Alright. So the playoffs are pretty much upon us, another pretty damn successful season in the books, and the real struggle is about to begin. So far we seem to be focused on things going into this -- the lackluster post-Olympic play, the faltering defense, the bad run of playoff outings in the past ... a lot of Negative Nancy bull, if ya ask me. I say, it's time to discard all the crap; after all, if the regular season "doesn't matter," then a few weeks stretch in that time doesn't, for sure. No, it's time now to get pumped, get crazy, get cocky and forego "Is This the Year?" for "This IS the Year!" 

Look around at the other teams in the West. Many of them have faltered since the Olympics. The standings have changed dramatically in that short span, after a season of building themselves into something almost logical. The Avalanche, after an amazing year of come-from-nowhere rockin' play, are now fighting for their postseason lives. The Flames are edged out of the mix. Phoenix is contending for the Pacific Division. The Ducks and Stars are both languishing just outside the Cool Kid's Club. Nothing makes any sense.

Every season, there are 30 teams in the NHL. Every season, 29 of them fail to win the Stanley Cup. 14 of them fail to even get a chance at the road to glory, as the 8 best from East and West duke it out amongst themselves to find their champions, who represent them in the Finals. Every year, only one team can go all the way.

So why would we be down on the Sharks for failing to be that one team, every year? Look at the teams that have fallen even further; the basement-dwellers who haven't cracked the playoffs several years in a row. The old teams, steeped in tradition, on a Cup drought longer than the Sharks have even been around. Where are their fans? Oh, they're standing by their teams. They're reveling in the small victories, pressing for that slim chance to even see their team try and make it to the top. They're getting cocky and surrounding themselves in fervor and Must-Win culture.

Sure, you say, they don't have the history of failing that the Sharks do. They don't have the issues that we see in our boys down the last stretch -- that's just a lie. Every team has difficult points. Every team has weaknesses. Every team has fans that will cry that the sky is falling when their top goal scorer goes on a drought, or when their star defender seems to keep slipping the puck to the other team. Our situation is not unique; more importantly, it is not catastrophic.

Nobody can say what the playoffs will bring, but of this, I can be sure: I will not adopt the doubt and cautiousness that seems to be sweeping the fanbase. No, I will be unabashedly optimistic. I will be the fan that goes all in and truly believes. I will be the one who says we can still do it if the Sharks drop 3-0 in a series. I will sacrifice my sanity, my pride, and my ego if they fail, but these things are immaterial and I will gladly put them in the pot to place my bets on the Sharks.

I respect that many fans that have been following the team longer than I are done with this rosy outlook, but I will pick up where they left off. It's on me, the newcomer, to be truly apart from the past hurts that have left so many fans jaded, since I was not there, and therefore allow myself to really, honestly, and truly believe in this team. If that means I'm pulling all my weight only to be disappointed -- well, I'd rather be disappointed in the Sharks than any other team. And that's all that matters to me.

Someone said I should start writing these again, and I'll admit, it's a fun outlet, so I'm going to try; unfortunately, analogies to the San Jose Sharks performance tonight aside, I'm just not in it right now. My laptop is making odd noises when it's on for too long, the Sharks were absolutely destroyed by the Dallas Stars, and all in all, I'm feelin' kinda grumpy.

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It was a tough game and an even tougher road loss for the San Jose Sharks as they fell 3-0 to the Columbus Blue Jackets, seeing an end to two nine-game streaks held by the Sharks; nine road wins and nine games of being outshot by their opponents were halted as the Jackets' Steve Mason did to the Sharks what Evgeni Nabokov has done over that period, stealing a game in which his team was outplayed. Kent Huskins (of all people) was the victim of a particularly savage theft from the home team's netminder as he laid on a hard shot to try and break the shutout wall well into the third period.

I missed nearly all of the first period, so I can't say much other than that Rick Nash put the puck past Sharks backup Thomas Greiss to open the scoring. Jakub Voracek added another tally in the second, on a neat breakaway after the Sharks handed over an absolutely awful giveaway in the attacking zone with the defense tied up trying to jump into the play that was supposed to unfurl. A last-minute tally by Raffi Torres into the Sharks empty net closed the scoring. The Sharks did manage to nearly double the shots on net that the Blue Jackets mustered (40-21 was the end count), but for some reason, they could not sort out the problem facing them from between the pipes.

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The San Jose Sharks did a nice job for their first visit to Toronto to face up against the Maple Leafs in several years; despite giving up the first goal to Tyler Bozak halfway through the first, the Sharks fought well to keep themselves in the game and eventually took the lead courtesy of Dan Boyle and Joe Pavelski each contributing to the scoresheet in the middle frame. A late second-period tie-up came from Phil Kessel on a power play handed to the Leafs by Jody Shelley, who responded very poorly (and in a manner lacking discipline or forethought) to a hit from Dion Phaneuf, someone known for delivering a hard check and resistant a glove-dropping tussle afterwards.

It was a great shift by Ryane Clowe and Devin Setoguchi that made the difference just over seven minutes into the third, as Clowe put the puck past Jean-Sebastien Giguere to close the scoring on another page of the story of the Sharks' pre-Olympic road trip. Prior to this tilt, J.S. managed to stack up two shutouts in a row for the Leafs, becoming the first goaltender in Leafs franchise history to do so in their first pair of appearances donning the blue and white. As a side note, it took me until about halfway into the second to realize that Giguere was still sporting his old Anaheim Duck mask, still too fresh to the Toronto club to have had a new one made sporting the new digs; makes me wonder how long it takes for these masks to be made for goalies, and how involved they are (on average) in the process.

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The San Jose Sharks owe two points from a win on Saturday to one Evgeni Nabokov, who absolutely robbed the Nashville Predators of several huge chances throughout the latter half of the tilt to hold his teammates into a game that saw the Sharks playing catch-up through most of play. Three times, the Predators took the lead, and three times, San Jose answered back before finally taking the advantage courtesy of Dany Heatley's second power play goal of the night near the halfway mark of the final period.

J.P. Dumont started the scoring, netting the Preds first tally just 1:39 into the game only to see Brad Staubitz return the favor 73 seconds later, nicely sneaking one past Pekka Rinne to even it up. Dumont's second, a power play goal in the middle period, brought life to Nashville's skaters, until a twisted series of penalties killed any chance to gather momentum and Dany Heatley put one in on a 4-on-3 (I think? I did get a little scattered in all of that).

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Probably should have put this up sooner, but better late than never -- I need help figuring out a menu for tomorrow's game against Nashville; luckily, I'm not flat broke anymore, so I can actually take suggestions. I'm looking for a main dish, maybe a side or three (I found a lot of references to 'meat-and-three', being a meat dish with three vegetable sides), and an appropriately themed or paired drink (shots, cocktails, or local microbrews available up in NorCal welcome).

What say ye, Fin-Fearers? (Fear-the-Finners? Meh.)

The menu tonight was toasted ravioli, an apparent St. Louis favorite which is surprisingly delicious; likely to become a staple in this household, honestly, games vs. the Blues notwithstanding. Whatever the mojo was, it seemed to work pretty well as the San Jose Sharks managed to bust home a good 4-2 win over St. Louis to open up their pre-Olympic road trip with a visit to Scottrade Center despite a late Too Many Men penalty after a big brawl sent Torrey Mitchell and David Backes to the box for some nail-biting 4-on-4 action to close out the game.

Patrick Marleau opened the scoring just 21 seconds into the first period, leading the Sharks to a 2-1 lead headed to the first intermission, with Ryane Clowe picking up the other tally and Patrick Berglund firing in a power play goal to breathe some life into his team late in the first period. Unfortunately for the Blues, as things progressed, Thomas Greiss (whose name was the topic du jour in both our Game Day Thread and that of St. Louis Game Time) proved to be the stronger in-net performer as the Sharks gathered another regulation win despite spending most of the game trailing in shots on goal against the tired, second-night-of-back-to-backs Blues.

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(Sorry for not posting this earlier; much like the Sharks, I took some sleep-aid around the start of the second intermission, and I just wasn't feelin' it when the game ended.

When Joe Thornton notched his second of two first-period tallies to open the scoring at a 2-0 Sharks lead, I was feeling pretty good. San Jose had been bringing a lot of good pressure to Jimmy Howard during that opening bit of play, and the Sharks' lagging defense had been doing pretty good at cleaning up in their own end. Before the end of that period, though, my heart started to sink as Dan Cleary got the Detroit wheel rolling and Henrik Zetterberg smashed in a Power Play goal before the first break to even the score after Rob Blake gave up a ridiculous Delay of Game penalty while already on the Penalty Kill for Patrick Marleau's tripping call.

A scoreless second period didn't do much for me; I felt that the Red Wings controlled the puck through most of that frame, and the Sharks were lucky to have another stellar performance by Evgeni Nabokov to save their skins and keep them in the game through an otherwise very poorly-executed bit of play. The Sharks were outworked in every single way during the second, much as they'd done to the Wings through much of the first, and they hardly deserved to be as "in the game" as they were at that point, having watched their shot differential evaporate and their puck possession drop to near-nothing, not registering a shot on goal in the first eight minutes of the period.

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So, I'll admit that I didn't pay much attention to a lot of this game. We held a tasting for my first batch of home-brewed beer, so there were a lot of people (not to mention a crazy amount of fondue). We did, however, make sure to have some beer-cooked venison on the menu to continue the tradition of eating something to represent the Sharks' opponent for the evening, the Minnesota Wild.

When Owen Nolan opened the scoring early in the first, I'll admit, I had my moment of panic; I was afraid that this was going to set the pace for a San Jose team that was facing an even deeper struggle on their blueline than they have all season, with Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Dan Boyle sitting out with their respective injuries; it was that struggling blueline, though, that saw Jason Demers not only slam in a power play goal against the Wilds' Josh Harding to tie it up, but he repeated the trick with another PP ticker early in the second to match Cal Clutterbuck's late first-period go-ahead.

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This is the first postgame writeup I've done after a Sharks loss. I'm less certain how to approach this, I must admit; as a recent-years Sharks fan, I'm always curious how I'm supposed to react to regular-season losses, especially when the Sharks find themselves maintaining their position at the top of the league, as San Jose did tonight by pushing the Chicago Blackhawks into overtime after giving up three goals in the first period before finally Joe Pavelski breathed some life into the faltering, rest-rusty skaters.

Doomsayers and out-of-market critics will cite this as the downfall of the San Jose Sharks to their (variably) likely Western Conference Final opponents. Chicago and San Jose have fought for the top of the West (and the league) all season, more or less, and many in the blogosphere and ever-accurate prediction market always favor Chicago in the mix, and this game will go into their books as evidence to support their case, despite the struggle back from the Sharks to bring themselves to within hope.

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For last night's game, we bought 5 pounds of party wings, which were then cooked into Buffalo wings for us to consume during the game. We were a little bit off on the timing, so we didn't dig in until just before the second period; the Sharks were down 1-0 courtesy of the Buffalo Sabres' Tim Connolly's first period goal. From then on, though, the game took on a look that's becoming more and more familiar, as San Jose stormed back through the last two frames, scoring a goal for each pound of wings we devoured. Joe Pavelski opened the gates just over two minutes in to the second period, his first of two on the night; Dany Heatley joined the 30-goal club later that period to give the Sharks the edge going in to the last twenty minutes.

Just 18 seconds in to the final frame, though, something happened that my vodka-addled brain wasn't prepared for; not the power play goal from Jason Pominville, mind you, but the strange, "Buffalo fans, this is for you..." sound bite from the television announcers. It sounded something like a poorly-executed Bill Cosby imitation; "You can add one to the population of Pominville!" Quite simply, I didn't recover from that incident until six minutes later, when Pavelski's second tick gave the edge back to San Jose and brought comfort back into my world of confusion.

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I'm beginning to think that the San Jose Sharks read fan forums, and have been trying to come up with ways to respond to the concerns of the fans. After a huge expose on secondary scoring, they opened the floodgates for the 9-1 thrashing of the Calgary Flames. Questions are raised about consistency, about being able to keep that up, and they respond by handing the Los Angeles Kings a 5-1 smashing. The focus shifts back to defensive lapses, brought on thew ill wind that Dan Boyle is going to miss a game or two, and the defense leads the way to a 3-1 victory over the Anaheim Ducks, creating a perfect 5-0 record against them this season.

Any time a team is out their main minute-eating machine, not to mention arguably their most solid, well-rounded defenseman overall, there's going to be trouble. I think the Sharks dealt with the adversity pretty well, even if we set aside for a moment the goals by Rob Blake (not suprising) and Marc-Edouard Vlasic (wait, what?). I thought Jason Demers did a great job jumping up on the special teams to fill the obvious void left by Boyle's absence; no, the defense wasn't perfect, but I think the Sharks actually did a lot better last night in their own zone then they did earlier this week against L.A. The Ducks had their chances, but some solid play (and the continued miraculous showing from Evgeni Nabakov) brought this one home. There was one clear defensive lapse in the early third period, allowing Anaheim's Matt Belesky to drive off Nabby's elusive chase for shutout number 50.

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Assuming nobody minds, I plan to prattle mindlessly as a wrap-up to each game from here on out. I'm not really much of a sports writer, as this marks my second-ever attempt following the recap of the Sharks-Flames game, but I figure it may as well be done. I enjoy writing for the sake of writing, and this is a good way to have material that I'm interested in to write about. If I'm stepping on any toes, stop me; if anyone has advice, criticism, or whatever else, throw it at me in the comments.

Heading into last night's game against the Los Angeles Kings, I quipped to my wife, "I'd be happy to see just half the effort they put up last night in this game." If you round up, that's exactly what the San Jose Sharks delivered in their 5-1 handling of their division rivals, who had been a foil for the boys in teal earlier in the season. As their last meeting, this is the one that will be freshest in the minds of Kings fans should these two clubs clash in the postseason later this year; I imagine, though, that Sharks fans will keep in mind the heavy-handed defeat that LA brought to HP Pavilion on January 2nd as part of a jam-packed end to the regular season series between the two.

Looking at the scores for each game, one might assume that the Sharks have been wholly dominant over the last six periods of play, but after watching the last two periods of Staples Center action last night, I can say that simply wasn't true. As I mentioned in my previous post, Evgeni Nabokov had to face a good effort at certain points of the Calgary game, but none of them were like the peppering he was forced to face last night. I really think that the Kings spent a lot of time working in the offensive zone, and Nabokov robbed them of a few very good chances to bring themselves closer to the bar set in the first period as the Sharks continued their three-points-per-period firestorm from the previous night going for one last hurrah.

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I think we take too much time sometimes focusing on what needs to be worked on, and never giving any real thought or full-breakdown analysis of what went right when our team(s) storm the competition and leave no survivors. That's just what happened last night, as the San Jose Sharks tore open the Calgary Flames in a 9-1 blowout that saw the Sharks' club set a record for number of goal scorers with 8, and put more past Miikka Kiprusoff than ever before.

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