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Sharks squander early lead, lose 4-2 in home opener

Well, the tank was definitely rocking tonight as fans of the San Jose Sharks were ready for the season to officially start on North American soil.

The players, however, didn’t seem so ready. After scoring two quick goals, the Sharks fell victim to sloppy passing, missed assignments and slow feet. The Thrashers took advantage, scoring four unanswered goals to secure their first ever win in San Jose.

Although many seem ready to write the Sharks off after one poor performance, I’m not to worried. I’m going to attribute the loss primarily to the Sharks week long layoff… the team has never dealt with this type of thing before and it just looked like things weren’t clicking.

Those hiccups are going to get smoothed out as the season goes on, but with a weaker defense and weaker goaltending, the adjustments might take a while.

The good from tonight? The Couture-Heatley-Clowe line looked very solid, controlling the play for long stretches in the offensive zone. I was also very impressed with Torrey Mitchell, who appears to have gotten his skating stride back.

There was alot of bad, including a shaky night in net for Antti Niemi and the defensive corps. However, I don’t want to dig too deep into any of this, as I don’t have enough hockey to compare this too.

So, everyone take a chill pill and relax. Yes, it would have been nice to grab a win to go with tonight’s ceremonies, but it wasn’t in the cards. The wins will come, and so will losses. This was just the latter.

Go Sharks.

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