Juxtaposer
Outro: Divina Comedia
That’s a lot of “hope”.
I don’t think everyone is remember just how thoroughly we’ve been dismantled by the Bruins, Lightning, and Jets this season. Plus, Pekka Rinne is a known Shark-killer.
GDT: PDF GAME 4 - San Jose Sharks Vs. Vegas Golden Knights - 7 PM PST, NBCSN
- Thread starter TomasHertlsRooster
- Start date
That’s a lot of “hope”.
I don’t think everyone is remember just how thoroughly we’ve been dismantled by the Bruins, Lightning, and Jets this season. Plus, Pekka Rinne is a known Shark-killer.
Gene Parmesan
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Alwalys
Phu m.
- May 19, 2010
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correct me if i'm wrong but that's all before we had kane and the crazy 4th line.
TomasHertlsRooster
Don’t say eye test when you mean points
Pekka Rinne gave up 5 goals and slammed his stick against the post repeatedly in a full blown meltdown in a huge game 7 in San Jose.
The Jets beat us easily once, we beat them easily once, and they won in 3-on-3 OT. Considering 3-on-3 OT is not playoff hockey, I would say we’re about 1-1 against them; that’s hardly being dismantled.
If there is one team that had dismantled us in the regular season, it was Vegas. Vegas was the Cup Favorite (on various betting sites, I realize educated HFers didn’t generally hold this opinion) going into this series and smart money right now is probably on San Jose.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
The hot money was certainly on Vegas after they swept the kings. Heck, the Sharks were considered slight underdogs by some in the media before Ducks series and we know how that turned out.
OrrNumber4
Registered User
- Jul 25, 2002
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Great post, especially that last part. You win the cup, you deserve to win it.
This is where I disagree. In the playoffs, we only have a limited sample size, and Rinne was most definitely not a Shark-killer.
It’s generally a bad idea to use RS matchups to predict how a playoff series will turn out. Playoffs are two different a beast.
Wanted to point out that the pessimism of posters like Juxtaposer and myself is relatively easy to do. If you are right, you get to have your beliefs validated, and you set your expectations low and aren’t as disappointed. If you are wrong, who cares; the Sharks are successful. Optimism is the more treacherous path.
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TomasHertlsRooster
Don’t say eye test when you mean points
I remember you and I having a spirited argument during the regular season of 2016 when I was saying that team could be the best Sharks team ever. You were certain they were inferior to the 2011 team among others. I remember you were particularly perplexed by my suggestion that Tomas Hertl was superior to Ryane Clowe. Now we are using the 2016 team as the bar for the best team in history compared to this one, and Hertl has almost undoubtedly proving right now that he is at another level from what Ryane Clowe was at.
Sometimes, optimism is the right route. For example, going into the Anaheim series, a lot of Sharks fans thought we would lose, and there wasn’t really any logic behind that outside of pessimism for the sake of it. Anaheim was a very weak team and we matched up very well against them.
I can agree that regular season matchups don’t matter all that much, but it was Jux’s original argument that we would get crushed by those elite teams because of how they played us in the RS. I was just explaining that in no way did Winnipeg crush us. In addition, in matchups like the aforementioned Anaheim, where the regular season dominance was so pronounced in terms of flow of play, it’s hard for me to say that won’t carry over at least a little bit into the playoffs.
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Uh, no. Anton Khudobin stole both. The first game we lost after they got a bounce from the back wall right to their open man on the opposite side of the goal. The second game we were down 2-1 and had a goal disallowed. Both times we out shot them and the second game was 37-20. If that's getting blown up by a team... I don't know what to say...
TomasHertlsRooster
Don’t say eye test when you mean points
This is true as well; pretty pessimistic revisionist history.
The only team I’m almost certain that we have no chance against is Tampa Bay. They did literally rout us in our own building and they did literally rout us in their own building.
Juxtaposer
Outro: Divina Comedia
Man I was at one of those Winnipeg games and I watched us get thoroughly outclassed. The Bolts tore us up and the Bruins scared the hell out of me. I’ll give you that they were earlier in the season. It’s true that they were before Kane and the re-vamped fourth line with Fehr and a much improved Sorensen. But you know who we had then that we don’t have now? Joe Thornton.
ON4 is right, it is much easier to be pessimistic like us and hope to be pleasantly surprised rather than put yourself out there and risk being disappointed. Maybe that’s just a reflection of what the Sharks have done to me emotionally over the past decade.
As for Clowe vs. Hertl. Much as I love the living daylights out of Hertl, 2011 Ryane Clowe was better. He had a legitimate argument for being the best forward on the Sharks that season. Just a monstrous year for him that, I think, we can credit for a lot of positive development for Couture. Clowe was the perfect player he could have had next to him.
ON4 is right, it is much easier to be pessimistic like us and hope to be pleasantly surprised rather than put yourself out there and risk being disappointed. Maybe that’s just a reflection of what the Sharks have done to me emotionally over the past decade.
As for Clowe vs. Hertl. Much as I love the living daylights out of Hertl, 2011 Ryane Clowe was better. He had a legitimate argument for being the best forward on the Sharks that season. Just a monstrous year for him that, I think, we can credit for a lot of positive development for Couture. Clowe was the perfect player he could have had next to him.
OrrNumber4
Registered User
- Jul 25, 2002
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Hertl is cost-controlled and younger, but Ryane Clowe was a solid player and had an excellent 2011 season (with a couple of strong seasons outside of that). In 2011, at the height of the cycle game, Clowe was deadly.
I was definitely pessimistic about the 2016 team, because at that point, Burns hadn’t taken off, Thornton underwhelming in the playoffs was route, and Jones wasn’t that impressive. But Thornton made a few changes to his game and had his best playoffs ever as a 36-year-old, Burns had a Norris-quality second half and playoffs, and Jones proved he was much more of a stabilizing force than Nabokov or Niemi (like being better than American wine, but I digress). On top of that, Pavelski and Couture had preternatural playoffs and even depth players like Karlsson and Tierney burst out. Ampliatively, pessimism was required.
No one is trampling the sharks. They may lose but Deboer has shown an ability to adjust to each team in a series and now he has the speed to match up with any of the teams left. Now that Martin is benched this team should be able to defend as good as anyone left no matter how much talent. They have a speed and size component to each line that makes their makeup as well balanced as any team. Yes they still may get beat but they can take any team left 7 games barring injury. Maybe the teal makes me an optimist but my first experience watching the sharks was their 3rd year when they upset the Redwings. To this day I'm not sure I've ever seen a bigger mismatch in talent. None of the remains teams have a significant advantage. The remaining teams in this years playoffs, including the sharks, are all incredibly close. None are a dynasty except maybe the Pens. It's parity plain and simple.
Alwalys
Phu m.
- May 19, 2010
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To my eye the team took a significant change in direction once Thornton went down. They moved to a much faster tempo game with a much stronger emphasis on transition and fast zone entries. I think they also did a lot of work on learning how to disrupt fast transitions the other way as well. They are employing it to good effect against Vegas, which can counterattack with the best of them.
Tkachuk4MVP
32 Years of Fail
I have a buddy who thinks this same way and I'll say to you what I always say to him: You won't be any less disappointed if the Sharks get eliminated from the playoffs than I will. The difference is at least the optimists get to enjoy the ride.
Tkachuk4MVP
32 Years of Fail
one2gamble
Registered User
- Dec 24, 2007
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To be fair, according to the media they started working on this before Jumbo went down and started making changes when he was still playing. That said, getting his influence out of the way was probably of great help getting the new system implemented. I give the Sharks as an organization a lot of credit for this and I think most dont realize that doing something like that mid season is exceptionally rare in pro sports.
The game they are playing right now does not look anything like how they have played in the past, Sharks hockey is fun to watch again.
Sharksrule04
Registered User
You said the sentence "depth is pretty much always better than a great line". I'm refuting that claim. Having a great line is infinitely more important than depth. The year the Sharks got the furthest was the year where they possessed the single best line in the entire NHL. I'm not so sure you're helping your cause by using the Sharks as an example.
And hello? The 2017 Pittsburgh Penguins had HORRIBLE depth. They had the four leading scorers in the playoffs (Malkin, Crosby, Kessel, and Guentzel) and then their next leading scorer up front was Chris ****ing Kunitz with 11 points in 20 games. Their defense consisted of Justin Schultz, Ian Cole, Ron Hainsey, Olli Maatta, Brian Dumoulin, and Trevor Daley.
It's funny that you ask me to name Cup-winning teams without great depth, because I could ask you to name a Cup-winning team without multiple superstars. The 2017 Penguins won with horrific depth. There is not a single team that has won without multiple superstars/an elite first line. It's rare but possible to win without depth. It is impossible to win without superstars.
You talk about how Hertl/Meier or whoever has improved since 2016 but you fail to consider who is worse. Vlasic is worse. Braun is MUCH worse. Those two were the pillars on D in 2016, they were downright perfect. They have both declined visibly since then. Couture had a playoff for the history books in 2016, he's not going to repeat that. Suggesting that Pavelski this year is better than the Pavelski of the first three rounds in 2016 is recency bias at its finest. Never mind Burns. So yeah, the depth has improved. But the stars have declined.
If this year's Sharks go to the Stanley Cup Finals, then you can just "let me be wrong".Until then, the 2016 Sharks were the best Sharks in team history and it's not close.
Winning a Stanley Cup takes more than 1 great line or a few superstars. You need depth contribution. As the other member said, if it only took a great top line then the Sharks would have a cup. Jumbo-Heatley-Patty was an amazing first line. The Cheechoo-Thornton line produced among the best in the league as well. To say that teams can win without depth is dumb. Maybe Kunitz doesn't meet your standards for depth but those Penguins players were playing well. It wasn't just Malkin, Crosby and Guentzel playing offense and defense all playoffs long. You need contributions top to bottom and if you don't get that you will not win. Plain and simple.
Sharksrule04
Registered User
Yea the "not even close" and "stand no chance" statements are quite absurd for people who watch hockey and sports in general. "Not even close" to me would be a sweep where each game is won by 3+ goals. Do I expect the Sharks to beat the Jets or top teams in the East, no. Can we, absolutely. The separation between these teams is very little. A bounce here and a bounce there and you win the series.
Even look back to the SC Final series with the Pens. We lost the first game in the final moments and the 2nd game in OT. We had chances to win each of those games. The Pens were definitely the better team but we weren't far from winning that series.
I'll worry about the other teams when the Sharks play them. Anaheim and Vegas both had rosters that could beat the Sharks under the right circumstances but both were or are being outcoached to a large degree. The same could happen for Winnipeg or Nashville and both have exploitable weaknesses. Jets are thinner up front but better on defense. Preds are more dynamic offensively but aren't getting much from their 2nd line, Rinne is looking tired, and they've played a lot of games the last couple years and that could catch up to them. You should expect anything in the playoffs because it's a fluid situation that's always changing. This Sharks team has already surpassed my expectations and it's house money for me with my outlook.
Juxtaposer
Outro: Divina Comedia
Patty-Jumbo-Heatley was never the best line in the league. Semin-Backstrom-Ovechkin was. The Sedins, Toews/Kane, and St. Louis/Stamkos were on par or better than Marleau-Thornton-Heatley. And maybe it’s just me, but I never thought that line was as good as the sum of its parts. Yeah, you can stick a trio of great players together and they’ll produce, like that line did. But I never felt they had as much chemistry or were as good as they should have been together. There’s a reason that line only lasted one season. I would argue that Hertl-Thornton-Pavelski was a better line in 2016 than Marleau-Thornton-Heatley ever was, especially considering how they performed in the playoffs.
So let’s also consider the playoffs. Marleau was killer that year, especially in the third round, but Thornton was just okay and Heatley was awful, just a third wheel. Whether that’s due to injury or not, the guy scored 39 goals in the regular season and then put up 2 in 14 playoff games. Combined, that trio scored fewer goals that just Pavelski and Setoguchi. And Thornton’s -11, especially compared to Marleau’s still-not-great -3, looks real bad.
Let’s also consider they circumstances of that team. They trashed Colorado, crushed Detroit, and then ran into the best team in the past fifteen years. And it’s worth mentioning that Nabokov was pure trash in that third round. I recall him being so absolutely dreadful, he really ruined that team. The Sharks would have decimated the Flyers, had they managed to get past Chicago.
It’s juzt bizarre to me for anyone to say “if you didn’t win a Cup, then the strategy is proven to be bad”. One team wins the Cup every year. One. Does that mean 29 (f*** Vegas) teams had bad strategies? The year of the Patty-Jumbo-Heatley line was the furthest the Sharks got in the playoffs between 2004 and 2016, along with 2011. Isn’t that kind of more of an argument in favor of stacking the top line?
Dude, the Penguins had players in their top-6 scoring a half a point per game, and they still won a Cup. I don’t see how anyone can argue that that team’s depth was good. Their superstars (and Guentzel, I guess) performed and they got great goaltending. That’s apparently all it takes to win a Cup, right? Since it worked, obviously it’s a better strategy than the depth that Nashville, had, right? Nashville’s strategy of having the best D in the league obviously wasn’t a good one, since they didn’t win the Cup, eh?
A strategy can be good even if it doesn’t result in a Cup. You cannot argue “X Sharks team used Y strategy in Z season and failed to win a Cup, so obviously Y strategy isn’t good”. You do realize that multiple teams can have overwhelming first lines in a season, and that some of them aren’t going to win a Cup, right?
You act like I’m saying “having an elite first line guarantees a Cup” when what I’m saying is “you can’t win a Cup without an elite first line.”
You guys complain when I tout the merits of having an elite first line, and then you get smugly superior when I complain about third pairing and fourth line personnel decisions because “it’s just the fourth line/third pair, it won’t make much of a difference”. Pick one.
The thing is, I’m enjoying Sharks hockey a lot more now that I don’t have wild expectations of this team. You act like I sit in front of my TV, praying that the Sharks lose so my “pessimism” (which I’m not so sure is actually pessimism, but whatever) is vindicated. I have more fun watching a Sharks team I don't expect to win a Cup and when it doesn’t, I’m not as emotionally crushed. I enjoy the ride just as much as you do.
I always thought that the Captains line was better than Heater-Thornton-Marleau. I knew Heatley wasn't going to do anything in the playoffs. He never does. He's always a decoy in the playoffs and relied on his decent playmaking skills to still produce.
That said, Couture-Hertl-Boedker is seemingly playing like an elite 1st line. They get killed from a possession standpoint against the best but they're winning dangerous scoring chances battles and are producing.
That said, Couture-Hertl-Boedker is seemingly playing like an elite 1st line. They get killed from a possession standpoint against the best but they're winning dangerous scoring chances battles and are producing.
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Tomorrow Today
hockeyball
Registered User
- Nov 10, 2007
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To be fair though, that might have worked as well, and we would have all just assumed we did the right thing.
