As fascinating as it is to look at stats, trends and point fingers sometimes I feel like I am thinking too much about the game. It is as if I have stopped enjoying it all together sometimes.

As fans, we can deal with back to back losses but more than 3 in a row? Seems the world is ending. We expect this team to win EVERY game. Same goes for the players. Seems they feel entitled.

Look at all the games since the break (painful yes, but important for my rant). The Sharks have gone down at least one goal first in almost every one of those games. Yet for a minute there it seemed we could win regardless of the situation. Sure lets go down 2 goals and roar back from behind 3 games in a row. I have a weird suspicion if we would have just flat out lost that Devils game 4-0 this slump would have began a lot sooner.

Instead we still had some jump in our step and almost took that game.

Look at what followed, comebacks in the next 3 games including that insane 8-5 against Nashville. We may have set ourselves up for a trend here. The boys start feeling they could come up with a W in that fashion every night and then it stopped working.

We thought we could cruise with Florida and then we got lazy. We expected to beat them and it bit us hard. Shrug it off and then its the Ducks. Of course they THINK they should beat them, team plays lazy and its an even worse loss. What came next took our confidence away from us completely. The Stars looked like they were doing a charity pick up game on some locals at the practice rink but instead of fixing the game for a close one, they decided to show off and run the kids around the rink and make them question if they should be playing baseball instead.

Point is, when you are having an emergency practice to go over basics with less than 15 games left in the season and everyone from the coaching staff to your assistant captains are throwing different anecdotes around, you bet they have lost their focus.

Some players are playing overly emotional, and some are wishing they could get a therapy session in with the team shrink. The team is second guessing every play, missing assignments and passes, and slow to the races in near every situation.

The confidence level is the only thing that I feel will snap this team out of it. We all know they are capable of, THEY just need to feel it again.

Forget slumps, stats, streaks and any other way of looking at it. A confident and happy hockey team can win every night. I think they are realizing that and the harmony is returning.

Let’s just play some fucking hockey. For us fans out there, lets try and find some positive into these next few games.

It will make us ALL feel better.

Go Sharks.

And this is exactly why I haven’t been freaking out over the last few weeks. Of course it has been frustrating to watch. But as the evidence shows, we have one of these streaks once a year. The fact that it has happened so late in the year may say something else about this team.

This team’s sloppy play started over a month ago. And it was a wonder to me how we still found ways to win games. One play here, one play there, we would win games that we were getting dominated in. We have unworldly explosive capabilities. And once we bounce out of this streak of poor play, we will be heading into the playoffs. You almost couldn’t script it better.

Another positive note…if we can figure out how to play better defense without Vlasic, we may be that much better off when he comes back. Of course Murray will have to get his mojo back, because he hasn’t been quite the same since he came back from injury.