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Dang

Well, I suppose technically, the Sharks went farther than they did in previous seasons. I know Doug Wilson said that he thinks no one should question the heart of this group of players, and perhaps that's true--their comebacks certainly showed a never-say-die attitude that we haven't seen previously.

So that's all well and good, but you know, if the Sharks played with both smarts and hearts during the first three games of the Dallas series, they'd be gearing up to play Detroit right now. With leads in all of the games, the Sharks shot themselves in the foot with their constant reliance on a stupid defensive shell that couldn't handle the Brenden Morrow line. That same defensive shell often led to several panic plays that gave you that horrible "This is gonna lead to a goal" feeling. The damn thing never, ever, ever works, and one has to wonder whether their constant reliance on it is a coaching strategy issue or an issue of the players just not getting it.

As I mentioned before, there definitely needs to be a change in the team, but I don't think that change has anything to do with Patrick Marleau or Joe Thornton. I'll put together a full post-mortem in a few days after I've had a few days to digest the whole thing. I'll still be covering the playoffs on my other blog and FoxSports.com, but I'll probably be laying low here for a little bit. I'm sure all Sharks fans just want to breathe for a few seconds anyways.