Maybe this will stop people from saying the #SJSharks should trade Joe Thornton?
— Aaron Sholl (@AaronSholl) January 4, 2015Well, that happened.
If you didn't watch the game the only word you need to know is: disgusting.
The Sharks were outplayed in every area of the game in one of their worst games of the year en route to a 7-2 drubbing at the hands of TJ Oshie and the Blues. Team Teal had a sparkling Corsi For percentage of 40.7% and the top line of Hertl(21% CF)-Pavelski(37% CF)-Nieto(38% CF) clearly missed a certain someone playing with them.
Anyone still want to trade Joe Thornton away? Didn't think so.
You can talk about the Blues coming alive or whatever you’d like but the fact is the Blues were in fourth in the West before the night started – to come alive you need to be dead, and fourth in the West isn't dead by any stretch. I’m not taking anything away from the Blues play, because they dominated and looked strong all game. The better team won. This was just a very poor performance by the Sharks that led to a disastrous result on the scoreboard.
The only positive thing that can come from last night’s game against St. Louis is that it should open Doug Wilson’s eyes nice and wide as to what the state of this roster is should his captain-but-not-captain go down with a rare injury. This team is not built to survive a Thornton-pocalypse.
I’m confident that Joe Pavelski could figure it out over time but there will be growing pains – much like last night – that require a heavy dosage of [prescribed] narcotics to ease the hurt. That’s not what you want for your team as they try to hang on to a playoff spot.
San Jose is now tied for 8th with the Calgary Flames but hold a game in hand. The Sharks have been getting help from everyone around them lately – only the Jets and Sharks out of seeds 4-9 in the West have 5 wins or more in their last ten games. That’s a statistic that is bound to change, and not for the better of the Sharks.
It’s going to be a battle all season long to remain where they are in the standings. The Dallas Stars are coming (8-2 in last ten) and so are the Colorado Avalanche (6-3-1). There are teams working hard to get into the playoffs right now and San Jose is a team they’re after.
In a previous post I talked about the importance of being in the top-16 teams for Score-Adjusted Fenwick in relation to the playoffs. San Jose is now 17th in that statistic.
The only thing I liked about the game was Michael Haley’s attempt to fire up his team – which succeeded with two Sharks goals quickly after – by feeding Steve Ott some knuckles. Ott is a rat – plain and simple. He’s a player who wants to run his mouth without consequence – much like what happened last night when it was all fun and games for Ott in a shove-fest before Haley started feeding him a late supper.
Fighting is always up for debate in hockey - and it will until the day it’s finally removed from the North American game – but I’d be willing to bet if you asked the Sharks that dressed last night if Haley’s actions had a positive, negative or neutral effect on the rest of the first period they’d respond with an overwhelming positive answer.
The bottom line is this: the Sharks need Joe Thornton if they want to remain a playoff team with this roster. I wanted a game without Thornton so people could see what life without him would be like and I got it. Joe, you can come back to the lineup now before anything else disastrous happens.
Thanks for reading.