It was a dark and drizzly night. Not quite rainy, and definitely not stormy, but enough to turn on your windshield wipers at three minute intervals. One of those nights where you aren’t exactly bothered by the precipitation, until you realize that water has soaked up through the bottom of your jeans making them stick to the back of your legs. In other words, a perfect analogy for the game. Hell, if it was a mystery novel, it’d be foreshadowing on par with Act I Scene 2 of Julius Caesar (oh, and guess which team we’re playing that day? Let me give you a hint – it rhymes with “sucks,” how appropriate). 

Unfortunately, life is not a mystery novel in which you know something bad is about to happen. The Sharks – as well as their fans – went into the game slightly apprehensive because of the slight slump they are going through, but pretty confident that they can beat a playoff bubble team from the South(l)east division. 

As I see it, there were three factors for this game:
1. The five days between games. Completely threw off my groove, man!
2. Streaky play by certain players – some days they are un-freaking-believable, other days you rue the day they signed that multi-year contract.
3. Carolina starts with a “C”. We are unable to beat teams whose locations start with a “C”.

Obviously, that third factor was the one that mattered the most.

The game started out with a bit of a scare (fully on my part, though) – I was watching warm-ups, and failed to see Blake out on the ice. My brain went from “Oh crap, this sucks,” to “ZOMG thank you!” when I heard Blake was in the starting lineup while in the slowest line known to man to get some fries.

But onto the actual play – I won’t go into period-by-period specifics like Mr. K usually does because I’m more of a big-picture person, and have absolutely no idea when anything happened in respect to something else.

The first period was great; sustained pressure in the offensive zone, lots of pucks to the net, and great scoring chances. The lines were rolling, Boyle brought his awesome defensive/offensive skills, and it seemed as though the Sharks were just dominating. The first line was being shut down (understandably; you tend to get a bit of attention when you’re the cover story of Sports Illustrated), but the second line proved its worth by not only creating a whole bunch of offense, but also the game’s first goal.

The second started out much the same way – Semenov scored about three minutes into the period. I never thought I’d actually use the alliteration “Semenov scored,” but there you go. Soon enough, the inconsistencies and slumps that the players have endured recently started peeking through. Ehrhoff – oh, Ehrhoff – hooked Cullen (not to be confused by the emo stalker sparkly vampire of the same name) on the breakaway, and Cullen was awarded a penalty shot.

Now, I didn’t exactly have the best view of the play, but from my angle it looked like Nabokov had everything covered, and if Ehrhoff just skated a bit more to force Cullen take the shot too late or too early, there wouldn’t have been a goal. But no, a hook was called (a bit questionable, but still inexcusable by Ehrhoff), and Cullen scored on the subsequent penalty shot.

The second line tried to get everything going again, scoring a goal a little over two minutes later on the power play (thank you, Pickles), but the power play that period was largely marked by long periods without a shot on goal. It was just cycle, cycle, cycle until the Hurricanes intercepted the pass and cleared the puck (to which the man behind me always asked, “Is that icing?” and I always replied, “No, its a power play”). To quote Shania Twain, “that don’t impress me much.”

Seriously, Marleau? You don’t have 26 goals because you pass all the time. You have 26 goals because you shoot the puck! Joe Paveski was the last player to suffer from Joe-Thornton-itis (besides, you know, Joe Thornton), but he most certainly has overcome that – he along with Dan Boyle led the team in shots with 6 each. Yeah, he didn’t get any goals, but he did get two assists. So, Marleau, take a cue from Pavelski – shoot the puck!

Oh, but props to all my fellow denizens of the Tank – the place was seriously rocking, especially when the replay to that no-goal was shown. I honestly have no idea what the real reason for the review was, but I’d like to think that the amazingly loud boos from the croud made the officials give it a second look. And then the cries of “SHOOT!” raining down from the rafters were quite loud as well – usually I don’t agree with that, but the aforementioned power play passing made me join along with them.

The third period was crap. It didn’t help that the Hurricanes scored with five minutes left in the second, and it really didn’t help that the Sharks all decided to play like Ron Wilson was behind the bench instead of Todd McLellan. Very defensive, tentative hockey that doesn’t really work when you are considered one of the best teams in the league and therefore everyone and their mother is gunning for you. Six shots? Come on, even I can do better than that, and I’m so bad at skating I once fell while holding onto the wall.

Plus, the fact that they blew two two-goal leads really, really sucks.

OT was okay, marked by some good chances in the offensive zone and some extremely scary mishandles by Joe Thornton in his own zone. Really, Joe is not that good in his own zone. For anyone who might doubt that, watch him the next game when he has the puck and is in his own zone – its like a succession of mistake after mistake that makes you sigh in relief when he finally passes it. He’s amazing in the offensive zone, don’t get me wrong, but defensively not so much.

The shootout; well, there’s definitely no question as to who is the hottest player on the team, if it wasn’t already given away by the humongous check he received at the beginning of the game. Clowe was pretty close, but no dice. Pavelski, despite his success in the past at shootouts (before this season, he led the league in SO percentage), just cannot find the groove this season. And then Michalek was awesome.

Nabby, well, he’s just not really a shootout goalie. He was a little too aggressive, which allowed the players to get the puck in behind him. He probably could have made that last save, but I would rather that the Sharks leave with one point than for him to get injured again, comme dans le Blues game.

Well, enough with the game analysis. Onto my specialty – the players!

Michalek was the unquestionable MVP of the game. He was in on the play whenever the Sharks scored (a Joe Thornton Hat Trick, as argued by my friend), and added the lone Sharks shootout goal on top of that. You know what? The entire second line was great. 7 points between the three of them, which is what would be expected from a top line. Its a great feeling to have when the second line can score just as much as the first.

That aforementioned first line? Shut down. Not that they didn’t have any chances, but it just seemed like they were hemmed in their own zone more than a first line should be, and the Canes were especially vigilant when Patty, Joe, and Seto were out on the ice.

Boyle… Well, I could write an essay on Boyle. I admit, I have a bit of an unhealthy admiration of the man, but the fact that all Doug Wilson gave up to get the potential Norris winner along with one of my favorite players personality-wise was Carle, Wishart, and two picks still amazes me.

One of the main differences I saw from the Chicago game to this game was how much more the Sharks possessed the puck. There was still some dump-and-chase, but I saw Boyle or some other player bring the puck over the blue line a lot more often, allowing the Sharks to have a much better chance of actually getting a play set up and creating good scoring chances. He ate up the most time on the ice for the team – an impressive 29:41, but thanks to Blake and Vlasic not as much as he had when Blake was out. I’d like to quote something that I commented on before, since it really was proven through this game:

Boyle has missed 4 games this season – 3 due to injury, and the one against Phoenix when his daughter was born. The team’s record when he’s gone is 2-2-0. The two losses both (coincidentally) had the scores 4-2, and the Sharks only showed up for parts of the game (in Phoenix, it was the beginning, and Chicago was in the end). The wins? Nabokov turned into Super-Nabby and posted shutouts, making spectacular save after spectacular save.

The team was able to produce roughly the same amount of offense every game Boyle missed (2 goals each time, with the exception of the Avalanche game because of the empty netter). The difference between winning and losing was the goaltending – in the losses, Boucher and Nabby were simply good. They made the saves that they were expected to, but not the saves that made you go “ZOMG NO WAY!” And then of course, in the wins Nabby was robbing everybody left and right, making saves that he had no business in making.

My point is that Boyle is a much better defensive player than people give him credit for. It may be because of defense through offense (i.e. he allows the Sharks to control the puck for long periods of time and limits the amount of time the other team has the puck), but the fact of the matter is Boyle takes away the number of chances that the other team has to score, as well as creating his own chances. None of the other defensemen are able to do that as effectively as he does – even Blake tends to stay at the point and uses his slapshot instead of jumping into the play. It really helps the forwards, as they can use the time that Boyle has the puck to set up a play instead of having to battle in the corners for the puck like they’ve been doing for the past few games.

In essence, Boyle is awesome.

The third and fourth lines were largely ineffective throughout the game – I think the fourth line had something like 4 minutes of ice time. The third line, well, they were trying. Cheechoo was just playing his heart out, but just could not create a good scoring chance. Goc still struggles on offense, but the fact that McLellan put him out on the ice for one of the last few shifts in regulation says a lot. Grier right now is on my List – sometimes, I feel that he would be better suited for the fourth line, playing grinding minutes instead of on a line that could potentially become a third scoring line. If Mitchell comes back soon, that is.

Which brings me to a sort of tangent – Mitchell was supposed to be our ace in the hole, the guy that the Sharks would bring on late in the season and he would just tear it up and make the third line a legitimate scoring threat. But with the set-back with his rehab, I think the Sharks seriously need to start considering bringing a WorShark forward out to play while scratching one of the current forwards. If the rookie performs well, then we have a player we can bring on in the playoffs. If not, its not like they are needed for injuries; we just put the scratched player back in. I’m starting to get a little worried about our situation, but that might just be amplified from the less-than-stellar play recently.

For the WTF? stat of the game, I’d like to direct your attention to the +/-. Boyle led both teams with the lowest, coming in at a -2. Ehrhoff, despite his amazingly bad hook, was even. And Semenov? Tied with Matt Cullen with a game-leading +2. What??? I admit, for a large majority of the season Semenov was the Newman to my Jerry, but I’ve warmed up to him recently, both to him and his glove of doom. Still, once again Semenov has somehow defied all my expectations and is doing well. Is he just living up to Edmonton’s prospect report?

Nahh.

Nabokov is the number one goalie on the team – I get that, really I do. But he’s been average the past two games, and it makes no sense to start him again when the Sharks are about to embark on a grueling road trip. Play Boucher more! He’s more than merely a competent backup, and could be a starter in his own right. He would be a starter on most other teams. Hell, I’d be surprised if he stuck around as the backup next year (please, please do). Back to Nabby, there was one goal that I thought he should have had, and he just didn’t fare well with the penalty shot/shootout, but other than that he played decent. Not normal Nabby-like, but decent.

Overall, the Sharks are stuck in their first-half mode. They expect the teams to come at them, sure, but not with the intensity where getting two points from any given game could get them into the playoffs. Because, right now, that’s where a lot of the teams are at. In the west, ten teams are separated by six points. Eight of those teams are separated by four – and that’s not including the top four teams that are all but guaranteed to get into the playoffs. In the east, there are really only ten teams vying for the playoffs period, but coincidentally the two teams on the outside looking in are two of the eastern teams the Sharks are playing within the week.

The Sharks really need to be playing with more intensity. Earlier in the season, I would have been laughing about how the Sharks could not show up for most of the time and still get a point, but now they’ve proven that they can play better than this. They have set their own expectation level high, but they just have not lived up to it for the past month and a half.

But since I want to end this with “warm fuzzies” and not “cold pricklies,” I give to you the hilarity that is Whose Line (hockey-related, of course).