Sharks get shutout for second straight game, lose 2-0 to St. Louis

Niemi was much better tonight, but the team still didn’t look incredibly comfortable with him in nets. It wasn’t an issue like it was in Calgary, but I still get the feeling they aren’t entirely comfortable with Niemi as opposed to Nitty. Hopefully if he builds on this last performance that will stop though.

Continue to be the defense, the first goal should have never happened. Yes, it was a bad angle and Niemi should have made the save, but Huskins should have gone after hte puck instead of just letting the Blues to get the shot off.

Secondly there was no discipline tonight! Way too many penalties taken.

Finally the problem is that beyond the big three of Thornton, Marleau, and Heatley for the most part there hasn’t been any type of scoring. Pavelski needs to step up, Clowe needs to step up, etc….

Defensively the Sharks need help! All defensemen except for Boyle and Demers should be expendable!

But he was not part of the solution. For all their power play opportunities, I don’t feel like the Blues generated a lot of quality chances. Niemi really gave up 2 less than strong goals. He was just bad on the first, and slow and out of position on the second.

But the team as a whole has to take responsibility for this game. The early penalties set the tone for the game. The team was chasing the whole night. And it may have contributed to some of the edge that created the Thornton hit. I have no doubt Thornton was looking to make a hit coming out of the box. Say whatever you want about the hit. It was unwise.

Time to turn this crap run around on Saturday.

I liked seeing Pavelski getting shots on goal, but none went in. Also thought Niemi played pretty well.

Heatley went to the front early on, and scored a couple of goals and assists that way. He has apparently abandoned that strategy, alas.

I’d really like for us to stop pretending we’re the Thug-Ducks. We can’t force ourselves to play overwhelming portions of games on the PK. It tires out the already shaky defense, keeps the forwards from generating into the other zone (despite all the short handed chances tonight), and forces Nitty and especially Niemi to come up bigger and bigger and risk more of the fluke goals both have been prone to. I feel like the offense will come if we can stay out of the box. The defense is a dead horse and I’m skipping it for tonight.

I mean, if he played a good game this game would have been a 0-1 OTL and the Sharks would have gotten 1 point.

The fact that the team with as potent an offense as the Sharks to have not scored in the last 7 periods is stupid! STUPID! This blueline sucked tonight and hasnt been anything close to stellar this season. Look, if the Sharks want a real chance to win, it shouldnt matter who is in net! Not with these lineups! Niemi didnt loose, it was again, a Shark lose with Niemi in net, but you want to crucify the goalie, whatever… I see different problems. The refs sucked this game and tried to make it up… goal unallowed!! HA!! It will be interesting to see if Jumbo’s hit gets a suspension. LAME!!!!

But you must shoot with purpose. The last two games it seems like there’s been a lack of playmaking and creativity. Blindly throwing the puck towards the net only to have it harmlessly bounce off the pads in hopes of a rebound just isn’t working. Good goaltenders and a responsible D will eat that up all day long. Sure, it looks great on the shot clock, but means nothing when it comes to scoring chances. I see a whole of shoot and not a lot of playmaking and shoot with purpose.

Neimi is playing on edge. He settled down as the game went on but he still seemed skiddish even at the end. Question is, how long can we afford to let him earn his confidence? The season is 1/8th of the way over, and some very large questions both inside and outside the crease loom.

we might not have the best defense, but we need a dependable goalie who will make that big save here and there to bail out our defense.

i didnt watch the whole game, or most of the games this season, but it seems like secondary scoring is a real problem

You should expect your goalie to give up 2 goals, and your offense to score more than 2. We can’t expect Niemi (or Nitty for that matter) to have a shutout every night. Sure, the first goal was weak and the second was questionable puck awareness, but even if he had the shutout the Sharks still wouldn’t have won in regulation. That’s saying something.

The Sharks are only one game behind last year’s record at 11 games.
They are currently 5-5-1, where last year they were 6-4-1. Fortunately, this is the case, and it isn’t worse. I know I keep repeating myself, and so do others , when I say that the Sharks need to get someone in the ****ing opposing goalie’s eyes, like almost all the other scoring teams do.
The Sharks do have the scoring talent, if they would use it. Sure the defense is a little on the weak side, but they’ve shown that they can overcome that, in recent past games.
Maybe management and coaches should pay a little attention to what the fans have been saying for awhile.

On another note, the “Sharkstistics” have been updated, with an added stat of games scheduled per “days off” for the whole season.

Is it just me or does Marleau seem lost out there this year? I know in his past he has hot streaks and no show games (offensively), but I haven’t seem any checking or going to the net play from him. I don’t like HTML because I’d like to see McClellan spread the wealth. I think Marleau needs to anchor the second line, freeing up Pavelski to find open space to score or pass to the open shooter. I’m not however overly concerned about the offensive players, although I’m not sure Seto and Mitchell are every going to be big time scorers.

I think the real problem for the Sharks this year (in the absense of Blake) is how to generate scoring from the back. Other than Boyle, I don’t think the Sharks have a guy (perhaps Demers in future years) who can score on the powerplay or fire pucks to the net creating juicy rebounds. Dare I say Vlasic? Is it time to think about moving him? Does he have much value? I think he’s a smart, defensive minded player, but if the Sharks thought of him as having offensive upside, I just don’t see it. I think it’s his 5th year and he has shown me very little offensive acumen.

So if trades need to be made, who goes and who’s available? Sorry, not trying to push the panic button and the next 5 are at home, but we have not had a difficult schedule and the record is below 500. The D looks slow and lacking in offense.

Blech…

I can understand an astounding lack of discipline when you’re getting vastly outplayed and end up spending most of the game in your defensive zone. Look no further than the Colorado series, or the Anaheim game last week. But I felt like it was by and large a fairly even tilt with regard to possession and SOG, and the Blues were outhit like woah. We’re going to run into hot goaltenders and effective bluelines, even more so this season, and the moment they lose their composure and begin the parade to the box, the game’s all but thrown away.

Full-sized version here.

(And no, Niemi did not play bad last night relative to his other starts, but honestly, this pun is too good).

as Alice(Adrienne King ) would say in the original Friday the 13th movie……..“WHAT IS GOING ON!”

Okay they “don’t feel comfortable in front of him”. BS. He’s their goalie. I don’t care how he plays, and all the jokes about “excessive rebounding is his style”… they know this.

Moreover, regardless of who’s in net, you have to SCORE to win. If Nemo/Nitty gives up two goals, fine. Score 3.

The defense has actually been tolerable these past few games (4 I’d say). The offense has not. It doesn’t help that we spend most of the game killing of penalties. I’m not sure how the loss of Captain Hook has actually increased our penalties, but it’s not a good sign.

Again, hitting the panic button now would be stupid. But, I would like to see the Sharks play smarter hockey. Finally we’re playing close games, which is a good sign. Now, I just want to win.

Loved the animorphs ref in there. GOLD! Makes up for the Go Blues from the gameday!