Half Full of Acid: A 2013 San Jose Sharks Season Preview

If you're a Sharks fan who reads this site and not Fear the Fin, I seriously question your judgment. Also, you may have missed that site's ongoing roster preview, which is absolutely fantastic if you, like me, have completely forgotten who plays for the Sharks, how those players performed for the Sharks last season, what "the Sharks" are, and who that handsome devil in the mirror is.

Fear the Fin's roster preview offers a well-balanced look at what we can expect from the Sharks this year, and also provides more than a few reasons to be optimistic that this season will work out better than last season for San Jose.

I offer this roster preview as a contrasting opinion.

After exhaustive analysis and consultation with experts, here are my predictions for the Sharks this season.

Top Line

Patrick Marleau: While getting dressed for the first game, Marleau suffers a devastating static shock. He is plagued by double vision and vertigo for the rest of the season. Hockey insiders attribute the bizarre injury to karma.

Joe Thornton: All the weight placed on his shoulders finally becomes too much for Thornton, and he cracks in half.

Joe Pavelski: Little Joe peaked in 10-11. Even with Thornton passing him the puck all year, Pavelski will fail to become a significant scoring threat, and will drift in and out of the lineup with a knee injury that keeps moving from one knee to the other.

Second Line

Ryane Clowe: Clowe hurts himself in an ill-advised fight from the bench in game four of the season. His concussion symptoms from last year come back. Clowe never plays again.

Logan Couture: Without Clowe on his line to protect him, Logan starts getting targeted by other teams more and more often. At the twenty-game mark, Couture suffers a brutal open-ice hit that ends his season.

Martin Havlat: Somewhat surprisingly, Martin Havlat makes it through the entire season without suffering an injury. He's so shocked and thankful that at the end of the year he retires from hockey entirely, moves back to the Czech Republic, and becomes a monk.

Third line

Our third line doesn't need any injuries in order to be fucking horrible.

Fourth line

James Sheppard: All healed up at last and ready to play his first NHL game since 2010, James Sheppard is walking down the street to the arena when he is tragically run over by an ATV.

Andrew Desjardins: In the second week of the season, Desjardins wins a face-off so hard he dislocates his shoulder. He's never the same again.

Tommy Wingels : Poor, poor Tommy Wingels. How many times did we warn you never to get into a stranger's van, no matter how many puppies he says he has in there?

Defensemen

Marc-Edouard Vlasic: In a shocking and bloody mishap in late February, Vlasic is finally under-rated to death.

Dan Boyle: Dies of old age during the national anthem of game one.

Brent Burns: With Vlasic and Boyle out of the lineup Burns tries to do too much too fast, and suffers a groin injury so terrible not even his robotic sex pants can save him.

Brad Stuart: After finally getting traded back to California to be near his wife and kids, Stuart is devastated when his wife leaves him and takes the kids. He misses a dozen games for "personal reasons."

Douglas Murray: On a dare, Murray body checks a Zamboni. Murray misses two weeks with a back injury. The Zamboni is sent to a junkyard.

Jason Demers: Demers didn't practice at all during the lockout, and soon discovers he has completely forgotten how to skate. He's cut from the team after he tries to play a game using one of those ice-walker things for little kids.

Justin Braun: Justin Braun has a great year...after Doug Wilson trades him to Calgary for some draft picks.

Goalies

Antti Niemi: Considering Niemi is going to play most of the season behind AHL-level defense, how do you think he's going to do?

Thomas Greiss: After finally coming to terms with the fact that he will never get a chance to be an NHL starter, Greiss locks himself in his room and eats bag after bag of microwave popcorn. After a few weeks, he develops popcorn lung.

So all in all I guess you could say I have some concerns about the team this year.