Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Sharks Look to Even Before Heading Home


SuperstarTryst'n'GrantLangdon
River Dogs
Pucking
Luck
KalenabAll She
Wrote
seaherwetDon't Call
Me Ray
Another Brick
in the
Kronwall
Hollywoods
Heroes
209 points-1 points-7-16-16-17-18-20-22-24
Dany Heatley (2)x
Patrick Marleau (3)xxx
Ryane Clowe (4)x
Joe Pavelski (5)xxxxxxxxx
Logan Couture (6)xxxxxxxx
Torrey Mitchell (7)x
Dan Boyle (8)xx
Jason Demers (9)x
Marc-Edouard Vlasic (11)xx
Antti Niemi (12)x
Daniel Sedin (1)xxxxxxxxx
Henrik Sedin (2)xxxxxxxxx
Ryan Kesler (3)xxxx
Alex Edler (9)
Roberto Luongo (12)xxxxxxx

There have been some major adjustments to the table above, thanks to the Bruins and Lightning game on Tuesday night, as we have some new faces in the money and some new faces in the top 10, chasing down the money.  There's a part of me that wishes I could have a bigger table on the blog, but that would be a great deal of work.

Right now, it looks like the chase is now down to the 4th and 5th spots in the money, as the top three are slowly working their way from the pack, now seeing a 9-point gap between 3rd and 4th, but there is still time to have them reeled in, I suppose.

As for the game ahead, it'll be hard not to expect the same sort of game that we saw in Game One of this series on Sunday night.  There will be pushes from either end, but it will be the mistakes that force the issue either way.

For the Sharks to even this series up, they will have to find a way to carry the puck a whole lot more.  After the 2-1 go-ahead goal by Patrick Marleau, the Sharks did not have the puck very much or for very long and they were punished because of this.  The Sharks are a team that can find ways to pick up that puck, but again, they will have to force the issue, draw some calls and possibly get Roberto Luongo out of his net to help start mistakes.

If the Sharks have to breakdown the Canucks' possession of the puck, then the Canucks really just have to keep possession of the puck.  Antti Niemi is prone to some puck-handling mistakes as well, as per the Maxim Lapierre goal to tie Game One in the 2nd, so the idea will be to likely dump the puck into spots that will get Niemi in trouble and use the speedy 2nd and 3rd line to forecheck their way in and cause some trouble.  Speed and possession will also draw some more calls for and will get the power play on the ice.

A lot is being made of the possible return of Manny Malhotra in these playoffs and it would be great to see the Box 7 forward make it in, but I'll reserve any excitement for when he actually dresses though.  I don't expect to see Malhotra play, even if the Canucks go an extra couple of weeks into the Cup Finals, despite him practicing in full gear.

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