Sharks, I just, I can’t. I just can’t. I can’t even.
I don’t know about you anymore.
You aren’t making the summer easy. I didn’t think you would, but it’s almost like you’re trying to drive me away. While we all knew change, much like winter, was coming, letting Todd walk seems like a bad idea. Ok, I get it, even great coaches lose the room, and McLellan clearly did, but I’m still not convinced there’s a better coaching option out there.
Having given it some thought, I’m of the opinion that he really did walk, too, not that he was pushed out. He might have been, but thinking back to some of his comments at the end of the season, well, I think he knew the writing was on the wall. I think he knew the Sharks were a ship not worth sinking with, and I think he was given the option to leave gracefully if he chose to. He did. Was he probably going to be fired anyway? Yeah, most likely, but I really feel like he broke up with the Sharks and not the other way around.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to be sure this ship will right itself anytime soon. Doug Wilson is still the GM, and it seems like he will be for at least the next little while. He’s clearly done a good job selling Hasso Plattner on his rebuild idea, and is it for the (hopefully short but maybe) long haul. I find this disappointing because I really feel that he did the Sharks a disservice in how he reacted to the loss to the Kings last season. He was extremely emotional (not that I can blame him for that), and made some questionable signings and decisions about how to use the roster that were detrimental to the team’s success overall. I know the org. keeps mentioning how they looked in January, but anyone watching them closely saw troubling signs of inconsistency and struggle long before February doomed them to the summer golf course. A few of the player comments during the course of the season and during locker clean out show a clear rift in the room, one that I’m not sure Wilson can solve. Not while he has his own issues with Joe Thornton, anyway.
Wilson has sounded relaxed about finding a new coach, and I’m not sure if that’s just Wilson being Wilson, or a sign that they really aren’t sure what they are looking for. We might be able to glean more once the playoffs are over, and all the coaches who are going to be available really are.
I’m also not sold on Tortora, as he seems to be very out of step with the fans and rather dismissive of their concerns. Whatever he thinks San Jose wants, it’s clearly not it. (The ice girls are very much ice girls, even if they have ice boys skating beside them. It’s unnecessary and not San Jose.)
Objectively speaking, it’s not like things are Oilers or Leafs level bad, but they aren’t good either. This just doesn’t seem like the Sharks organization I’ve grown to love. Obviously, the summer is long and many things could happen. Nothing is set in stone, and no games have been played in the 2015-2016 season, but so far, nothing has been done to alleviate my fears that the Sharks are truly lost in a fog, and there’s no lighthouse or fog horn to guide them home.
