Friday, February 6, 2015

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly - Week In Review! - Feb 6th. 2015



Guys first I want to apologize for the lack of GBU's of late and appreciate the fact that people actually asked what the hell was up it makes the time I put into these posts 100% worth it and I can't thank you guys enough or put into words the appreciation that I have for the support you have given me since this started.  Unfortunately I live in the eastern timezone and I have to be up around 7ish to start my work day.  What has happening too often was game ends around 12:30 to 1 am, after putting together the post and never being one to leave a good conversation about hockey it could be 3 am before I lay down, 330 before I'm sleeping and up at 7am... needless to say the sandman was starting to attack me at work and that is unacceptable,  This is no ones fault but my own, I'm a grown ass man making poor decisions, I just wanted to explain why the change.  Now I do enjoy the other stuff I wrote but I really like the GBU the most so in order for it to continue I'll be changing up the format a little bit.  On weekends you will still get your post game GBU's unless I'm doing something else after all this is a hobby for me. During the week I'll probably do a GBU that covers a few games on Friday.  I hope everyone enjoys the format and continues to read.

Without further a due its time for the post that could probably be summed up as Vancouver game good, Calagry game bad and Edmonton game ugly... its your officially unofficial The Good, The Bad and The Ugly for our games against the Oilers, Flames and Canucks.

The Good:

Beating Ryan Miller: I think from a mental standpoint the Vancouver game could not have been more important, lets be honest this could easily end up being a first round match up and Ryan Miller has been just amazingly good against the Sharks in his career.  The last thing the Sharks needed was doubt of if they could outscore the Canucks in a 7 game series.

Rookies pushing for spots: In Vancouver 6 rookies in total jumped into the line up and while a couple have been playing well for a long time (Melkar Karlsson) while others have had a rough go trying to adjust to the NHL game (Mueller) while some we questioned why the hell they were called up in the first place (Tarasov).  Last night though the youth movement was in full swing and to me it was nice having a team on the ice that could actually play skilled hockey.  I know boo for my dislike of Scott and we have won x games with him in the line up.  I'm sure I could figure out the games that the sharks won on a full moon as a cool stat, we are as likely to be be winning games because of Scott's 4 minutes as we are the Sharks actually being lunar powered but I digress these are the type of line up decisions that win hockey games on a regular basis.  I think of the players Karlsson and Goodrow are here to stay I don't care who gets healthy they probably keep their spots at this point.  Mueller looked like a guy that hadn't played an NHL game in a couple months and while the are areas of his game that are raw he does a lot of little things that you really have to watch for right, stick positioning and stuff like that.

The Special Teams: While the end result for 2/3 games was less than great the Sharks scored power play goals in all 3 games going 3/8 in total.  The penalty kill on the other hand has been out of its mind going a perfect 7/7 in the last 3 games with different players getting a look on these units, last game featured Mueller logging some PK time and not looking out of place.

Giveaways:  The Sharks actually made a great deal of progress giving the puck away a lot less than normal against the Canucks, is this an anomaly or a sign of things to come... I don't know.

The Bad

Stalock continues to slump:  I continue to be curious about Stalock, he was almost splitting time before he was injured and we have not seen much of him since than.  While his record isn't his fault entirely he has not done himself any favours either.  His numbers are sliding towards those of his career as a pro and those are frankly not good enough to be a NHL starter and barely good enough to be a backup who gets any significant playoff time.  I still wonder if he goes back under the knife after the season which would explain a ton.

Giveaways and Power Plays:  Vancouver game aside the sharks have done one thing of concern and that is turn the puck over a lot, this is especially concerning on the power play where although they have scored they have been victims of shorthanded goals and just brutal turn overs that have forced their goalie to make serious stops.

The Ugly

Erratic compete: I'm not going to go into anything to heavily here, this is a topic that has frankly turned the horse into glue it has been beaten so bad.  I have often said that a loss always sucks the problem is how the Sharks lose to some of the bottom feeders of the league when all the points matter right now but we play the Hurricanes on Saturday so maybe I'll just unload it all then.

So how do you feel about the weekly recap format?  Is it too long?  Should I lose my job and just focus on game after GBU's?  Let me know!


Remember if you have a question you would like me to answer in the Breaking It Down blog please e-mail me at ian.blogs.sharks@gmail.com and if you want to read previous blogs please check out http://ianblogssharks.blogspot.ca

I do have a question that I will answer in the next breaking it down and if you want to add yours get it in asap! 


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