of the Sharks and they will beat the crap out of you and take your two points.

We'll get the Advantage back, but we (the Sharks and the fans together) will have to earn it back.

*based on a sampling of 272 players by Sports Illustrated

Game 3: "The Man with the Funny Name Strikes Again!"*

I've seen better home openers. Last year's comes to mind, when Dany Heatley got a penalty shot and scored The Hat Trick that Launched a Thousand BlackArmor Heatley Jerseys. The season opener the year before that, too, where we crushed the Ducks 4-0, as I recall. It was the start of several months of unbroken home domination. Last night we lost our first home game to the Thrashers. And I don't mean that our first home game was lost to the Thrashers. I mean that this is the first time we've ever lost a home game to Atlanta. That sucks! And for Byfuglien to get the game-winning goal...is that the fourth or fifth consecutive time he's done that to us? After they moved him back to be a defenseman? At least we know the problem wasn't Nabby. Andrew Ladd got a short-handed goal, too. The Blackhawks sure do like to score on our power play.

One thing that jumped out at me last night was that, as much as I would like to see another top-3 man added to what appears to be a weak defensive line-up, it was Dan Boyle who made me repeatedly groan in dismay. He failed to tie up the second man (Andrew Ladd) on the short-handed goal. He made blind, back-handed passes to nobody when he was pinching and one of them led directly to Atlanta's fourth goal. He knows better than that, so what's going on? He didn't look as composed as usual, and although he only came out -2 on the night, he was on the ice for all four Atlanta goals.** I don't mean to rag on him, I just find it ironic that, for all the fretting fans (myself included) have been doing over the Sharks' defense, it is the one man of whom I've heard no criticism that was making costly turnovers and missing assignments. Maybe that's because he played a minute longer than average.

For the record, I think Marleau had one of his off-nights, but the Clowe/Couture/Heatley line looked great! I just don't like to see Joe Pavelski bumped to the third line. Let's hope he can get Jamie McGinn and Torrey Mitchell to start scoring. Yes, I am aware that Torrey Mitchell is currently outscoring Joe Pavelski. I worry that the disparity in ice-time between the 2nd and 3rd lines will mean Todd McClellan will juggle the line combinations more frequently than usual, which might mean that chemistry is slower to develop. Kinda still feel that way about the defense.

From the rafters:

Let's go, Sharks!

*stolen from Ryan Leong's facebook comment
**Boyle earned +1 for an assist and one of the Atlanta goals was on the power play, which does not affect +/- scores.

Game 2: "Holm Opener"

Well, the Sharks lost, but it was a big bounce-back game for the fans! Maybe it was because our seat arrangements were a little different or because everyone was primed from the first game, or maybe because the referees' wives weren't sitting directly in front of us (they didn't like their husbands' terrible calls criticized). Anyway, good show, Fans! I couldn't help but notice a lot more of the calls were going against the Jackets in Game 2. Also, way to get Mike Commodore benched for the third period! Of course there's no way to prove any connection, but that's the kind of self-important, fan-aggrandizing guy I am.

Speaking of fans, the attendance to the Saturday game was even worse than Friday's! There had to have been under 10,000 people in there! It looked like the United Center two years ago. Greg Jamison was at the game; I regret not asking him when I had the chance why it is that the NHL seems content to let so many seats go empty. One would think that to "grow the game" abroad it would be best to keep the seats cheap (like, maybe, have some available for under $100) and make a killing on merchandise. The SAP Arena in Mannheim was packed and I couldn't get a scarf because the last two were sold to the people directly in front of me in line. My family and I walked around the whole arena looking for another one, but the entire place was sold out of Sharks merchandise by the second intermission!

Having now seen a regular season game from each of our two new goalies, I am not feeling very strongly one way or another. Niemi definitely outperformed Niittymaki in this pair of games, but Niittymaki did have a number of strong saves and Niemi's play wasn't overly confidence-inspiring. Certainly not enough to make me forget about the thin team defense. The words "defense by committee" scare me. I can only cling to my confidence that Doug Wilson knows what is up and that he's only waiting for the right guy...

I apologize for the lateness of this post, but I've been without internet from the end of the game until now. My throat is still sore from screaming (these back-to-back games are brutal), so I feel like I can sneak in under the statute of limitations.

Last Night's Game: Season Opener

I am happy to be typing, rather than talking, because my voice is not happy with me today. But before I begin talking about last night's game I should mention the guided tour of the city and the queens' palace, Drottningholm. Our tour guide was the same who gives tours to the Nobel Laureates and she began by telling us that she had requested to do the Sharks tour group because her daughter is best friends with Douglas Murray's sister. She even called his mom to see if we could drop by. Awesome. Also before the game my family and I hit up a thrift store two blocks from the hotel. My aunt found a Tre Kroner jersey for under ten bucks and I got a Djurgardens IF beanie for five. Tre Kroner is the Swedish national team and Djurgardens is the local team that plays in the Globe. Dan Boyle played for Djurgardens and I hear that Douglas Murray's legendary grandfather, Lasse Bjorn, was the long-time captain of the team. Lasse Bjorn has won 9 Swedish ice hockey championships, more than any other man. Marcus Ragnarsson is the current captain of Djurgardens.

And Now The Game:

The NHL doesn't seem to be concerned much with filing the seats at the Globe for these games. The cheapest tickets available are over a hundred dollars, so they couldn't even sell out the 13,500 seats there.

The atmosphere couldn't have been more different from the game in Mannheim. That exhibition game in Mannheim was riotously loud and the packed house and the beating drum sent my heart racing. As I said before, I had been expecting to be the loudest fans in attendance and to make an impression on the German fan base. Instead I found we had to speak into each other's ears just to have a conversation. The Swedish fans were cool enough, as much as you can expect for a game with no local team playing, but the fans here make me sick for home. Here in Stockholm we've got almost a whole section of traveling fans sitting together and I still don't know what to do to get more than ten of them chanting and jeering. I screamed myself hoarse that whole game at the refs, Mason, and Mike Commodore in the third period after he almost killed Jamie McGinn, but alas, it was almost all calls and no response. The fans seemed content to listen and laugh. At least our seats were above the glass and the arena was quiet; I could hear the refs calling "two minutes for charging," so I'm pretty sure those Blue Jackets heard every word and when it came time for the Sharks to give their fan salute, Joe Thornton knew exactly where we were.

Who's that? That's Kent Huskins

Hej from Stockholm! The city has been awesome so far. It's beautiful, has good public transport, everybody speaks English (notable exception: cab drivers. We must have told ours to take us to the Hilton, not the Sheraton, half-a-dozen times and he still had us within a block of the Sheraton before we got through to him) and they're all really helpful. It helps that I like colder weather. The streets are cobblestone and the architecture is ancient. It's a hipster's wet dream; bicycles have their own roads, there are coffee shops all over town, and the weather means nobody looks stupid wearing a pea coat and a scarf. Our first night here my family and I visited the Vasa museum. The Vasa is a Swedish warship dating back to the era of shipwrighting before they figured out that new ships could be designed with mathematics instead of just trial and error. The ship sunk in the harbor on its maiden voyage in 1629, but since it was in the supercold harbor the whole ship has been remarkably well preserved. It was only brought to the surface again in the 1960's. Maybe not something that I would have chosen to do, but it was definitely worth a look.

Thursday was a fan-viewable practice and a player "meet and greet." I put that in quotes because was more like the players trickling through the gauntlet of a hundred fans on their way to the bus. Just a mad scramble for autographs and pictures. There wasn't any structure to speak of, and if it had been in San Jose it would have been intolerable, but as it was with the limited number of fans on the trip it was pretty exciting to say hi to all the players, to congratulate Jumbo Joe on his new child and Niemi on his Stanley Cup (I didn't know what I was saying; it just came out), and to tell Logan Couture that it's nice for somebody awesome to be wearing the number 39 again. I overheard some guy congratulating Boyle on becoming the captain. That must've rubbed a little salt in, given that Danny Boyle had heard only minutes before that Joe Thornton had been named captain. It's interesting to see the kind of fans that have come on this trip. Most of them seem to purchase the Sharks ten-game pack or split season tickets with several other people, some are season ticket holders. But there is one thing it appears everybody had in common: no one could recognize Kent Huskins.

At practice: "Who's that?"

Me: "That's Kent Huskins."

5 minutes later: "Who's THaT?"

Me: "That's Kent Huskins again! They just switched sides."

Lady at the team meet & greet: "I don't think I recognize any of these kids up from Wooster."
Me: "Well, that's Kent Huskins."

Lady: "Oh!!"

It went on.

I guess he's just got one of those faces.

Had a conversation with Dan Rusanowski regarding why Thomas Greiss wasn't given any game time during the Mannheim game. The goalies for Mannheim switched at the half-way point of the game. He said that the decision was to not reward Greiss by playing in his home country because, with their first game less than a week later, it was important to prepare for the coming season. When I asked if you shouldn't play your German players if the purpose of the exhibition game was to grow the sport in Germany, Dan said, "Not the goalie." (He also confirmed that Jeff Friesen still plays for the Berliner Eisbaeren)

One complaint this post, at the risk of coming across as a spoiled ingrate: The gifts we got from the Premiere Sports Package were chintzy and lame, verging on insulting. My parents celebrated their thirtieth anniversary by going to Japan for the the Sharks GAME ONe a dozen or so years ago. They each received an authentic jersey with the GAME ONe patch on the sleeve. Naturally, my family and I had been hoping for and half-expecting one the jerseys the Sharks are wearing here with the Stockholm patch on the chest and the XX twentieth anniversary patch on the sleeve. What we got when we checked into the hotel 6,000 miles later was a puck, a give-away bag with cords for straps, and a tiny plastic helmet you don't buy at the store for $15 because what are you gonna do with that piece of junk? It's also a huge pain to pack for the ride home. Maybe not everyone feels that way, but I can tell you it's not just me.

Oh, one last travel tip from Stockholm:

We were walking about the city with a Swedish relative of ours who lives ten blocks from our hotel, looking for a place to eat, and after the first restaurant was too expensive and the next two had too long of a wait, we just stepped into what looked like a pub. Apparently, and according to our local relative, every bar here is required by law to have a full kitchen and to serve food! So if you ever find yourself in a similar position, the cheapest and most fun way to go may just be the local bar.