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Sharks Gameday: Tiger Blood

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Next Game

Colorado Avalanche
@ San Jose Sharks

Tuesday, Mar 1, 2011, 7:30 PM PST
HP Pavilion

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A Ryane Clowe rant:

"Some might call me a rule-breaker. I say that the rules were written for normal people.  People that don’t have tiger blood and Adonis DNA.

Come Wednesday morning, they’re gonna name it 'National Clowe League' instead of 'National Hockey League.' DUH. Winning.  And it’s not convincing anybody.  It’s like guys, it’s right there.  NHL.com. 201 points and 371 PIMs in 303 career games.  A ton of success.  I mean, come on bro, we won the President's Trophy in 2009.  I wasn’t even trying.  Wasn’t even warm.

I am on a drug.  It’s called Ryane Clowe. It’s not available because if you try it you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body."

-Source

Holy crap was Ryane Clowe a monster on Thursday night against Calgary. He won a fight, took a stupid "unsportsmanlike conduct" penalty late in the second period, scored the game-tying goal in the final minutes of the third, then scored the only goal of the shootout. He's got tiger blood in him, everybody, and that's why he's one of our alternate captains.

It's funny how things work out some times. A year ago Ryane Clowe and Devin Setoguchi were the players most often cited as potential trade pieces for the Sharks - Setoguchi because he was really struggling to score and Clowe because he seemed like a valuable asset but he wasn't one of the big three, so we could afford to let him go. It's always difficult dealing in counterfactuals, but it's safe to say that right now every Sharks fan is happy that Doug Wilson didn't make a hasty move and trade these players just because people were shouting about it on hockey blogs.

The Sharks have been rolling lately, though there are some injury questions on the roster that are worthy of a little concern. Dan Boyle missed the Calgary game with an upper-body thing, probably a rib injury. Ben Eager, Kent Huskins, and Scott Nichol are all banged up to various degrees. Working the Corners says Niittymaki is getting close to being able to play once again, but at this point Nitty might as well be Bigfoot: until we see some hard evidence, we can't rely on him.

While the Sharks have been rolling the Colorado Avalanche have been, to put it mildly, dog-shit terrible. They only won ONE GAME in February. The last time their opponent didn't score at least three goals was January 14th. The Sharks will be facing a desperate team that has nothing to lose. The Sharks need to play as hard and as smart as they have been to continue their winning streak.

Tiger blood, bro.

Prediction: Sharks win 5-3. Ryane Clowe scores two goals and beats up three players, one of the linesmen, and the video review guy after Clowe's third goal is disallowed.