Now it's time for the post that had a hallucination in
the desert to determine the meaning of its own existence. It's your officially unofficial, The Good,
The Bad and The Ugly! Sharks snap a
three game losing skid and your pal Ian is going to tell you how he saw it.
The Good: Joe Pavelski, who has always been my choice to
replace Thornton to wear the C (Even though Jumbo shouldn't have lost it in the
first place) showed everyone why tonight.
Pavs is one of the guys that in my opinions is always in the mix and
someone I rarely center out for having a bad game. Was all over the pace tonight logging almost
20 minutes of ice time and getting 3 goals on 5 shots. Although Niemi didn't
look great on the first goal he allowed the Sharks to get back into the game
making 32 saves and finishing with a .941 SV%. The Power Play came back to life
after a few game absence which was much needed. All in all it was a good
rebound to a bad start of a game that had us all saying "here we go
again". Scott Hannan was more impactful
in less minutes getting an assist and finishing as a +2. 300 wins for TMac is a nice milestone. Jumbo with 3 assists reminds everyone how
dominant he can be when he's on.
The Bad: Sharks continue to make due with a slim D corps
Mueller has played better games in his NHL career but played what has to be a
career high 18:09 tonight up from about an average of 15 minutes in the
previous games that he has played. The
Penalty Kill continues to be an area of concern allowing yet another goal if
the sharks can't get the penalty kill under control they may have to try paying
off the refs/taking less stupid penalties.
Tennyson had an off night as well in my opinion.
The Ugly: The
Sharks cannot start every game giving up soft goals in the first 5 minutes
going forward. A team like the
Lightening (their next opponent) will bury them if you spot them an early
goal. While it's nice to see them finally
pushing to win games as it progresses they should try doing themselves a favor
once in a while and not make stuff so damn difficult.
Final Thoughts: This was an important win for the Sharks,
with LA surging and having 2 games in hand as well as Vancouver who somehow
still has 3 games in hand the Sharks need all the points they can get. To me it's imperative that they finish in the
divisional seeds (top 3) and not end up in the wild card where they risk
playing one of the power houses in the pacific.
It's hard to get too high about anything the Sharks do at this moment so
enjoy the win but don't look to far ahead because there is a lot of important
games to be played.
What are your thoughts?
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
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