Cam Gore: Where has the offense gone?

Cam Gore: Where has the offense gone?
- CamGore

I blame it all on Scott Gomez, no really Cam obviously you cannot see, nor have you read the posts on your own blog. Some of us mentioned last off season that our scoring was going down, and I remember getting in many discussions with the Marleau girl that by getting Burns and Havlat we would lose scoring. And I remember people saying that Burns would be a true #1 defense man for some reason. I never understood that, it just seems like people knew his name but did not really know about his poor defensive play, almost on a game by game basis for Minnesota. Yet according to Doug Wilson and some here Burns was the missing piece for our Stanley Cup run.

No the missing pieces have always been scoring from the lower lines, as well as better overall team defense. What we got with Wilson was a lot of nothing in the off season. With the exception of signing Brad Stuart which I thought was a good signing. Wilson and McLellan kept the basic underachieving team, and expected different results.

Let me tell you Cam, you can blame Murray, and the bottom 6 all day, but this team will NEVER and I REPEAT NEVER win a CUP with Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau. Yes Marleau scores goals, but then again so did Dany Heatley, and Jonathan Cheechoo, and Joe Pavelski. But who are the leaders on the team? Which players run the team in the "room"? That is where the answer lye's and when you say that JT was a contender you yourself show that you don't understand the concept of a leader. A leader does not lead by getting into a fight, a leader leads his team in and through the fight, a leader does not disappear, he works harder and makes others work harder. Do our leaders do that? until they do, they never deserve any credit.

I blame it all on Scott Gomez, no really Cam obviously you cannot see, nor have you read the posts on your own blog. Some of us mentioned last off season that our scoring was going down, and I remember getting in many discussions with the Marleau girl that by getting Burns and Havlat we would lose scoring. And I remember people saying that Burns would be a true #1 defense man for some reason. I never understood that, it just seems like people knew his name but did not really know about his poor defensive play, almost on a game by game basis for Minnesota. Yet according to Doug Wilson and some here Burns was the missing piece for our Stanley Cup run.

No the missing pieces have always been scoring from the lower lines, as well as better overall team defense. What we got with Wilson was a lot of nothing in the off season. With the exception of signing Brad Stuart which I thought was a good signing. Wilson and McLellan kept the basic underachieving team, and expected different results.

Let me tell you Cam, you can blame Murray, and the bottom 6 all day, but this team will NEVER and I REPEAT NEVER win a CUP with Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau. Yes Marleau scores goals, but then again so did Dany Heatley, and Jonathan Cheechoo, and Joe Pavelski. But who are the leaders on the team? Which players run the team in the "room"? That is where the answer lye's and when you say that JT was a contender you yourself show that you don't understand the concept of a leader. A leader does not lead by getting into a fight, a leader leads his team in and through the fight, a leader does not disappear, he works harder and makes others work harder. Do our leaders do that? until they do, they never deserve any credit.
- Sharkfan48

Vanek for Burns?

Where has all the offence gone you ask....?

You have Scott Gomez as your #1 center any other questions???

Line up needs a shake up. No trade clauses have been ruining us for years now. I'd hate to do it but we are gonna have to trade Pavs or Clowe.

Wonder what we could get for Braun/Demers and Pavs/Clowe and might as well toss in that waste of space Galiardi.

Ryan O'Reilly and a 2nd?

Will TMac still be our coach when we play Colorado on Tuesday?

I blame it all on Scott Gomez, no really Cam obviously you cannot see, nor have you read the posts on your own blog. Some of us mentioned last off season that our scoring was going down, and I remember getting in many discussions with the Marleau girl that by getting Burns and Havlat we would lose scoring. And I remember people saying that Burns would be a true #1 defense man for some reason. I never understood that, it just seems like people knew his name but did not really know about his poor defensive play, almost on a game by game basis for Minnesota. Yet according to Doug Wilson and some here Burns was the missing piece for our Stanley Cup run.

No the missing pieces have always been scoring from the lower lines, as well as better overall team defense. What we got with Wilson was a lot of nothing in the off season. With the exception of signing Brad Stuart which I thought was a good signing. Wilson and McLellan kept the basic underachieving team, and expected different results.

Let me tell you Cam, you can blame Murray, and the bottom 6 all day, but this team will NEVER and I REPEAT NEVER win a CUP with Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau. Yes Marleau scores goals, but then again so did Dany Heatley, and Jonathan Cheechoo, and Joe Pavelski. But who are the leaders on the team? Which players run the team in the "room"? That is where the answer lye's and when you say that JT was a contender you yourself show that you don't understand the concept of a leader. A leader does not lead by getting into a fight, a leader leads his team in and through the fight, a leader does not disappear, he works harder and makes others work harder. Do our leaders do that? until they do, they never deserve any credit.
- Sharkfan48

Someone has an extremely high opinion of themselves..
You still mad, Garner?

Looks like the Sharks are in playoff form already.

IMO the waived off goal is a no brainer, yes Nilstorp is out of the net but Thorton not only collides but does everything he can to tackle and lay on top of him, watch the replay from behind the net.

I agree with the earlier comments, as talented as Thorton and Marleau are, I don't think you can with a cup with those guys. Hasn't everything else been changed? Trade Boyle too while your at it, start stock piling picks.

Blow it up, trade those guys to contenders for picks or youth.

Joe Thornton the tough guy!

When you have a top 5 GA in the league but a bottom 10 GF, I would tend to blame forwards over defencemen/goalies.

I would say we aren't scoring goals because of chemistry. Our forwards clearly have no chemistry right now, and the biggest cause of that is having to play with different linemates every period.

This causes the PP to suffer as well. Our PP has been terrible, with one player (Marleau) scoring 40% of our PP goals. That is not good.

These are both 100% a coaching issues.

The offensive outputs of Marleau, Thornton, Pavelski and Couture have actually been where they should be. I consider those 4 to be our core forwards, so people (many of which are fans from other teams) blaming our core forwards has me confused.

Havlat and Clowe rounding out that top 6 have been lacking, with combined points less than the lowest other top 6 forward (Couture with 12). Both need to step up.

I still think we are 1 or 2 bottom 6 forwards away from having a legitimate group, and so it really hurts when the ones we do have are playing so underwhelmingly.

Burish stands out as being especially terrible, with 0 points in 17 games. Thank God for compliance buyouts! Terrible signing. I get that some guys provide intangibles, but has he really even been providing much of that?

I have to mention how amazing Winnik is playing now, and if DW had thrown 2.5 milion at him I doubt Winnik would have chosen Anaheim over us. Is 2.5 million too much for a third liner? No. Not when you are as desperate for third liners as we are. Plus, we're already paying Handzus that much anyway.

Dominic Moore is another guy we lost that was never replaced, although no one can really be blamed for that. If he ever decides to play hockey again I hope we give him a competitive offer.

Handzus is a tough guy to evaluate. Almost all would agree his defensive play has improved from last season, but most would agree he still isn't a very good third line player and needs to provide more offense.

I was very critical of Wingels earlier in the season, when he was arguably our worst player. He has since stepped his game up and has 4 points in the last 9 games which is respectable.

James Sheppard hasn't really impressed me. I see him as a marginal 4th liner at best. People on other boards were really hyping this guy but I would rather we have kept Frazer McLaren who is bigger, stronger and has more points.

After a game or two getting used to our system, Scott Gomez was among our two or three top forwards for a 3-4 game stretch. If you disagree, you're biased But since then he has completely fallen off. He is good when he is skating and making plays. When he stops doing that he is pretty much useless. The coaching staff needs to get him motivated (that's their job). Get Gomez permanent linemates so they can build some chemistry together and I bet he starts to produce.

Desjardins has been m'eh. He's made some bonehead defensive plays and provided little offense. He was much better last season, so hopefully he can turn it around.

Galiardi... I mean WTF is this guy's problem. You can see he has so much talent but he just can't put it all together. I think confidence might be a big problem with him, so making him a healthy scratch is just not the right thing to do. Our coaching staff has failed to turn him into the player he can be. 3 points in 25 games with the Sharks compared with his offensive output in Colorado in unacceptable. Rather than demote him, I say give him an extended shot on playing as a top 6 forward. Maybe on a line with Couture and Havlat, moving Gomez and Clowe to the third line.

Will TMac still be our coach when we play Colorado on Tuesday?
- Aliaksandrhn

As long as we are still in a playoff spot, I say there's no way he gets fired.

EDIT: If St. Louis loses their next game and we win our next two, we are in 4th place. Despite losing 9 of our last 10 we aren't in that bad of a position right now.

When you have a top 5 GA in the league but a bottom 10 GF, I would tend to blame forwards over defencemen/goalies.

- Sharks_12

I don't think I can totally agree with that as a blanket statement. When your forwards are having to play more on defense and help cover for shortcomings on the defensive side then the energy that should be spent playing offence is already gone. I'm not saying all the sharks problems are all on the D, just saying that part of your quote has many holes in it.

I honestly think the sharks main problems are Tmac can't adjust his game plan enough and other teams know what Tmac will be setting up. Another problem I think is our goal tending. Niemi is out of position WAY too often for a team to have full confidence in the guy and if the team feels they need to stay close to him to it won't create a high scoring enviorment.

Where has the scoring gone?
No skating speed, no game speed, disconnect between the D and O, line juggles improper use of talent in the room, system and on and on.

here's my take on it.
http://pimponhockey.blogs.../the-taming-of-shark.html

I don't think I can totally agree with that as a blanket statement. When your forwards are having to play more on defense and help cover for shortcomings on the defensive side then the energy that should be spent playing offence is already gone. I'm not saying all the sharks problems are all on the D, just saying that part of your quote has many holes in it.
- Ryman

Fair enough, and I didn't mean to say defence/goaltending is blameless. I would just say that so far the forwards have been a bigger problem than our defencemen/goaltenders, mainly our bottom 6 forwards.

I honestly think the sharks main problems are Tmac can't adjust his game plan enough and other teams know what Tmac will be setting up.
- Ryman

Too often under Todd McLellan the Sharks stick to one game plan or get forced into the opposition's game plan. What has happened many times is this game plan works during the regular season, but then other teams change their game plan for the playoffs but the Sharks stay the same. The game plan that worked so well in the regular season stops working in the playoffs. Then we end up playing a style of hockey that doesn't benefit our players.

Another problem I think is our goal tending. Niemi is out of position WAY too often for a team to have full confidence in the guy and if the team feels they need to stay close to him to it won't create a high scoring enviorment.
- Ryman

He still lets it way too many weak goals for my liking. He can thank our D group and D-oriented forwards for his good numbers so far. Doesn't really matter anyways, because our coaching staff has failed to learn and he will continue to get overplayed. He'll be exhausted by the end of the season.

EDIT: But again I would kinda relate this back to coaching, building a system around Niemi's faults rather than building a system that works. If Niemi can't do his job properly without the team babying him, then don't play him 80+% of the time.

here's my take on it.
http://pimponhockey.blogs.../the-taming-of-shark.html
- sharksman

A lot of good points, only a few small things I disagreed with.

I also think Ruff is exactly the kind of guy we need. A coach like him doesn't become available too often. I'm not holding my breath, but in my eyes no team has been struggling the way we have the last 10-12 games. One of the bigger issues is if Robinson is willing to be AC for Ruff and vice versa, because DW would sooner resign then get rid of Robinson.

Its passing man, passing. Sharks, both this year and last, are the worst passing team i've seen in the NHL. You wont ever get any speed if the passes are not tape-to-tape. I dont know if its a chemistry issue or what, but it suuuuucks.

here's my take on it.
http://pimponhockey.blogs.../the-taming-of-shark.html
- sharksman

Good blog. Keep it going.