Odds and ends from the first two days of training camp

i agree the puck moving is overrated for a goalie, but i think it’s wishful thinking for sharks fans to think/assume the blackhawks will be weak in goal next season. i seem to remember something similar last postseason, with goaltending being their problem. Dallas was terrible the last two seasons, and goalies typically don’t have good stats on losing teams.

In fact, I’ve heard, their “wins” stat in particular tends to suffer the most when playing on a losing team. This is a brand new deduction behindthenet has just come up with using the most advanced numbers and formulas, so don’t go spreading it around just yet. It could be false.

Unless age has really caught up to Turco, he’s always been comparable to Nabokov, and when Dallas had a team of similar ability to the Sharks, he played just as well, if not better than, Nabokov, both in head to head meetings, and over the course of the season. He’s a good goalie with a much better track record than Niittymaki, and you all seemed very high on Niittymaki after coming to terms with him being your starter. I’m sure if the Sharks had signed Turco instead for 1.3 million, everyone here would be talking about how we got the best available free agent goalie for one of the cheapest prices. Most Sharks fans didn’t want Niemi on our team instead of a good defenseman, but now that a few weeks have rolled by since, I’m starting to hear that old ‘someone said this… I’m not quite sure who… but i’m really starting to agree… what he said was, well, I really liked our goaltending yesterday, with Niittymaki, but I like it even better today, with Niemi. I don’t remember who asid that, but I’m starting to feel the same way. we have lots of pieces that other teams like. there’s plenty of time before the trade deadline. he’s a cup winner, after all. the first cup winner in goal we’ve had in awhile. plus, he’s a rat. and not just any rat. you think North American rats have it tough? you think they gotta fight the whole way to get to where they wanna go? you should see the living conditions for rats in finland. you don’t wanna know. it’s ugly. i’ve heard stories, rumors, of how some of them have had to drive little rat zambonis around the ice after their daily rat work just to make ends meet. could u do that? could u drive a little rat zomboni around after work? i doubt it. the gas pedal is so small, you’d have to become a rat yourself just to operate it. if you’ve gotta chance to add a finish rat like that, who fits into our salary structure, you’ve gotta make it happen. unless a siberian rat becomes available for a similar salary, in which case obviously you’d go with him, unless there’s a siberian rat, you gotta make it happen. and ohhhh, you believe me now here son, i checked with Tim Burke right before this interview, and I’ll check again right after—there aint none of them siberian rats. Believe me, I’ve tried taking our north american rats on trips to siberia, leaving them in the sewers for a few days, sometimes even the whole summer like I did with Marcel Goc, but it’s never the same as getting one who’s grown up there, had to struggle through all that sick siberian shit. The guys who you leave there for a few days, maybe they’re a little mentally tougher, maybe they’re ready to make it to the second round this time, but when you leave them there for too long, something goes wrong inside that little head of theirs, they get rabid, sick and twisted. they go to salary arbitration instead of campaigning gary bettman to lower the minimum league salary so that I lowball them further. they start trying to score goals on the third line instead of playing what we like to call sharks hockey. they don’t say ich loven di back anymore when you say it first. you try saying hey now, that’s a bad little goc! BAD! And they don’t listen no more. Instead of being your one european scout, in germany, over the summer, they go rammstein concerts. you can’t teach someone to be a true siberian rat anymore than you can teach a true rat how to speak siberian. you just cant. you wanna know what I think? fuck goc. fuck rammstein. and fuck russia, und kovelchooken, und oveechkineenen. they’re all the same, like mice to me, and my rats squash them. these russian mice are so stupid, you put them on your third line, and they still try to score goals on the other teams net! was di fuckenzite ist das shizenfroogen? my finish rat squash all of these micearoaches.’

it wasn’t too long ago that sharks fans didn’t want the finish rat, and now they’re saying he’s a good signing after all. i think you see my point. they also unknowingly get what they perceive to be their own opinions straight from doug wilson’s mouth, because they are stupid and do not know any better.

so, in summation, let’s wait and see before designating turco as a weakness on the hawks, and let’s please designate the Niemi signing as a bad one right away. Yes, I am pointing out my own contradiction here, except nope sorry I’m not. We have to wait and see with Turco because whether he is a weakness for the Hawks can only be determined by his play. However, with Niemi, we’re not talking about whether he’s a weakness or not. We’re ttalking about whether he’s a good signing or not. And the criteria for that is he was a waste of cap space, and we only had a limited amount, therefore regardless really of how he plays, unless it’s absolutely spectacular, we can designate his signing as a poor one now. I hope you understand the difference. i will be back another day with a continuation of my ongoing rat pieces.