Known far and wide for his headline-making tongue (jeez, that sounds dirtier than I intended) Jeremy Roenick ripped into former San Jose Sharks teammate Patrick Marleau this morning on Toronto radio station AM 640. Asked what the Sharks were missing after dropping Game 1 of their first round series against the Colorado Avalanche, Roenick unloaded both barrels on the former Sharks captain.
“When’s Patty Marleau gonna come out and hit somebody in a playoff game?” Roenick asked incredulously. “When is he gonna come out and start showing why he was so good in the regular season? Not just scoring goals, but playing physical and being emotional in a playoff round. Look at the way Shane Doan came out in Game 1 against Detroit. He hit everything that he could possibly get his hands on to show his team how they need to play. When is Patrick Marleau going to do that in a playoff round?”
It’s a question Shark fans have been asking themselves for years, and a contributing factor in management’s decision to strip Marleau’s captaincy during the offseason. The speedy winger is set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer, leading to speculation that he could be headed elsewhere regardless of San Jose’s playoff outcome. Asked about Marleau’s future in San Jose, Roenick teed off once again.
“I would not sign Patrick Marleau again if they did not get past this round and he falls short of being anything but spectacular. He's been there too long and they have not won with him there, they need to go out and try to do something different,” Roenick said. “Patrick Marleau is a guy that you can dispose of and get some good people for.”
The verbal barrage had to surprise Shark fans, who remember Roenick offering little more than glowing praise for Marleau during his time in San Jose. Of course, he was just being a good teammate at the time, and slamming Marleau wouldn’t have gone over very well with players, coaches or management, but it’s interesting to hear a former teammate offer such pointed criticism of San Jose’s longest-serving player. It also puts even more pressure on the Marleau and the Sharks heading into Game 2 tonight, facing a must-win situation to avoid heading to Denver with a crippling 2-0 deficit.
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Joe Thornton has received mixed reviews for his performance in Game 1, but the bottom line is that he didn’t score a point and the Sharks didn’t win the game. While he did a few good things, crashing the crease and putting five shots on Colorado netminder Craig Anderson, it was concerning to see him alter his game so dramatically from the one we saw during the regular season. While people have been urging him to shoot the puck and go to the net more often for several years now, Thornton only recorded five or more shots five times during the regular season.
Thornton is a playmaker, not a sniper, and the playoffs aren’t the best time to change course and attempt an entirely new offensive approach. He should focus more on finding open ice and setting up his linemates, Marleau and Dany Heatley, players who are built and trained to put the puck in the back of the net. Neither of them played well in the series opener, but they weren’t getting any help from Thornton, who’s been one of the league’s best setup men for the last decade. If the Sharks stray from their game plan at this point, it’s only going to cause more confusion and frustration, just as we saw on Wednesday night.
Speaking of changing up the game plan, we saw the Sharks resort to the dump-and-chase during Game 1. That’s fine if they’d been playing that way all season, but the Sharks kept ringing the puck around the endboards, allowing Anderson to scoop it up and punch it out of trouble. If San Jose employs the dump-and-bump tonight they’d do themselves a favor by changing things up a bit, chipping the puck off the glass, throwing a soft dump to the opposite corner, or my personal favorite, hammering the puck right at the goaltender. If that dump-in is directed at the net four things can happen.
1) The puck will go in the net – Obviously this would be very advantageous for the Sharks. They almost had a puck carom in off the glass in Game 1, forcing Anderson to dive back into his crease to make the save. You could argue it was his biggest save of the game and San Jose’s best scoring chance.
2) Anderson will catch the dump-in – If he gloves the puck he’ll have forecheckers on him instantly, forcing him to either play the puck quickly or cover it for a whistle. The Sharks won 55 percent of their faceoffs on Wednesday, and they won’t turn down any offensive zone faceoffs.
3) Anderson will kick out a rebound – This would be a great thing for the Sharks, allowing their forecheck to cause havoc and putting the puck would be up for grabs. It would put more pressure on Anderson to make a save and get the Avs defenders turning around in their own zone.
4) The puck will miss the net – If the puck misses the net you still have the desired effect because Anderson can’t come out of his net to play it. Taking him out of the equation gives you another second or two to pressure the Colorado defense, and you just might got lucky with a bounce off the endboards.
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I know the playoffs can cause nausea, cramps, pain, fever and depression, but rather than stocking up on Gravol, Midol, Demerol, Tylenol and alcohol, simply join me tonight on the SharksBuzz Postgame Show. Win or lose, we’ll break it all down and discuss the state of the Sharks playoff run, so feel free to get on the blower and sound off with your thoughts at (724) 444-7444, talkcast ID# 74909. Enjoy the game everybody, we’ll talk to you once the final buzzer sounds.
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