They were manhandling the ’Nucks for a good 3-4 minutes there, keeping the zone, getting physical, and winning loose puck battles. But that was pretty much it.

Plank- respectfully disagree with your assessment of the sharks’ effort after Pavs goal. I thought that the Sharks’ didn’t play with enough urgency to get a tying goal. And that although their effort was much better in the 2nd and 3rd, it was only because it was in comparison to their effort in the 1st. Canucks were very good in the last 5 minutes in doing what they’d done well the first 55. They boxed out Sharks players from getting in front of Lou. They got their sticks on errant pucks. And Sharks committed some mental lapses and errors on breakout passes and neutral zone turnovers during critical moments of last few minutes. Had Pavs not saved a goal on Sedin’s empty netter, I think we might all be in agreement.

Sharks had a really good stretch after the Clowe goal where they applied constant pressure and really had the Canucks’ backed up in their own zone. But for some reason, they stopped applying the pressure and I thought they became complacent once again to finish off the 2nd after the Johnson goal and to start the 3rd. But between the Clowe goal and Johnson goal, that’s the Sharks team I would like to see in Calgary. If they do that, I know this team can be successful.

I understand they need to find who works well, but we had some good if not great line combos before. I would expect RW to do that, but not T-Mac. Oh, and Couture brought a lot of energy tonight. Even from the radio feed it seemed like he was a welcome benefit to the Sharks.

Couture saw himself pretty firmly entrenched on line three between Mitchell and Malhotra, and registered more than 11 minutes of ice time. I thought he was one of the best players on the ice tonight, as he brought energy with every shift. We’ll see how this translates to the next game.

I agree with Ivano… you just can’t take that many penalties and expect to win a game, as was the case against Dallas. The Sharks are definitely on a cold streak, but hopefully what we saw in the second and third leads to a more solid effort in the first against Calgary tomorrow. The problem is, they just can’t put any type of complete effort together.

You can tell that they’re pressing, with Joe Thornton painstakingly looking for the perfect pass and Dan Boyle trying to get the team going all by himself. The more than 20 missed shots point to a team that’s gripping the stick too tight.

They need a win, and they need one now.

anyone been keeping track of our record with and without demers?

those extended pk stints hurt. the team looked flat in the 1st after all that time in their own zone. then Luongo just turned it on. the overall effort was encouraging though.

still, this slide suuuuuuucks.

If the Sharks don’t find a way to snap this losing streak soon with Nabby manning the net, I bet he’ll start digging around in his closet for the old fish-head mask.

I was more pleased with the effort, if not the outcome; again, though, the aging demon of inconsistency was in full force. The first period started out alright, but after the string of silly-at-best penalties taken, the Sharks lost any steam they could’ve had for the rest of the first frame of play.

Following that, the play to open the second was similarly flat until Clowe’s dynamo sneak-through goal — probably the first solid play by the boys all game, and it definitely got them sparked up for the rest of the second, at least until Johnson’s return goal. In the third they played well again, but not quite well enough — 3min left is too late to be bringing the game back within one unless you’ve got a team with a good, strong history of making the 6-on-5 work — and the Sharks most certainly do not.

All told, there’s a full-60 effort that just isn’t there, and hasn’t been since … well, hasn’t really been there all season, but while they could put up 45-50 solid play minutes, it’s been dragging closer to 30min/game of straight-up hockey play since mid-January or so (certain games, of course, notwithstanding).

It’s coming down to desperation in other teams and the lack of in the Sharks organization. I think of it like your last semester before graduation but you still have to have finals. Sure you can coast in and think, “I can still skip class and get to final’s week and do well there. Probably not study and party then go off my own skill and God given intelligence to do well overall in the class.”

That seems like their mentality. They know they are in. They know if they are in first in the Pacific, they may face Detroit. If they keep faltering, sure they MAY have an easier match up in the bracket but what happened to their study habits that took them through the whole “school” year? Their lack of continuous effort is really discerning, especially with time running out; and less and less time to practice and study.

Note: Sorry for all the school analogies, just have mid-terms coming up and my nose has been in a book for awhile.