As I was browsing the new Sharks site, I decided to venture over to the group pack page. No reason, really, just that I haven’t really been to that section and was curious. But then I saw something interesting:

Hmmm… Joe Pavelski, Joe Thornton, and Rob Blake as the only three Sharks featured, all with the A on their respective chests. Joe Thornton featured isn’t surprising, since he’s pretty much the only guy besides Dan Boyle that the Eastern Conference knows. But Blake and Pavelski? While they might be heard of, Blake especially, they aren’t the “big names” on the team like guys like Boyle, Marleau, and Nabokov.

Now, its not so much a surprise to see Thornton with the A, since he’s never not had it, but Pavelski and Blake are surprising. I mean, they didn’t have the As outside of a few games during the season when the regular/replacement As were out, so picking those two pictures out of the hundreds and maybe even thousands of other, similar pictures without any letters is interesting.

Is this an indication of who will be the leadership group for this season? It really doesn’t make sense otherwise. Sure, Wilson and McLellan said that the letters will be determined during training camp, but all three of these guys have been tabbed as likely captains/alternates by Sharks fans. Blake because of the whole veteran thing, Thornton because he’s the best player on the team, and Pavelski because he’s an all-around awesome player (see my post on why he deserves to make the Olympic team). Hell, most people believe that Pavelski will be the captain sometime in the next few years, why not now?

Perhaps its even an indication that instead of having a captain, the Sharks will go into the season with three alternates, like shown in the picture.

Of course, I am just bullshitting this entire analysis, as I found it on a picture in a tucked-away part of the site that really isn’t technically part of the whole “sharks.nhl.com” site (it directs to a third party site that I assume is for ticket selling). This could just be some wild coincidence or the graphic designer having fun with hockey-starved fans like me who hope to find anything hockey-related to analyze. I don’t know. But this is interesting, and I am putting way too much thought into this.