Now it’s time for the article that will give you deja vu because I have literally wrote it too many times to count this season… San Jose had the second last nail hammered into their half buried coffin and your pal Ian is going to tell you how he saw it. It’s the post game, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!
The Good: Aside from the ending this was actually a fun up tempo run and gun game to watch. There was a lot of chances, very few stoppages of play and aside from 2 penalties the refs swallowed their whistles. So despite the outcome there was some good, special teams converted for a power play goal and the penalty kill did their job on the two penalties that were called in the game. When the Sharks need a spark Joe Pavelski is there and has been there all year but could the Sharks just name him as captain at you know any point this year? No because they are going to do it in the offseason as an olive branch, another sign of change. Sadly people are going to eat that up. On topic the sharks kept up to pace for 2 periods and had their chances.
The Bad: Don’t forget to put your deposit down on those Sharks playoff tickets! You could make an argument for Niemi here but I really don’t lay this one at his feet at all, but if you want Neimi here pretend that’s what I wrote.
The Ugly: The 3rd period things really went off the rails and where have we seen this before? Probably in 25 of our 30 losses this season. The play that lead to the tying goal was rough for the defense who hung Niemi out to dry. The winning goal was a tough break, Dillon loses his footing and the rookie Mueller is stuck in a 3 on one which I thought he played well enough, he didn’t over commit tried to cut off the passing lanes and made sure not to screen Niemi. I’d like to see Nemo make that save as too many pucks has sneaked though his five hole this year but again 3 on 1. The really frustrating this is the way the Sharks responded once they were down or should I say how they didn’t respond. The Senators with the lead were able to lock things down and once again the Sharks could not adapt and they could not overcome and that has been our season in a nut shell.
Final Thoughts: So what hope do the Sharks have left at this point? They need to win all 9 of their remaining games, that’s it. As it stands today the Sharks have a better chance at winning the draft lottery than finishing inside the playoffs. The schedule is not in their favour and the out of town score board is of no help or at least when it is the Sharks refuse to capitalize. It’s been a frustrating year for the teal faithful and it’s not over yet. At this point I am kind of numb to the whole thing, what happens next… plenty of time to write about all that for the mean time I’m focused on what is left of the season that is all but over now.
Don’t forget that the inaugural episode of the Teal Tinted Glasses Podcast is recording this week and should be available Thursday.
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I hope you all give it a listen and more importantly I hope you all enjoy.
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