One of the
biggest reasons why I wanted the Sharks to win the Pacific Division was because
I wanted the team to avoid playing a team like the St. Louis Blues in the first
round of the playoffs. Well, I didn’t get my wish and the Sharks are going to
play the team that dominated the Sharks the most this season. Not only do I not
like the Blues as a Sharks fan, I do not like the Blues as a hockey fan. The
Blues are the most boring team I have ever watched in hockey. They play a very
conservative style of hockey that makes soccer look like a game of basketball.
I don’t think the Blues are good for the growth of hockey as they are a team
that doesn’t score a lot of goals. All they do is get that first goal of the
game and once they get that lead, they play prevent defense the rest of the
game. They clog up the middle of the ice so that it is hard to get the puck
past the blue line into the opposing team’s offensive zone. If a team is lucky
to get past the blue line the Blues usually prevent the other team from getting
a shot on goal. That is why the Blues have two goalies that have a lot of
shutouts. It’s not because the goalies are as good as Patrick Roy. It’s because
the goalies don’t face a lot of shots.
Watching the Sharks face the
Blues during the regular season made me want to fall asleep. The Sharks scored
just three goals against the Blues in four games. They got shut out by the
Blues twice in St. Louis. What was even more amazing is that the Sharks were
one of the best teams at shooting pucks to the net as they were one of the top
teams in the league in shots on goal. However, against the Blues the Sharks had
a hard time even attempting shots on net.
There are a few keys the Sharks
have to do if they want to beat the Blues in the playoffs. The first and biggest
key is to score the first goal in the game. When the Blues score the first goal
of the game, it is very hard to catch up in the score as they thrive on playing
prevent defense. By scoring the first goal, the Blues have to change their
entire game strategy and that is playing from behind. They are not a good
offensive team so if the Sharks can score first, it makes the Blues play in
unfamiliar territory that they are not good at.
The second key is to stay out of the penalty box. Out of the
11 goals the Blues scored against the Sharks this year, five of them came on
the power play. The Sharks were a very discipline team during the regular
season and they will need to be disciplined against the Blues. However,
penalties are going to occur no matter how much a team tries to avoid them.
That is why the Sharks need to be a much better team on the penalty kill than
they were in the regular season. They need to block more shots and they need to
put more pressure on the player that has the puck. They need to use their speed
to force the Blues to make a play faster than they are prepared for.
The third key for the Sharks is to put shots on the net.
Wayne Gretzky once said, “You miss all the shots you don’t take.” That is the
biggest reason why the sharks lost every game against the Blues this season. It
is because they were afraid to take shots. They were always trying to play cute
with the Blues and tried passing the puck too much looking for that perfect
shot. The problem is the Blues don’t give you time to make a shot so you have
to take one as quick as you can. That means the Sharks have to take ugly shots.
They may be easy shots for the goalie to save but it’s better than not shooting
the puck at all. The more the team shoots the puck the better. That’s how the Sharks
won their games this year and that was by outshooting their opponents. There
will always be a few ugly shots that a goalie doesn’t stop cleanly and it
sometimes causes the puck to deflect for a rebound that a player can shoot
right in the net. The Sharks probability
to score is higher the more shots they take.
The fourth key to the Sharks winning is to make more clean
passes. During those games against the Blues the Sharks were just dumping the
puck into their zone hoping to chase the puck down by the net before the Blues
get the puck. The problem is the Sharks are not that fast and whenever they
dump the puck in the other team gets there first. I hate the dump in type of
hockey play and it’s a type of hockey play that I think is overrated. It never seems
to work. The Sharks do their best when they pass the puck smoothly and quickly.
This spreads out the defense and it opens up the ice for the Sharks.
The final key to the Sharks winning this series against the
Blues is to play Sharks hockey. That means playing the high offensive style
hockey that suits to the talents on the Sharks. They have skilled offensive
players such as Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Logan Couture, and Joe Pavelski.
I hate when I hear the Sharks coaches talking about “grinding out” for wins.
They think that by playing conservative hockey, the Sharks can get those ugly
goals and win by a small margin. The problem is “grinding out” is not the
Sharks style of hockey. That’s the Blues style of play and they would love
nothing more than the Sharks to play to the Blues boring style of hockey.
Unfortunately, the Blues are better at “grinding out” victories. That is why
the Sharks got to stop with the conservative hockey approach and make the Blues
play a high scoring offensive game. When it comes to a more high power offense,
the Sharks win in that game.
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