From a recent Scott Burnside post:
When the New York Rangers add two talented, veteran centers in Scott Gomez and Chris Drury in the offseason to a lineup that already boasts multiple Stanley Cup winners Jaromir Jagr and Brendan Shanahan and the best young goalie in the game in Henrik Lundqvist, reason tells you, emphatically even, that this is going to be a good hockey team. Maybe even a Stanley Cup team.Man, this sounds awfully familiar. Change the names of the players, and it could be yet another "Sharks are disappointing" article. I get that people need to write something this time of year, but writing 3 or 4 articles on this topic since the beginning of the season seems a bit much. We're seven games in. Seven.
And yet after dropping a 5-3 decision to the previously winless Atlanta Thrashers on Thursday night -- a Thrashers team so desperate, so discombobulated, it fired coach Bob Hartley the day before -- the Rangers are a scant two points better than the Thrashers with a 2-4 record.
With all the great preseason press the Sharks got, having them come out of the gate at .500 could be a shock. "Hey! Maybe I have no friggin' idea what I'm talking about!" Barry Melrose says to himself. Well, probably not.
It could be a hell of a lot worse. We could be in Atlanta right now.
2 comments:
While I mostly agree, this is the same attitude we hear over and over out of the organization. Then, when we are in the stretch and we need two wins and two losses by Anahiem to avoid playing the Wings in the 1st or 2nd round, we always hear "if they only started the season stronger..." Watching the pre-game interviews with RW, Patty, etc. before the Wings game and hearing them say "it's just another game" and "it's early in the season" pissed me off. They need a little emotion, how about "these guys made us look like chumps last season, we want a little payback!". JR should have been on our bench that game if nothing else but to play 8 minutes and fire the guys up. But that's now in the past. It will be interesting to see how the Preds come after us tonight. I have a feeling they'll be a little more emotional with us then we were with Detroit.
BTW, at exactly which game do we stop saying "it's early in the season?"
Saw the Ek rumor about Chara... now THAT would be interesting.
BTW, at exactly which game do we stop saying "it's early in the season?"
Game 15. November 4 at Anaheim.
Issues are worked on and identified in the first 10 games, addressed in the next 5, and results need to show by game 15. Starting with that game, it's Ducks-Wild-Avs-Stars. We go .500 or worse in that stretch, then we start trading or firing.
Post a Comment