The best line in the NHL. That's right, an absolute statement. Just try and refute it.

Delayed live-blogging time! I was at the Emerald Bowl last night, so missed watching the game. Because it’s a game against the Ducks, I knew I had to watch it. So, here’s my live blog that’s not really live. If that makes any sense.

“There he is, the guy who was simultaneously put on a show, stood on his head, and was unconscious.” (Nabokov)

I like that there’s a “Ducks suck!” chant only 15 seconds into the game.

How far has Setoguchi fallen… on the fourth line, along with Mitchell and McLaren. Meanwhile, Ortmeyer is on the second line. I think we might have entered the Twilight Zone.

OH CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN! Pass from Thornton to Heatley, who fanned on the shot, which Patty tipped in. It marks his 300th career goal. Now, this may be a bit premature, but I could see him hitting the 500 goal mark during his career.

Fight! McLaren vs. Parros. Frazer lost, but he’s a rookie and the fact that he’s frequently fighting heavyweights like George Parros – and holding his own – is a good sign for the future. Plus, he’s not that bad of a hockey player outside of the fighting.

Talking about how Joe Thornton might be playing too many games, and how he maybe should take a few games off. This is the guy that played an entire season with a broken toe. I don’t think he will ever miss a game if he can help it.

Hmmm, Joe Thornton double shifting, playing with Mitchell and Setoguchi as well while McLaren is in the box. Interesting.

Ryan tried to hit Murray. He fell down.

Murray lost his stick, but still managed to kick the puck out and start the breakout from behind Nabokov. Things like that are why he’s on the Swedish Olympic team.

Setoguchi’s hit on Festerling was very nice. I like to see it as payback from when Festerling boarded Roenick and dislocated his shoulder.

Wow, Patty when from gliding behind the defense to breaking away in about three strides. The guy is amazingly fast.

First and second lines are absolutely buzzing. So’s the third and fourth lines, now that I think about it.

That ref just tripped over nothing, and then the puck that was already shot hit him. Ouch. He must have had equipment issues.

Penalty on the Ducks, and then a bunch of Sharks swarm Chipchura. I like it.

Thomas Murray looks like an intellectual, nothing like the wall that is Douglas Murray. Must be the reason why Murray got into Cornell.

OH CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN! AGAIN! Yet another tip-in goal, off a rebound from a shot by Heatley. And Heatley celebrated way before the puck went in – he just knew that Marleau was going to get that rebound and Giguere would have no chance. Either that, or he’s psychic.

Wooo, Murray flattened Perry with just a little shove. Love it.

Ohhh, I thought that shot off the post was in. It was almost there – maybe a millimeter more and it would have been.

“Heatley’s got it, and he’s got Nichol with him!” It’s like the polar opposite of players, haha.

Nice pass by Mitchell to Seto. Too bad Seto couldn’t settle it on his stick.

END OF FIRST PERIOD
Great job by the Sharks, got out ahead early and just sustained the pressure. They barely let the Ducks have any legitimate chances, and when there was a chance, Nabokov was that to make the save pretty easily. Complete opposite of the Hawks game.

So, Marleau-Thornton-Heatley needs to be a line on Team Canada. Preferably the first or second line. I honestly don’t see how anyone can say no to it.

SECOND PERIOD

Eating some gnocchi, so won’t be commenting as much.

That was a pretty play with Boyle – too bad that it didn’t result in a goal.

Awww, Huskins. Stupid plays like that are why we don’t like you.

I don’t like this PK that much. But great shift by Boyle.

And man, Joe Thornton played some great D there. Forced that Duck off the puck and then shadowed him all

HEATLEY! He had two guys guarding him, and yet he was able to get two shots off.

Drew, that’s not a high stick, because any contact with the face as a result of a follow-though on a shot is defined as not high-sticking.

So now Joe’s playing with the third line as well. Interesting.

“Anaheim has eight players on the ice!” Ahh, what happens during a line brawl.

Joe Pavelski got a penalty for roughing? That’s kind of amazing. I guess no Lady Byng for him.

CLOWE! KIND OF! Wait, no, NEIDERMAYER! He shot the puck, hit Wizneiwskie, and then hit Neidermayer’s skate and went in. He’s just getting all sorts of crazy goals, isn’t he?

MCGINN! 15 seconds later, McGinn just rips a shot behind Giguere, that’s all that you really need to know. Oh, and Neil Young is there. He’s probably the Sharks’ most prominent season ticket holder.

Goos sign from the Sharks, that right after they score the goal the very next shift they score another goal. Either that, or a bad sign from the Ducks.

Ducks keep falling. I’m thinking that they all have equipment issues.

BOOO. Chipchura scores on a break after he pushes Huskins down and takes the puck. Huskins, this is another reason why we don’t like you.

END OF SECOND PERIOD
Three goals always makes for a good period. Yeah, the last-minute goal by the Ducks is kind of a deflator, but there was still a lot of good done in that period. Heatley’s goal was the definition of a goal-scorer’s goal – I doubt anyone else on the Sharks would be able to get two good shots off that quickly.

Woah, that Weinershnitzel commercial was just wrong.

THIRD PERIOD

McGinn off for hooking. He got a goal, so not too mad about it. Also, Sharks have been absolutely clutch on the PK in this game. Actually, they’ve just been clutch on special teams. 100% PP, 100% PK.

BOOO. Bobby Ryan scores five-hole right after the penalty ends. Now 5-2.

I admit, I know that this is the final score for the game, so I’m going tune out a bit.

Ducks really pouring it on now – it’s almost like they can sniff their next goal. Which won’t come, but still.

Ortmeyer really is having a good game. He’s getting a few breaks, really driving towards the net, and getting shots off.

FIGHT! Nichol vs. Chipchura! Nichol is much smaller than Chipchura, but he’s the only one to land anything. Win, Nichol. “Scotty Nichol makes this officially Boxing Day!”

Marleau off for high sticking. So the two Sharks least likely to take penalties both take penalties in this game. Interesting.

I agree with Drew – the fourth line has played an extremely solid game tonight. It’s more like a second third line than a fourth line.

FIGHT! Ortmeyer vs. Beleskey. Not much of a fight, Ortmeyer gets the takedown by Beleskey gets the win.

Giguere was trying to see if Carlye would pull him with a minute left. Carlyle would not. Makes me laugh a bit.

“DUCKS SUCK!” chant out in full force. Love it.

SHARKS WIN!

I love that stick lift at the end, especially when the crowd roars in appreciation.

Three stars: 3 – Heatley, 2 – Marleau, 1 – Thornton.

Haha, Joe always looks like he’s having such a good time after the game. He’s such a happy-go-lucky guy.

Marleau is always so awkward in interviews. But he cracked up when they mentioned the “Slappy the holiday elf/dummy” commercial. Or, at least, cracking up for Marleau. Which is a smile and a small chuckle.

Joe Thornton has absolutely dominated the Ducks this year. I don’t think he’s gotten less than 3 points against them in any of the games they’ve played.

“I didn’t know there were hockey fans in California.”

That one sentence sums up the challenges that hockey fans like me face every day. Whether it comes from Canadians or Californians, that statement always comes out whenever I reveal that yes, I am a hockey fan in California. Some are clearly joking; hell, sometimes I even state that I’m a “rare hockey fan in California” in a somewhat self-depricating way to get a few laughs. But there’s the underlying belief that California does not house any born-and-bred hockey fans that perpetuates the statement. It’s a belief that, not only is completely and utterly wrong, but also hinders the growth of the sport.

Simply being a fan of a Californian team that is not the Lakers or the Dodgers already is equipped with a certain sense of neglect. The talk about an “East Coast Bias” isn’t just talk – there’s a definite focus on teams in that one time zone. National broadcasts usually feature teams from eastern-based conferences or divisions, if not on the coast then at least east of the Mississippi. It should be expected, what with the time difference that causes the games that start at resonable times for Californians sometimes go past midnight for those in the East. And yet, Californians somehow find the time to watch games that start at 4pm in the afternoon, during work and school and all those pesky commitments. But I digress.

The bias is evident when analyzing the national television broadcast schedule for the NHL. NBC’s entire lineup of games will feature either the Pittsburgh Penguins, Philadelphia Flyers, Washington Capitals, New York Rangers, or Detroit Red Wings. Only one team in the Western Conference, and it’s a team that’s almost further east than Atlanta, Georgia.

“But that’s only 10 broadcasts!” you argue. Well, let’s take Versus’s lineup. The Eastern Conference will have a team playing 93 times. The Western Conference? 59. Or, if you split it up in the traditional line of East v. West thinking, with the Mississippi River being the divisor, the east gets a whopping 123 broadcasts, compared to the west’s 29. Those teams – which make up 37% of the league – get 19% of the national broadcasts. I’m sorry, but that disparity is pitiful.

To highlight the lack of attention for Californian teams, just look at the playoffs. The six game, first round series between the Sharks and Ducks had more games nationally televised than all three of the Californian teams combined during the regular season. And California, at the time, boasted the unequivocal best regular season team in the league and a team only a year removed from a championship. Oh, and the Kings.

But the broadcast discrepencies can be argued about all day – what about the teams themselves?

With the lack of attention on the Californian teams, their great players often fly under the radar. For the Ducks, there’s Bobby Ryan, Corey Perry, Jonas Hiller, and Ryan Getzlaf alongside of Selanne and Neidermayer. The Kings have Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown, Drew Doughty, and Alexander Frolov in a completely underrated team. The Sharks have Patrick Marleau, Devin Setoguchi, Joe Pavelski, and Douglas Murray as well as their big name stars of Thorton, Heatley, Boyle, and Nabokov. All of these players are either locks, very close, or a few years away from making their respective countries’ Olympic teams. Yet, most people only have a slight name recognition with any of these players, much less the rest of the roster. If there was an award for the most underrated player, I would be that players on Californian teams would make up most of the list. Hell, Joe Pavelski and Patrick Marleau have already gotten underrated nods from James Mirtle and fellow NHL players, respectively.

The rivalries between the teams are as intense as any, especially between the Sharks and Ducks. There’s already this Northern California/Southern California rivalry that’s evident on any Facebook group concerning the state, one that’s intensified when sports are added. That attitude seeps onto the ice, and creates some truely epic matches. One Sharks-Ducks game last year features 64 PIMs given out at the end of the game because of a line brawl. The teams hate each other, they bring their best against each other (save for a certain game 4), and there’s always a fight. Even if it’s just George Parros v. Jody Shelley, one always happens. The lack of coverage for this rivalry is astounding, simply because it is very entertaining hockey.

Recently, with the Phoenix Coyotes bankruptcy case, the ideas of relocation and contraction have been renewed and tossed around, and not just for the Arizona-based team. Certain hockey “fans” have decided to take that case to point a finger at all the non-traditional market teams, basically those teams that have come around in the 1990s expansion. They argue that some those teams are not doing that well at that gate, and so those areas should be abandoned in favor of more “traditional” markets – specifically, those in Canada.

The trio of Californian cities – San Jose, Anaheim, and Los Angeles – are not immune, although most of the focus is on the two 90s expansion teams. Despite being two of the most successful teams in the 2000s, the aforementioned “fans” want the teams gone. “Hockey shouldn’t be played in California,” they argue, “Not enough history or tradition to keep the sport alive.”

Yeah, Californian teams don’t have that much tradition – you’re not giving them any time to establish it! The Sharks have only been in existance for 18 years; all the kids that were born the year that the team started are just reaching draft age. There hasn’t been a second generation of hockey fans established in the area yet, just a first generation. Tradition is born through parents telling their offspring about the team, about the hated players and the beloved, about crowning moments and shameful ones. That hasn’t quite happened yet, but give the teams five or ten more years and it will.

But even without that established tradition, there still is a love of hockey present in the state. The day after the Sharks were eliminated by the Stars in the 2008 playoffs, one of my classmates decided to wear a Stars Turco sweater. He was shunned all day. I once had a long, in-depth discussion about the Sharks versus the Ducks with a cast member while waiting to ride Space Mountain in Disneyland. Every day at college here in Southern Calfiornia I find a Ducks or Kings fan to talk hockey. Many men around San Jose remain unshaven come April (here is where I pause for you to insert your own Sharks in the playoffs joke).

Bandwagon sign plus Lonely Island reference. How could I not use this photo?

“Yeah, but they’re not real fans, just fairweather fans.” Please tell me which team has had a continually high attendence and amount of support despite a losing record, besides the obvious exceptions of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens. There are only two that immediately come to mind – the Minnesota Wild and the San Jose Sharks. Yes, the California team that you advocate relocation/contracting. All other teams have gone through periods of little support, even those Original Six and Canadian teams that the “fans” are so in favor of. Remember the 1990s, with the Canadian Assisstance Plan that had to bail out the struggling Canadian teams? Remember the early 2000s, when Boston and Chicago couldn’t sell out their arenas to save their lives? Remember the Dead Things era? People want to watch teams that win, especially if there are a wealth of other options out there.

Really, the hipocracy that pervades discussions about sunbelt teams astounds me. Teams like the Phoenix Coyotes, Atlanta Thrashers, and the Tampa Bay Lightning, who have all had horrible ownership groups and bad on-ice products for a number of years, are held up as candidates for relocation because of the lack of fans. But then the examples of the Dead Things and the Blackhawks in the Bill Wirtz era are brought up, but those are “real hockey fans” because they are “protesting the ownership with their wallets.” Why can’t that be the case with all the sunbelt teams? They have just as bad, if not worse, ownership and management, and yet their lack of fans is somehow worse than other teams’ lack of fans.

And then there’s San Jose, a team that has never had their arena average less than 90% capacity throughout the franchise’s history. This is a team that had a record of 11-71-2 in its second year. A team where you can take the number of wins from any of its first two seasons, add them together, and not have them equal the number of wins the Sharks had in the 08-09 season (granted, that might say more about the 08-09 team, but I digress). There were some horrible teams during the Sharks’ short history, and yet people have always turned out to watch them. Is that the defintion of “front-runner fans”?

East coast Sports Primarily Network

Not only that, but according to last season’s ESPN player survey, San Jose was voted to have the third most disruptive fans. The only teams they trail are Philadelphia, which is notoriously disruptive for all sports, and Montreal, which is somewhat self-explanitory. Now, I know that the disruptivity of fans isn’t the best way to see which fanbase is the best, but it definitely contributes. People – players, broadcasters, visiting fans, and so on – often comment about how loud the Tank is. Are those not real hockey fans?

Maybe 30 minutes outside of San Jose. Try telling me it doesn't snow in CA, I dare you.

Yeah, we have warm weather most of the year, and yeah, it doesn’t snow in San Jose proper (but just try and stop it from falling on the Santa Cruz Mountains), but that doesn’t mean anything, except that we have to pay a hell of a lot more money for housing because of it. People here like to watch hockey, just the same as those back in the Northeast. Actually, we probably like hockey more, because it’s that much harder to get into and support the sport around here. Not only do we have to deal with those “fans” who think we don’t deserve the sport of hockey, but we have to deal with all the people in California who are apathetic about the sport. It is much easier to gain an interest in something if many people around you are interested in it as well.

People argue that hockey needs to go back to its “roots,” specifically, contracting to the Northeast states and Canada (Minnesota can come too). You know what? I think personal computers need to get back to its roots, and should stop shipping anywhere but California, since people here are the only ones that can appreciate computers and technology, because we invented it, right? Enough with the phony computer users, people in the Northeast don’t deserve computers.

See how stupid that sounds? And yet, the essential concept is the same – stopping the spread of something invented in one part of the world from going to another, simply because of an asinine belief that it wouldn’t be appreciated on the same level.

In closing, I’d like to leave you with a quote from this amusing hockey book I found that was published way back in 1995:

“Expansion has its drawbacks, but one of the best things about it is when an area that’s new to the game turns on the hockey and then flips out over it. That’s hippie jargon for the nineties’ phenomenon of the San Jose Sharks, who joined the NHL in 1991 and for two years should have been called ‘the Cow Palace Sharks,’ because they played their home games in a dilapidated former livestock arena on the outskirts of San Francisco.”
- Kevin Nelson, Slap Shots.

Actually, not really. What I’ve decided to do was to compile the stats from all three games and post them in an easy-to-read table, since the boxscores used for the series aren’t the easiest things to decode.

Top 3 Goal Scorers
T-1. Michael D’Orazio, Kevin Henderson – 2
T-3. Joe Loprieno, Corey Quirk, Nicholas Petrecki, Marc Cantin, C.J. Stretch, Daniel Erlich, Dean Strong – 1

Top 3 Assist Getters
1. Dean Strong – 4
T-2. John McCarthy, Marc Cantin, Daniel Erlich – 3

Top 3 Point Getters
1. Dean Strong – 5
T-2. Marc Cantin, Daniel Elrich – 4

Top 3 PPG
1. Nicholas Petrecki – 2.00
2. Dean Strong – 1.67
T-3. Marc Cantin, Daniel Elrich – 1.33

Top 3 PIMs
1. Rigby Burgart – 21
2. Frasier McLaren – 19
3. Philip Varone – 10

The Sharks outshot the Ducks by a margin of 102-74, and outshot the Ducks in all three games. In Game 2, the Sharks exceed a 2:1 shot ratio, getting off 39 shots in comparison to the Ducks’ 17. The Sharks collectively scored on 10.78% of their shots, while the Ducks scored on 4.05%. The shutout Stalock posted probably helped the Sharks in this regard.

In regards to special teams, the Sharks were on the power play 18 times in comparison to the Ducks’ 16 times. The Sharks scored 3 power play goals for a rate of 16.67%. The Ducks scored just one PPG, making the Sharks’s kill rate 93.75%. The power play hurt the Sharks in Game 1, going 0-for-7, but then they rebounded in Game 2 and went 2-for-9. The only PPG the Sharks gave up was in Game 1.

A breakdown of the penalties the Sharks took:
11 “fisticuffs,” 6 tripping, 4 roughing, 3 hooking, 2 slashing, 2 instigator, 1 high-sticking, 1 boarding, 1 interference, 1 cross-checking, and 1 partridge in a pear tree.

While stats don’t tell the whole story (top prospect Logan Couture did not score, but from all accounts he was one of the best players on the ice in the two games he played), it is quite interesting to see what they do say. Like, the fact that Dean Strong, Marc Cantin, and Daniel Elrich were the top point-getters for the tournament. Who would have expected that? I know I wouldn’t have, since I didn’t know who any of those guys were before Sunday.

Boxscores from Game 1, Game 2, and Game 3.

Kyle Palmieri: Or, the only form of entertainment during the draft

I am a Sharks fan, have been all my life. As a Sharks fan, I hate the Ducks. They suck. Its just that simple. However, extenuating circumstances have caused me to follow one of their draftees, a certain Kyle Palmieri.

Way back on July 4, 2008, Doug Wilson acquired Dan Boyle and Brad Lukowich from the Tampa Bay Lightning for Matt Carle, Ty Wishart, and the 1st and 4th round picks for the 2009 entry draft. It was probably Wilson’s second best trade (first being the infamous Thornton trade, of course), and most Shark fans were happy with it – at least, they were once Boyle showed how great he was.

But back on track. That first round pick was later traded to the Ottawa Senators in the Meszaros deal. It was then traded by Ottawa to the New York Islanders in the Comrie deal.

Then comes the draft. The first round pick – now revealed as #26 overall – is held by the Islanders as their second pick after the first overall. But wait! It was traded in a package for the Columbus Blue Jacket’s 12th overall pick. Columbus, not satisfied with that being their first pick, then packages #26 to the Anaheim Ducks for #21 overall. The pick does not move after that, and the Ducks draft Kyle Palmieri with it.

In all, the pick was traded five times in less than a year before being used, what is likely a record [link]. If it physically traveled between all of the NHL cities, it would travel approximately 8,889 miles – or the distance between San Jose, CA and Kanuvai, India. [link]

That goes beyond sloppy seconds – that’s sloppy sixths. And as following that pick was the most entertaining part of the draft as a Sharks fan, I’ve decided to follow the career of the guy who was drafted by it as well, a certain Kyle Palmieri.

As the guy was just drafted and has yet to do anything in the four hours since, here’s a run-down of who, exactly, Kyle Palmieri is (a full profile is here):

Plays for the US U-18 team in their developmental league, and had a line of 15-15-30 in 33 games, as well as 51 PIMs. He’s a RW/C, and a small one at that – only 5’10″ and 191lbs. His hometown is Montvale, New Jersey, but he’s one of those Garden State residents that likes the Rangers. He has been compared to Chris Drury by NHL scouts.

However, he was kicked out of the USNDP because of allegedly being drunk in his hotel room with a girl (both against the rules), which is somewhat fitting considering his “sloppy sixths” pick.

Some scouting reports:

“I think Kyle’s got a little bit of Chris Drury in him. I look at his passion, his natural skills and his tenaciousness, and that’s what I saw in Chris. He’s a lot of fun to watch because he has that vision along with a wicked shot. He very seldom passes up the opportunity to make the right play — he’s in position to shoot the puck and has that insight into whether to freeze and dish or just let it go.”
- Jack Barzee, NHL Central Scouting

“Really fast and slick laterally. Great effort level – always keeps his feet moving in traffic and outworks opponents for loose pucks. Ultra competitive. Creates a lot of offense off a heavy persistent forecheck.”
- Red Line Report 2009 Draft Guide

“Kyle plays a solid two way game. He moves well to the open ice and finds seams for making plays happen very quickly. He has good set up skills and distributes the puck very well. His vision is one of his stronger points, as he does find his line mates very well and usually creates some sort of scoring chance. … a very competitive player, with good open ice skills.”
- International Scouting Services 2009 Draft Guide

He has committed to going to Notre Dame in the fall, so his professional career likely won’t begin for a few years. But it still will be interesting to follow a player that has already been preceded by so much trade action; it makes me wonder if that trend will follow him now that he’s actually a person.

And as a treat, here’s a banner that I made for Fear the Fin: