Deep Blue Sea: A guide to playoffs for when you only care about the Sharks

When your team isn’t in the playoffs, how do you choose who to root for?

For me, it’s pretty simple: which players do I like the most and which ones have personally wronged me by concussing a former Western Michigan Bronco Hockey Player (looking at you, Ryan Reaves).

While it’s easy enough to get on my bad side (play for any team except the Sharks), getting on my good side means getting right with the Big Man Upstairs: that’s right, Doug Wilson. Wearing a Sharks jersey at some point in your career might make me hate you just a little bit less than I hate all of the cool kids at your new school that you left me for and I’m definitely not bitter about.

So that said, let’s take a look at all of the former Sharks who are currently in the NHL bubble cities:

• Arizona Coyotes: Jason Demers
• Boston Bruins: Sean Kuraly, Charlie Coyle
• Calgary Flames: Buddy Robinson
• Carolina Hurricanes: James Reimer
• Chicago Blackhawks: Ryan Carpenter
• Colorado Avalanche: Joonas Donskoi, Matt Nieto
• Columbus Blue Jackets: Gustav Nyquist
• Dallas Stars: Joe Pavelski
• Edmonton Oilers: No former Sharks, only future Sharks
• Florida Panthers: Mike Hoffman
• Minnesota Wild: Alex Stalock
• Montreal Canadiens: Marc-Edouard Vlasic None
• Nashville Predators: Nick Bonino, Troy Grosenick
• New York Islanders: Thomas Greiss
• New York Rangers: Daniel O’Regan
• Philadelphia Flyers: Justin Braun
• Pittsburgh Penguins: Patrick Marleau
• St. Louis Blues: None
• Tampa Bay Lightning: Barclay Goodrow
• Toronto Maple Leafs: None
• Vancouver Canucks: None
• Vegas Golden Knights: Pete DeBoer
• Washington Capitals: Brenden Dillon
• Winnipeg Jets: Dylan DeMelo/

The good news about this method is that I have an excuse to not want Canada to win the Cup. It’s just maths, you can’t get mad at me because Sharks don’t want to go up North. And it’s a good thing I got over my Patrick Marleau feelings two years ago because the entire Pittsburgh Penguins roster at any given moment is dead to me and I couldn’t deal with that kind of contradiction.

I’m not sure this actually helped me care about any of these teams as much as it made me miss a bunch of players.

(Joonas Donskoi.)

(I’m talking about Joonas Donskoi.)

Before I kick you over to today’s links, please enjoy this Tweet, which I will be thinking about for the next year:

San Jose Sharks about to sign Elliotte Friedman pic.twitter.com/ngJMPTyPta

— claire (@clairepalmster) July 29, 2020

News & Notes

• Sharks’ Prospect Profile: Sasha Chmelevski [The Hockey Writers]
• Previously on: How much better do Dillon and Kovalchuk make the Caps? [NBC Sports Washington]
• Rod Brind’Amour: ‘Now that you’re here, you know that hockey is right around the corner’ [Canes Country]
• Oilers hold moment of silence for Cave, play touching tribute video [NHL.com]
• Twitter, Disney And The NHL Form Partnership As Hockey Nears Its Return [Deadline]
• First Game In NHL Bubble Looks And Sounds … Fantastic [CBS Boston]
• Zoom Workouts and On-Ice Drills: The Life of a Ref in the NHL Bubble [Sports Illustrated]
• ‘There is no playbook for this’: Inside broadcast plans for the NHL’s return [The Athletic]/

Recaps & Scores

• Pittsburgh Penguins 2, Philadelphia Flyers 3 (OT)
• Toronto Maple Leafs 4, Montreal Canadiens 2
• Edmonton Oilers 4, Calgary Flames 1/

Click each team’s name to find a recap on their own SB Nation team site!

On the Schedule

• Tampa Bay Lightning at Florida Panthers, 9 a.m. PT/12 p.m. ET on NHLN
• Colorado Avalanche at Minnesota Wild, 11:30 a.m. PT/2:30 p.m. ET on NHLN
• Carolina Hurricanes at Washington Capitals, 1 p.m. PT/4 p.m. ET on NBCSN
• St. Louis Blues at Chicago Blackhawks, 3:30 p.m. ET/6:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN (JIP), NHLN
• New York Islanders at New York Rangers, 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET on NBCSN, TVAS
• Vancouver Canucks at Winnipeg Jets, 7:30 p.m. PT/10:30 ET on NHLN, SN/

We’ll have an Eastern Conference open thread run at 7 a.m. PT/10 a.m. ET and a Western Conference open thread at 9 a.m. PT/12 p.m. ET. If you check out any of today’s game, swing by and chat!