Some random thoughts from last night's game:
-Despite his history with Joe Thornton, Bill Guerin looked a little uncomfortable out there. Not sure if that was the switch to left wing or just the travel/acclimation involved with getting traded.
-The Sharks have a surplus of #3/4 defensemen. In fact, basically all of their defensemen are either #3/4 guys (McLaren, Hannan, Rivet, Ehrhoff, Carle, Vlasic) or AHLers (Davison, Murray). When two of those guys are out, that causes a problem when you're trying to defend a power play with Peter Forsberg and Paul Kariya. The Predators goals were essentially caused by the Sharks defense not being able to handle movement in front.
-Speaking of the Preds power play, they certainly had better puck movement than the Sharks did last night. Forsberg looks like he's trying to do too much but he still fired off some nifty passes.
-At the tank last night, Evgeni Nabokov was audibly booed at the introduction. After his big save at the end of OT, the NAB-BY chants were rocking the whole arena.
-I REALLY don't like having a power play with Davison/Murray out there. I like it even less when they play on the PK.
-It's hard to judge the result of last night since the Sharks owned the first, the Preds owned the second, and the middle period was blah. I imagine things would be quite different with Patrick Marleau, Hannan, and Rivet in the lineup, so let's not use this as a measuring stick just yet.
-When Marleau comes back into the lineup, I'd be ok with tinkering the lines to try and get three scoring units:
Bell or Clowe/Thornton/Cheechoo
Grier/Marleau/Michalek
Bernier/Pavelski/Guerin
This isn't to single out any player as being good or bad, just an idea to create even more offensive depth.
-Despite his history with Joe Thornton, Bill Guerin looked a little uncomfortable out there. Not sure if that was the switch to left wing or just the travel/acclimation involved with getting traded.
-The Sharks have a surplus of #3/4 defensemen. In fact, basically all of their defensemen are either #3/4 guys (McLaren, Hannan, Rivet, Ehrhoff, Carle, Vlasic) or AHLers (Davison, Murray). When two of those guys are out, that causes a problem when you're trying to defend a power play with Peter Forsberg and Paul Kariya. The Predators goals were essentially caused by the Sharks defense not being able to handle movement in front.
-Speaking of the Preds power play, they certainly had better puck movement than the Sharks did last night. Forsberg looks like he's trying to do too much but he still fired off some nifty passes.
-At the tank last night, Evgeni Nabokov was audibly booed at the introduction. After his big save at the end of OT, the NAB-BY chants were rocking the whole arena.
-I REALLY don't like having a power play with Davison/Murray out there. I like it even less when they play on the PK.
-It's hard to judge the result of last night since the Sharks owned the first, the Preds owned the second, and the middle period was blah. I imagine things would be quite different with Patrick Marleau, Hannan, and Rivet in the lineup, so let's not use this as a measuring stick just yet.
-When Marleau comes back into the lineup, I'd be ok with tinkering the lines to try and get three scoring units:
Bell or Clowe/Thornton/Cheechoo
Grier/Marleau/Michalek
Bernier/Pavelski/Guerin
This isn't to single out any player as being good or bad, just an idea to create even more offensive depth.