PuckUpdate :: The Hockey Blog » Sharks

Mike Modano Drawing Inappropriately Insane Amount of Interest

Steven Ovadia — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 09:31:57 +0000

One thing that’s a bit frustrating about the NHL is that a lot of weight is attached to well-known names.

It seems that a lot of GMs look at names rather than stats before they make a move.

How else to explain all of the interest in Mike Modano, he of the 14 goals and 16 assists in 59 games last season.

It seems Modano is drawing interest from the San Jose Sharks, the Minnesota Wild, and, of course, the Detroit Red Wings.

The Wild might be interested because of Modano’s connections to the Minnesota North Stars, who drafted him back in 1988. Signing Modano would be a homecoming of sorts, although the North Stars moved to Dallas, so Modano would be coming home to a franchise completely unrelated to the one that drafted him.

Modano is on record as saying he likes the Minnesota homecoming angle, though.

San Jose likes to keep veteran players around. Grizzled character guys like Jeremy Roenick, Adam Graves, and Rob Blake have all ended their careers as Sharks. Why not add Modano to the list?

But do these teams really want to get involved with a player who just turned 40 last month? And who’s definitely lost a few steps over the past few seasons? If there was a more anonymous player with similar statistics, would there be at least three NHL teams showing interest in him?

Obviously, a guy like Modano brings some intangibles to the table. He’s won a Cup. He’s experienced. He’s a leader. But are those traits worth taking up the roster spot of a player who a team could actually mentor and develop? It’s not like Modano has a long-term NHL career in front of him.

Matt Hendricks is 29. He put up nine goals and seven assists in 56 games for the Avs last season. Does he have three teams interested in him? Adam Mair is 31, with six goals and eight assists in 69 games last season. Why is no one kicking his tires?

I get that Modano wants to prove he can still play at the NHL level. He’s an athlete who’s done nothing but compete for the vast majority of his life. I don’t blame him for wanting to keep pushing himself. I just don’t get why NHL GMs are willing to compromise their line-ups for a guy with a declining skill-set but brand-name recognition.

And the takeaway from all of this seems to be that if you want to extend your NHL career as long as humanly possible, make sure you’ve got a huge name. Because if you’re an anonymous player with average to below average numbers, it seems no one will give you a second look.

It’s better to be old and famous than younger and average.

Disappointed They Never Got to Trade Him, Sharks Re-Sign Patrick Marleau

Steven Ovadia — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 10:44:37 +0000

I was a little surprised when I saw the Sharks had re-signed Patrick Marleau (4 years/$6.9 million per).

Apparently I wasn’t the only one.

Marleau told David Pollak he didn’t know how San Jose felt about re-signing him until after the playoffs were over.

And that’s the thing about Marleau and San Jose. It’s always been a tortured relationship.

Marleau has averaged 26 goals and 57 poins per season during his Sharks career, solid enough numbers. Since 2005-06, he’s scored over 30 goals per season, except for 2007-08, when he struggled with just 19 goals.

But Marleau’s main role over the past few seasons in San Jose has been to be the subject of trade speculation.

It’s not that the Sharks have actively looked to trade Marleau (I’m assuming if they were actively looking they would have found a trade partner relatively easily) but more that they’ve often seemed open to the idea of trading him.

San Jose is in a strange situation. They have a fantastic core of players, including Marleau, but this core has had a tough time finding post-season success.

Logic says when something isn’t working, you try something else.

So the expiration of Marleau’s contract represented an opportunity for San Jose to clear some cap space and try something else.

But what to try?

There’s not a better center available via free agency. The Sharks aren’t particularly deep down the middle. Letting Marleau go might have created a gaping hole in the line-up, making a flawed team worse.

Plus, if Marleau left via free agency, the Sharks would get nothing for losing him.

So the Sharks had no choice but to re-sign Marleau. There simply wasn’t a better move (at least until the NHL embraces the NBA’s beloved sign-and-trade).

Marleau’s contract isn’t impossibly steep or long, so assuming he didn’t negotiate a no-trade clause, the Sharks still have some options.

They’re going to try and shore-up their goaltending by not re-signing Evgeni Nabokov. But more changes are going to need to be made to change the look and performance of this team.

A lof of NHL teams were preparing to extend contract offers to Marleau. The Sharks might be hoping some of those teams will now be open to the idea of extending a trade offer for Marleau, if not immediately, then sometime within the next four seasons.

Re-signing Marleau was a solid move for the Sharks, but as Marleau’s surprise indicates, the move seems to have come more out of a lack of better options than anything else.

Luckily for Marleau, the money’s still the same.

Evgeni Nabokov a Victim of Stanley Cup Finals Goaltending

Steven Ovadia — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 10:07:39 +0000

San Jose goaltender Evgeni Nabokov was a victim of this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs.

First of all, these playoffs allowed Nabokov to once again show he’s not a big-game goalie. He just wasn’t very strong.

But also, watching goalies like Ryan Miller and Roberto Luongo fail to carry their teams had to register with Sharks GM Doug Wilson.

This year’s playoffs saw some once-anonymous goalies get hot while the big goalie names were merely mortal.

So I’m sure Wilson did the math and realized that an average playoff goalie and a diminished need for a big-name goalie means Nabokov just isn’t worth the money he wants.

And so we have the Sharks announcing they won’t try and re-sign him.

I don’t think this is about ability, so much as it’s about money. I suspect a lot of GMs are looking at what happened in this year’s playoffs and are wondering how much sense it makes to commit a lot of money to the goalie position, no matter the ability of the goalie.

The fact that Nabokov has struggled so much under the spotlight of important games makes the decision not to re-sign him a lot easier.

Obviously, it’s very early to tell, but I’m wondering if the future of NHL goaltending is quantity over quality. Rather than invest a lot of money in one player, I’m curious if teams will try and use a greater number of goalies, starting whoever’s hot and/or healthy.

It worked for Philadelphia, who lost about ten goalies to injury, but managed to make it to the Finals on the strength of solid-if-not-spectacular goaltending. And the money the Flyers weren’t spending on goaltending could be put into the defensemen and forwards.

Of course, the Canadians famously traded Jaroslav Halak to put all of their eggs in the Carey Price basket.

On the one hand, that’s the NHL tradition: investing in just one strong, number one goalie.

On the other hand, that could represent the new NHL way: the Habs appreciate Halak’s playoff work, but don’t want to spend a lot of money when they might be able to support Price with more disposable goaltending, the theory being a cheap and solid goalie is better than an expensive and extraordinary one, from a salary cap perspective.

And with all of the free agent goaltending available, there should be a lot of reasonably-priced talent available for the Sharks.

The final test of if NHL teams are adjusting the weight attached to the goaltending position will be to see if Nabokov is signed by another NHL team and how much money he gets.

I’m guessing if another team re-signs him, it’ll be for less than the $5.4 million he made this season.

I’m also guessing they might view Nabokov as more of a regular season option than a strong post-season one.

Sharks and Bruins Showed the Challenge of Expectations

Steven Ovadia — Fri, 28 May 2010 10:08:39 +0000

Expectations are a funny thing. Once they been raised, they can be very hard to lower.

The Flyers and Blackhawks are going to the finals and while only one will end up with the Cup, you can say that to a certain extent, both teams have met or exceeded expectations.

The Sharks made it to the Conference finals, but got swept by the Blackhawks. Every round they won raised expectations on the team, so losing to Chicago seemed especially tough.

David Pollak has been working the Sharks post-mortem and got some great stuff from the team.

For instance, Sharks coach Todd McLellan said, to a certain extent, the Sharks met expectations:

We need to be careful we’re not walking around patting ourselves on the back…We set some new standards for the organization and the players lived up to them, but ultimately we were beat by a very good Chicago team. I felt we could have played better and could have challenged them a little more.

GM Doug Wilson had a comparable take:

I’m damn proud of this hockey team and this coaching staff and the fan base for the support they gave us…It’s a different feeling we have. We’ve made a huge stride as an organization.

Those comments were great because if you ask an NHL fan about the Sharks, they’re probably going to tell you the team imploded and failed to meet expectations, given the regular-season play of the Sharks, as well as the talent on the ice.

To a certain extent, I wonder if the Sharks would have been better off going out earlier in the post-season. By making it to the Conference finals, but not the Stanley Cup finals, the Sharks showed they have a certain level of drive, but not quite enough.

Wilson and McLellan seem proud the Sharks came so close to succeeding, but to fans, it just makes losing all the more frustrating.

Fans don’t want close. They want achievement.

I bring this up, because after Boston blew their 3-0 series lead to Philadelphia in the second round, Kevin Paul Dupont wrote a great column taking the Bruins organization to task for not apologizing for the Bruins colossal breakdown. The funny thing is, if Boston hadn’t made it into the playoffs, fans would have been disappointed, but eventually OK.

The Bruins created expectations, though, and by overachieving against the Sabres in the first round, they wound up making things worse for their fans.

So it’s not that winning is bad, because winning creates expectations. But winning in general, and overachieving specifically, can actually make things tougher, once the winning and/or overachieving is done.

GMs and coaches always want to take their teams as far as possible, while fans want teams to win championships.

The Bruins and Sharks had good seasons, but ultimately failed. I wonder if they would have been better off failing sooner rather than later. By coming so close to meeting expectations, all either team did was prove they can’t win when something important is on the line.

Both teams showed to a certain extent they had the talent to win, but to a certain extent they also lacked the will.

Earlier exits would have proven they merely lacked the talent, which in a lot of ways is more palatable.

Chicago Rolls and No One Asks Too Many Questions

Steven Ovadia — Thu, 20 May 2010 09:54:49 +0000

Context is everything.

The Sun-Times has a small item talking about how well Marian Hossa is playing in the playoffs, despite scoring just two goals.

And Hossa’s game really has evolved. He’s gotten much, much more physical, which he attributes to his year with the Red Wings.

But would everyone be content with Hossa’s performance if the Blackhawks were down two games, rather than up two games? Is great forechecking and solid defense worth $62.8 over 12 years?

Also, it’s worth noting that as physical as Hossa’s been, he’s also picked up 19 penalty minutes, second most on the ‘Hawks. And more than twice what Ben Eager has (to be fair, Hossa’s also played in four more games).

When a team is rolling as well as the Blackhawks are, no one cares about contracts and cap hits. But the second a team like that struggles, the guys with the huge salaries better start scoring (or making huge saves) or they’re going to get called out.

One person who’s been way ahead of everyone else on the calling-out-the-Blackhawks future trend is one-time ‘Hawk (and Shark) Jeremy Roenick, who’s officially on record as pulling for the Sharks.

But I don’t want to rain on Chicago’s parade. The city is in a great place. Blackhawks merchandise is selling like hot cakes. And there are even rumors (rumors pretty much confirmed to be untrue) impending NBA free agent LeBron James is house hunting in Chicago.

I wonder if James is a hockey fan.

Five Parties for the San Jose Sharks to Thank

Steven Ovadia — Mon, 10 May 2010 08:56:56 +0000

The nice thing about San Jose’s advancement into the Western Conference finals is that there are quite a few heroes responsible for the Sharks finally dumping their choke artists reputation. Here are five thank yous the Sharks need to express:

Thank You One: Coaching
First of all, you have to thank coach Todd McLellan, who has kept his team calm throughout the playoffs. I made fun of McLellan (and his players) for de-emphasizing the importance of winning post-season games, but it seems it was a smart coaching technique.

Thank You Two: Joe Thornton
Also helpful was Joe Thornton finally coming alive in the playoffs. I’ve always felt Thornton’s greatest curse was that he’s a low-key guy who takes everything in stride. It looked like this post-season, he was determined to show he could personally take his team to the next level. And against Detroit, he really did.

Thank You Three: Dany Heatley
The Sharks also need to thank Dany Heatley, who took a lot of pressure off of Thornton. Instead of Thornton being the guy, he was one of the guys, and I think that let him relax and focus on the game a bit more. Heatley has played very well in the playoffs, but his main contribution is being another high profile player to draw some of the spotlight off of Thornton.

Thank You Four: Secondary Scoring
Speaking of guys, the post-season emergence of Joe Pavelski and Devin Setoguchi have made the Sharks very, very tough to defend. They throw a lot of offense at opposing defenses and it’s truly hard to know who’s going to be hot on any given night. If you focus on Pavelski, you have to worry about Patrick Marleau. If you focus on Thornton, Heatley will burn you.

Thank You Five: Dan Boyle
Finally, the Sharks need to thank Dan Boyle, whose freak goal seems to have solidified the Sharks resolve. That goal shook the Sharks out of their own heads, because, I would argue, it made them feel less responsible for their winning. Once they saw that crazy things are going to happen, and these crazy things are sometimes unavoidable, I think they were able to relax and focus on doing the best they could with whatever hand they were dealt. After the freak goal, the Sharks focused on playing well rather than winning and that subtle shift is what got them into the conference finals.

NHL Trying to Clear Wings from Crease

Steven Ovadia — Wed, 05 May 2010 10:13:08 +0000

I’m loving the San Jose-Detroit series because of how it represents a rebirth for the Sharks. Instead of being a first-round choke kind of team, they’re suddenly confident and composed.

The officiating has been a bit strange, though. Specifically, the NHL suddenly seems to have taken exception to some of Detroit’s around-the-net play.

Last night Henrik Zetterberg had a goal waved off that bounced in off of his skate as he was charging the net (but well outside of the crease). To me, it seemed more of a deflection than a kick, but it was a close call.

But in the third period, with less than three minutes left in the game, Tomas Holmstrom was called for goaltender interference when he didn’t really seem to be interfering with anyone.

I don’t think the NHL is out to get the Wings and I don’t think the officiating is part of some larger anti-Detroit conspiracy. But looking at the officiating against the Wings over the past three seasons, it’s hard not to see a pattern of calls that seem designed to keep Detroit away from opposing creases.

It seems we spend a fair amount of time each playoff season taking about the number of Detroit goals waved off because of the presence of a player in the crease — usually Zetterberg or Holmstrom.

The NHL’s message is clear: they don’t want to see play that down low in the playoffs.

I’m not sure what the NHL objects to. I suspect they’re worried about too many teams overloading the crease with huge bodies, taking some speed out of the game. The interesting thing is that fans always seem to love guys like Zetterberg and Holmstrom, who are willing to take a beating in search of a goal.

And in general, if a forward doesn’t know what to do in the offensive zone, most of the time it’s going to pay for him to just head toward the net. So it’s strange that so much officiating seems to be teaching players to avoid the net.

I would say this officiating is about protecting goalies, but if you’ve watched any regular season hockey, you’ve seen goalies run over and into nightly. The league seems to have very little interest in protecting goalies.

Detroit coach Mike Babcock has built a great team around the concept of working the crease. He won a Stanley Cup executing that strategy.

But now, down three games to none, maybe it’s time to try something else. It’s not fair Babcock has to abandon a successful strategy that requires a lot of player skill and bravery, but it doesn’t seem the Wings can beat both the Sharks and the officials.

Sharks Rally Around Dan Boyle’s Freak Goal

Steven Ovadia — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 10:00:17 +0000

Out in Denver, the Sharks are dealing with the fallout from Dan Boyle’s freak goal on his own team.

A day later, Boyle said he’s still not over the mistake, but he’ll have forgotten by tonight’s game.

Sharks coach Todd McLellan seems content to write the whole thing off as a freak accident, taking great pains not to blame anyone for what happened.

I also suspect in some ways, McLellan is happy for the distraction. Instead of everyone talking about how great Colorado goalie Craig Anderson played Sunday night, and instead of talking about how the Sharks have struggled to consistently score against Anderson, everyone is talking about a fluke goal.

The players are rallying around Boyle, worried about Boyle’s mental health but seemingly not too concerned about Anderson. So in a lot of ways, that freak goal might have taken a lot of pressure off of San Jose’s shoulders.

It should be a great game. Will the Sharks step-up and tie the series or will they collapse under all of the expectations and freak goals? I suspect the Sharks will take control of the series, just to silence all of the talk that they’re not a mentally tough team.

In fact, I suspect that at the end of the series, Colorado will wish they had scored their own goal in that overtime. I suspect Boyle’s goal might have been the series turning point that finally lights a fire beneath the Sharks.

McLellan also said he he expects Dany Heatley back in the line-up tonight. And that also has to help San Jose.

Canucks Do What They Do Best; Sharks See Winning as Optional

Steven Ovadia — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 10:05:20 +0000

I loved the end of last night’s Vancouver-Los Angeles game because the final few minutes were a microcosm of the Canucks’ season.

You had Mikael Samuelsson, an off-season acquisition, scoring in overtime, proving his playoff experience and ability to get into the slot made him a solid pick-up.

You had Henrik Sedin setting the goal up, which is perfect, because Henrik is an assist machine.

And best of all, the whole thing started behind an opponent’s net, where the Canucks have done so much damage this season.

If anyone asks you about the 2009-10 Canucks season, just show them a clip of that sequence.

Meanwhile, Vancouver is going to be a tough match-up for the Kings. First of all, the Canucks are shifty, and I’m not sure the young Kings team is prepared for all of Vancouver’s fakes and tricks and explosive moves.

Also, Vancouver is tough to defend in the offensive zone because they’re so good behind the net. Most coaches will tell players to ignore the guy behind the net, since he can’t score from there, but the Canucks and their precision passing make it a dangerous area. But if the Kings play the man behind the net, it opens up the slot area for Vancouver.

I’m guessing the Kings are going to focus on tight defense in the Cancucks’ zone and in the neutral zone, hoping to just keep Vancouver out of the offensive zone as much as possible. Or maybe using two guys down low, to take away the passing lanes out of the rear net area.

But for a team like Los Angeles, that doesn’t like to have too many players too deep in the defensive zone, the Canucks are proving to be a challenge.

Also, if you’re wondering why the San Jose Sharks have so much trouble in the playoffs, it might be because they don’t quite understand the purpose of the post-season.

The Sharks are refusing to call tonight’s game two against Colorado a must-win. Even though the Sharks are already down a game and even though they’re going to Colorado for the next two games and even though every game of the playoffs pretty much is a must-win.

I get that they’re trying not to put too much pressure on themselves, but someone within the Sharks organization really needs to step-up and recognize that the purpose of the playoffs is to win games. I can’t imagine the Avs are saying tonight is an optional win and they’re up a game. Why are the Sharks making winning optional when they’re already in the hole?

Overconfidence Could be San Jose’s Achilles’ Heel

Steven Ovadia — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 11:02:46 +0000

Mrs. PuckUpdate and I love to joke about announcers who warn against the dreaded two-goal lead, what a lot of them call ‘the most dangerous lead to have.’

A lot of times, a team will go up two goals and the announcer will talk about how it’s actually a risky lead to have, since a team will protect a one-goal lead, but could get cocky with a two-goal one.

It seems pretty nonsensical; the type of thing a color guy probably brings up to keep the game interesting.

Having said that, San Jose’s 9-1 blowout of the Flames might not be the best thing for the Sharks.

The Sharks, as we all know, don’t have the best playoff record. To succeed in the playoffs, a team needs to know how to play under duress. With just 10 regulation losses so far this year, they haven’t been in that situation very often.

If the Sharks continue to relatively effortlessly roll through games in the playoffs, as they have during this regular season, it’s not an issue. Scoring nine goals in a playoff game should be enough to get them a win.

But if they’re getting played tighter and thinking a nine-goal explosion is just a shift away, that might cause some playoff problems.

So yeah. An eight-goal victory margin is cool and it’s great that the Sharks got their secondary scoring going, but if I’m coach Todd McLellan, I want my team humble yet confident. Huge wins like this make me think the Sharks are just getting set-up for another big flop out of the playoffs.

San Jose could use a nice bit of adversity to toughen them up for the playoffs. I don’t think they’ve had to fight through any yet this season.

Speaking of the playoffs, it’s been a while for the Panthers. Their last playoff appearance was 2000.

If Florida does finally make it in this year, that’ll be a good example of a team that won’t be overconfident in their approach to the post-season.