9.30.2009

Danny hopefully will heat up the ice

The sharks took a significant blow from the past high of making the second round in the play-offs. Through a series of trades, free agency losses, or retirements, the sharks now are missing NINE key players who had previously dressed for the team in the 2008-2009 play-offs.

Sharks have now had to fill the gap for Roenick, Michalek, C. Lemieux, Grier, Lukowich, Ehrhoff, Moen, Cheechoo and Goc. These are players from all over the ice, from forward to wingman, defender to center, the sharks were missing a lot of key players, the coaches had their work cut out for them in reassessing the team roster.

Having trouble shooting post season after the play-offs of 2009, the sharks acquired Danny Heatley, one of the most recognized scoring forwards in the NHL. Heatley will be another one of the top scorers on the Sharks forwards list along with Joe Thornton, Devin Setoguchi, Patrick Marleau, Ryane Clowe and Joe Pavelski.

Shark fans can rest assured that San Jose has tightened up their middle forwards and given them a higher level of intensity on the ice. Having a bunch of newer players playing this year who weren't even skating post season last year will certainly make things interesting and fresh.

Luckily, the third and fourth lines promise much more "tenacity". The players and coaching staff are saying, it will be made up of bigger guys who can make big defensive stops on those much needed penalty kills.

Even better yet, the coaches, the shark vets, and even the rookies are commenting on how fresh, new, and intense the team is this year. They have got some chemistry kinks to work out, but only the season stats will tell the results.


Chew on that, Shark fans!

~Next blog post will be a quick run down of the preseason and how the team has melded, continuing coverage will be posted up at the very least at the end of each week about the week's games.

~p.s. don't feed the fish at the bottom this week, the sharks need to be hungry for tonight's game against the Avalanche.((Today's post is primarily taken from sjsharks.com))

Dr. Twik signing off until next time.

Labels