Shark Bait Who Who Who?
Posted 10-07-2014 at 02:27 PM by AdamJones113
Shark Bait Who Who Who?
New-Look Sharks Hope To Achieve What Older Teams Couldn't
Dan Boyle? Gone. Probable top line? Tomas Hertl, Logan Couture, and Joe Pavelski. Not the good old days of Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, and even Devin Setoguchi or Johnathan Cheechoo. Joe Thornton made most players really good then. Evgeni Nabokov used to be a good goalie for the Sharks. Now, he's the back-up in New York—Brooklyn, I mean, and Antti Niemi is starting for San Jose. Cheechoo and Milan Michalek were traded to Ottawa in 2009 for our old friend Danny Heatley. Bust-mode ensued. Not all those changes have been well-recieved. Setoguchi for Brent Burns. Heatley for Martin Havlat. And then, just last year, the Sharks went up 3-0 in their first round series to the Los Angeles Kings. Er, the 2013-14 NHL Champions Los Angeles Kings. Yep. After the loss, GM Doug Wilson described the Sharks' playoff failures 'like Charlie Brown trying to kick a football.' The Sharks quickly stripped Thornton of his captaincy.
Few of those moves were popular. Some of those changes may give San Jose a chance to get past their Western Conference semi-finals impasse.
That's Tomas Hertl. Hertl scored 4 goals in one game early last season (his rookie year) and got off to a blazing start before cooling down a bit later on. Still four goals is pretty impressive (the last one was a between-the-legs beauty) and Joe "NSFW" Thornton summed it up thusly:
—"I'd have my cock out if I scored four goals. I'd have my cock out, stroking it."
Well, big Joe certainly seems to like the infusion of, er, new blood. Joe Pavelski and Logan Couture aren't exactly new blood, but the two are not foremost in mind when one thinks of San Jose. Both have produced well in the past few seasons, and both are dangerous to send this team far—well, farther. Mirco Mueller (2013) and Nikolay Goldobin (2014) are the most recent first round draft picks (Hertl was their #1 choice in 2012) poised to make an impact at the SAP Center.
Will they move past nemeses Vancouver, Los Angeles and Dallas? Only new blood can do that—and remember, sharks swarm at the sense of blood.
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