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He Is The Anti-Goal, Running Against The Grain Til The Day He Drops: The Day After

Just some thoughts rattling around in my melon about yesterday afternoon:

-Well, if you look at the CORSI ratings, it looks like the Hawks mauled the Sharks at even-strength. Perhaps that’s skewed by no power plays and the Hawks could only do damage at even-strength, but still, very encouragin. Especially 51 Phantom’s numbers, who gets better every game. It’s even more encouraging considering Campbell saw most of his time against the Pavelski line, which is the one we’re most afraid of.

-Speaking of which Sharks fans, the booing of Campbell. So this guy comes as a rental, plays for 30 games, is hardly the only one to blame for your loss to Dallas that year. He then leaves to find more money, an amount you wouldn’t pay, leaving you the space to acquire Dan Boyle, who you love. Meanwhile, you wildly cheer Dany Heatley….who killed a guy. Just want to be clear, is all.

-While I’m admonishing San Jose fans; Hey guys, the “Let’s Go Sharks!” chant should be three syllables. “Let’s Go Sha-arks!” sounds stupid. Sorry.

-New playoff dynamos Thornton, Heatley, and Marleau all dicked the dog on the winning goal, and were generally not noticeable. Heatley also didn’t exactly kill himself (pun very much intended) to block Buff’s shot, although it certainly looked like he could. One game does not a flop make but A) A series like this is decided on these tiny margins and B) they had two good games against Detroit and everyone couldn’t get out of the way fast enough to declare their playoff doldrums over. So we’re one away from reversing that!

Jordan Hendry! This is more his series. Far more space for him to operate. Keep it up.

-Still getting horsed in the face-off dot, and our wingers can still do a better job of helping out.

-If the Sharks continue to give Kane this much space, there’s a four-point game in our future.

-A word on Niemi; though he was awesome, he was allowed to be awesome because the Hawks d-men did a wonderful job of clearing the rebounds he was leaving around. Either stop the rebounds, or keep clearing them, but one of those has to happen. Secondly, the Sharks during the postgame talk were adamant about shooting high. Now, you can’t always shoot high when you want, and if there’s traffic high shots are more likely to hit someone’s chest than the net. But it bears watching, as if the Sharks have time they do have the talent to take aim on the space we know is available.

Duncan Keith has gotten better every series. So that’s why he’s nominated for the Norris.

-A word on Dale Tallon: Though his math skills certainly leave a lot to be desired, this is his team we’re watching. Stan Bowman’s only signature move was to make Bickell and Skille reload their I-pass, and bring the now-dead Kim Johnsson to town (a deal we all liked at the time, and it’s no one’s fault that he can’t play now). If the Hawks go to the place of all our dreams, Tallon’s fingerprints are all over it, and I hope he is duly rewarded. And now that he’s in the East, I wish him the best of luck and if he feels like he wants to give us Nathan Horton as a thank you, well, that’d be all right.

Talking Points