As of this writing, the Sharks have 17 games left in their regular season, and there is a legitimate question as to whether there will even be 4 games beyond that. It's almost inconceivable that such a question could be asked of this team. The faithful here have become used to a certain standard of excellence that is lacking in the current version of Team Teal.

Over the course of this season, Fear The Fin has been blessed to have such a talented and professional group of writers covering the team, and helping us to understand their performance, and the game of hockey in general. We've learned a lot about how the team works, and what they need to do to be successful.

And yet, most nights, it seems, we wind up scratching our heads and wondering how these results came to be. Some among us have maybe even come to mistrust the statistical analysis that's used here and many other places throughout the NHL and the blogosphere (including, it must be stated, in the Sharks' front office AND among the current coaching staff).

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When the San Jose Sharks finished the 2010-2011 regular season with a 79.6% penalty kill percentage, and a 76.3% for the playoffs, it signaled major changes for the unit, which had been a bright spot for the team in seasons past.

Regular penalty killers Scott Nichol and Jamal Mayers were not re-signed, and the blue line was completely overhauled. In addition, new arrivals Michael Handzus and Martin Havlat were intended to change the complexion of the unit, and Patrick Marleau and Joe Pavelski were intended to take a reduced role compared to a very poor penalty killing campaign.

With the penalty kill currently languishing in 29th place, it's difficult to see any improvement from last season.

Firstly, a look at the numbers:

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Greetings Ladies and Gents,

I've had some last minute family obligations come up, and will not be able to attend our first installment of FTF Pizza nights. However, I know several people expressed interest in the 17th as one of the potential dates. So I'd like to get a quick headcount of who was going to be available this Saturday so I could figure out if we needed to book a room. Round Table basically requires a minimum $50 food purchase to get a room with a TV, and 2 Larges, plus drinks usually covers this.

So, Please respond to this post with the following ONLY IF YOU PLAN ON ATTENDING:

1.) Number of people you're bringing

2.) If you have a preference for the South Bay (San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale), Peninsula (Mountain View, Palo Alto, Redwood City) or East Bay (Milpitas, Fremont).

Based on the responses, we can see what the logistics would be.

Let's hope our commitment to get out and see each other contributes to a drilling of the Oilers!

GO SHARKS!

Greetings fellow Fin-atics and Fin-addicts. Due to real life commitments, our benevolent blog overlords have been unable to plan the third annual FTF Night at the Tank. In related news, Plank's WoW guild has been on a f***ing tear, and I think Matt has made, like, a bazillion dollars in Farmville. Anywho, I know several of us have been itching to have some sort of real-time get together to enjoy unhealthy food and an unhealthy love for the men who wear Teal.

With tickets being hard to come by, especially in the numbers we might need, I reckon the next best idea is to do a pizza night, similar to the one PNK organized towards the end of last season. Something low-key, at a Round Table or Mountain Mikes with a semi-private room and large screen TVs where in we can eat pizza and insult each other in person as opposed to over the internets. And hopefully, we can attract some of the folks who appear to have abandoned posting on FTF for the twitter-pating.

I'd like to poll people on when and where they might like to do this. I'm profering up the following potential dates (and feel free to recommend more than one. I see no reason to limit this to a one time thing:

Saturday, 12/3 vs. FLA, 7:30 pm

Saturday, 12/10 @ StL, 5:00 pm

Sunday, 12/11 @ CHI, 4:00 pm

Tuesday, 12/15 vs COL, 7:30 pm

Saturday, 12/17 vs EDM, 7:00 pm

Friday, 12/23 vs LAK, 7:30 pm

As for locations, this depends on who would be coming out. I know the majority of us are in the South Bay, which makes San Jose/Santa Clara convenient, but if a more central location like Palo Alto or Mountain View on the Peninsula, or Fremont and Milpitas in the East Bay would attract more folks, I think we can consider that.

There's also a good chance I won't be able to make the first three dates I posted, so if anyone else would like to be on top of organizing, I'd appreciate the help. I know that 6 choices seems like a lot, but I'm hoping to be somewhat flexible in choices as I know December is when a lot of you young rabble rousing college students will be home, plus folks might be in town to see family and such. Also, does anyone who's interested in coming have any major dietary restrictions that should be taken into account?

So, please check your calenders and check in with your parole officers to make sure you can make it out to see us. I know this is a Fear the Fin event, but please not that pants are REQUIRED, not optional. Stupid laws.

GO SHARKS!

The 2011-2012 campaign for the San Jose Sharks has reached the 10 game mark. And already, the team has seen a bit of everything. A dominating win against Phoenix that showed that the current squad is capable of, a pair of controversial wins in Detroit and Long Island that featured some dubious decisions that impacted the final outcome in a big way, a comeback shootout win in New Jersey, a nearly blown lead in Boston and some textbook road hockey in Nashville. There have been disappointing loses, including a shutout by noted Shark killer Jonas Hiller, a pair of star performances by backup netminders, and a general all around stinker most recently in New York.

The team has seen a significant amount of roster turnover, and some key players in key positions are either new to the team, or new to their role. Most notably, Brent Burns, Martin Havlat and Michael Handzus joined the team in the offseason as a #1 defenseman, a top-6 winger and a shutdown center. Joe Pavelski finds himself with new linemates (also, the sky is blue), and several young players are fighting for roster spots. So while several big names are the same, this is a very different team from last year’s squad. Some growing pains are inevitable. While no one expected the team to be 10-0 at this point, a 6-4 record tastes sour for some fans, as the manner of the losses seems all too familiar.

This has reignited a mini-debate that has been following the team for several seasons now: should the Sharks commit to screening the opposition goaltender? Many expected Coach Todd McLellan to emphasize this strategy, given his work with the Detroit Red Wings, and players such as Thomas Holmstrom and Johan Franzen. The strategy has made the Detroit Red Wings one of the premier teams in the NHL since the lockout. And fans in San Jose have heard the mantra of "pucks and people to the net" in many interviews with the coaching staff and the players.

So when the Sharks lose, it seems as though there is a huge imbalance between the pucks and the people to the net. Many fans are left puzzling over loses where the Sharks outshoot their opposition by a significant margin, but are not able to win. There’s a perception that there are too many "easy" shots.

So, at the 10 game mark, a point at which the Sharks have scored 30 goals, it seems a good time to take a quick qualitative look at the offense.

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As uncomfortable as it is to admit, even though they've been outscored by a healthy margin, the Vancouver Canucks may still yet win the Stanley Cup. If they do, former Sharks Christian Ehrhoff and Manny Malhotra will have the privilege of being named on Lord Stanley's Cup, a very elite fraternity. Even more select is the number of men who have worn teal to have their names on the Cup. Given Doug Wilson's penchant for bringing IN former Cup winners, the trend has been for former champions to wear teal. Those who have left Silicon Valley for icier pastures have not always found success. After the jump, we'll look to the best of those who went on to find hockey's Holy Grail.

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Rudy from BoC got tapped by Puck Daddy to Eulogize the Ducks. And I thought to myself, that's awesome! This'll be full of snark and humor and crude jokes!

And then Rudy decided to get all serious and analyze the team and use facts and numbers and junk.

And I thought, man, that's boring.

So I decided to kill some time and write one of my own.

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Well, March Madness is in full swing.

For starters (ha, see what I'm doing here), Antti Niemi got paid. And I mean paid. He's makin' it rain with a 4 year, $15.2M contract. It's so much money, that even his T-Rex arms can throw it in the air and waive like they just don't care.

In other news, Mark Cuban may be buying the Dallas Stars. As if my hatred of the Stars wasn't already high enough, Mark Cuban being their owner would just allow me to distribute my hate much more efficiently. Cuban would help fill the void left by Sean Avery, because clearly, the Stars didn't have enough douchebags who should keep their mouths shut under all circumstances. I mean, Steve Ott and Mike Ribeiro can't shoulder that burden alone!

Also, people talk a lot about TV here, so I have to say, we don't talk nearly enough about Burn Notice. Seriously, that show is awesome. And we're talking Joe Pavelski riding a Bear levels of awesome. Leverage too. Leverage is like the Clouwemance to Burn Notice's Big Pavelski. Between that, you have about as much awesome as you can handle.

The following post is written by me not as a moderator or anyone with any sort of position of authority here at Fear The Fin. These are my personal thoughts, opinions, viewpoints and feelings, and should only be taken as such.

It's pretty bad in Teal Town right now. Longest losing streak in over a decade. A cap situation that leaves little room for improvement. Underperforming and Overpaid players. A less than stellar history in the post-season. A season of underachievement that seems to be slowly slipping away, and slipping away because of performances that truly wrench the hearts of those of us that bleed teal.

Worse yet, there's a growing fatalism in the fanbase. There is something rotten in the State of Sharkdom. It's only natural. There's plenty to criticize, and criticize we have: the Power Play sucks, the turnovers are killing us, we're slow, we're soft, we're always tired, we're getting beat to loose pucks, our shot quality is poor, we don't crash the net, we don't play physical, we can't figure out what the coach is doing, our off-season acquisitions are not very good... the list goes on.

The fanbase is supposed to be critical. The fanbase is supposed to hold the team accountable. I know there is disagreement on the topic, but I do believe, at times, fans should boo their team. Teams should know when they are disappointing, and booing is an effective way of doing that. Fans should criticize the team. Players should not be let off the hook when they aren't performing. They're professionals. This is what they do.

But, I think the time for anger is passing. I think the team needs something else from the fanbase now. The team needs our belief.

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Happy All Saints Day all you Sinners out there. It's finally November.

And you know what that means! Baseball!

...Wait, what?

The World Series in November? What sort of nonsense is this? Next thing you tell me, no team from the East Coast is in it. I mean, logically, how could a team from the East NOT be in it if the games all start at 5 Pacific? That'd just be crazy. It makes about as much sense as the NFL playing regular season games in Europe or someone signing Ilya Kovalchuk for 17 years and $100M dollars. What's next. Derek Boogard and Jody Shelley getting $1M+ a season? Niklas Wallin making $2.5M? Tim Thomas posting a GAA lower than his SV%?

[Editor's Note]: Elvis gets us rolling with a very good Fanpost on who should be placed on the San Jose Sharks Mt. Puckmore. Leave your thoughts in the comments.

We all know Puck Daddy has been doing the Mt. Puckmore for each team. I'm sure Plank, TCY or someone will be called upon to do the official one for Team Teal, but I thought it might be fun to at least get the debate going. So, what follows is my personal top four. Feel free to debate, disagree, call me names or just reminisce about your favorite Team Teal memories.

This season, the San Jose Sharks will celebrate 20 years of hockey. For much of their history, the team has been an afterthought in the league; a small market team out in a non-traditional hockey region that plays most of its games at 10pm Eastern. But for those in the Bay Area, for whom hockey was perhaps something new, something to soothe the pain of teams on the decline, dynasties ending, modern business practices that saw fan favorites traded away, arena disputes, threats of moving and a thousand and one other indignities, the San Jose Sharks have been a bright spot in the Bay Area sporting landscape for the past two decades. From humble beginnings, the team has emerged as one of the elite franchises in the NHL today. It's been a long, winding, sometimes bumpy road, and there is still far to go, but these four faces have done more to get the franchise where it is than any others.

1. Doug Wilson

The first captain in team history. A former Norris Trophy winner. One of the finest defenseman of his day. Doug Wilson brought instant credibility to a new franchise in a new place. Unquestionably a future Hall of Famer, Wilson was the team's first All-Star, and did much to help build the profile of the team to a new fanbase.
His biggest contributions to the team, however, have been from the front office. The current General Manager is one of the best in the business. He is the mastermind behind arguably three of the biggest trades of the past decade, and has engineered many smaller ones to keep the Sharks competitive throughout his tenure, which includes three division titles in 5 seasons, three 50 win seasons and four 100 point seasons. The team's post-season performances do leave much to be desired, but it's hard to pin any significant portion of blame on the man who put together the team that got there.

The trick of keeping a smaller-market, smaller-revenue team competitive in the modern NHL is no small feat. Who is to say the Sharks would remain a successful franchise if they had the record of other struggling NHL markets such as Phoenix, Atlanta or Columbus? Bay Area fans are fickle. But the consistent success of the team has kept the fanbase energized and continued to make the Tank one of the toughest buildings to play in, a credit to the architects of this team. Doug Wilson inherited a very good team from former GM Dean Lombardi, who might make this list if not for Wilson, and is now doing great work turning around the Kings. Doug Wilson took this team to the next level, just like he did two decades ago when he put on the C.

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I did a bit of a breakdown looking for insights into strengths and weaknesses in the matchups between the Sharks and the various Western Conference Playoff Teams. This is intended as a companion to Plank's most recent writeup.

Click here for the fancy schmancy spreadsheet. The series is broken down as follows. Each game is summarized by goals, shots and special teams figures. The first three columns are Goals For: Even Strength, Power Play and Short Handed. The next column is Shots on Goal For, followed by the PP stats, both Raw and %. The next set of columns are for the opposition. Goals Against: Even Strength, Power Play and Short Handed. Then Shots on Goal Against, and Raw and % stats for the Penalty Kill.

Empty Net goals are not counted, nor are shootout goals. Where applicable, they are indicated. This is a pure numbers breakdown for the moment, compiled by game stats available on SBNation. I may delve further and try and breakdown individual goal scorers and +/- later, depending on how much time I have (or someone else here is welcome to do so).

The point of this is just to try and get some general insights into what the Sharks do well against these teams, and what their weaknesses might be. I'll be quoting the numbers in the spreadsheet. I'm too lazy to copy and paste every tab into this post, so I'll just give my personal insights into the numbers from each team below.

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Happy New Year hockey fans! Today, the US announced its Men's Olympic Hockey roster, meaning that all the contenders for medals at the 2010 Vancouver games will be announced.

These games have been highly anticipated for several reasons:

1.) The venue: Canada is one of the most hockey mad countries on the face of the planet. Anytime the game goes to one of it's spiritual homes, you can expect a great atmosphere and great support at each of the games, even for neutral games.

2.) NHL Participation: While the "Miracle on Ice" was one of the greatest sporting stories of all time because, among many things, a team of amateurs beat what was essentially a seasoned professional side, participation by the NHL has given us some of the best games we could ask for. NHL players do participate in the World Championships, but many players are frequently unavailable due to playoff commitments. With this being possibly the last year the NHL participates, we could be seeing this type of talent together on the ice for the last time.

3.) Crosby vs. Ovechkin: It's been one of the biggest stories in the NHL, and now it's going global. Yes, yes, there'll be more than just these two at the games, but let's face it, they are the star power. The prospect of these two meeting again for something as big as a gold medal will get even the most casual fan interested.

4.) The Dark Horses: Canada and Russia will meet for gold. That's about 99% certain. They're just too talented... but wait. What happens if Ryan Miller or Henrik Lundqvist or Miikka Kiprusoff get hot? What happens if Marian Gaborik and Pavol Demitra become unstoppable? What happens if Jaromir Jagr remembers that he used to be the best player in the world? What happens if Marion Hossa finally wins the big one? In a single elimination tournament, it only takes one bad game for it all to go wrong for a favorite. And the pride of playing for country always seems to give everyone a boost.

5.) Payback: In Salt Lake City, Canada won gold, and snuck a loony under center ice to boot. Russia has won the past 2 world championships at Canada's expense, once on Canadian ice. Slovakia was undefeated in Turin until the Czech Republic bounced them. Finland was on a tear in Turin until Sweden finally got the best of them in the gold medal game. And how much you wanna bet Lavtia and Belarus wouldn't just love to beat old Mother Russia? Hockey players are like your brothers: sometimes, you just want to punch them in the face really really hard.

With all the hype and all the anticipation, people are going to be looking at all sorts of stats and metrics to gauge each teams chances: goals, points, international and Stanley Cup experience, save percentage, etc.

We're going to look at one metric that most people might be tempted to ignore: payroll.

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