It's difficult to win a hockey game with only one line. (UPI/Brian Kersey Photo via Newscom) via cdn.picapp.com

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It's difficult to win a hockey game in the NHL when only three of your top nine forwards decide to show up for a game.  That's exactly what happened to the Sharks in their game four loss to Chicago.  Joe Thornton, Devin Setoguchi and Logan Couture came to play and unfortunately they were the only ones.  Not only were they gamers for this contest, they won their portion of the battle handily, but watched as their teammates were outflanked, overran, ambushed and I think they may have even witnessed their teammates enveloped in a pincer movement.

Scoring Chances for game 30324

For those of you who are new to the concept of tracking scoring chances, a scoring chance is defined as a clear play directed toward the opposing net from a dangerous scoring area - loosely defined as the top of the circle in and inside the faceoff dots, though sometimes slightly more generous than that depending on the amount of immediately-preceding puck movement or screens in front of the net.  Blocked shots are generally not included but missed shots are.  A player is awarded a scoring chance anytime he is on the ice and someone from either team has a chance to score.  He is awarded a "chance for" if someone on his team has a chance to score and a "chance against" if the opposing team has a chance to score.  Vic Ferrari makes this all possible with his tools to evaluate Corsi, head-to-head ice time and scoring chances.

I'm tracking this series with the Sharks as the home team, so in any unlabeled sequence, the first number is for the Sharks, the second for the Blackhawks.

The numbers speak for themselves.

Look at the stretch from 17:01 in the third until 5:55 in the third.

Like I said above - the only line that bothered showing up was the line of Thornton, Couture and Setoguchi.  Thornton was 4/1 with them, 2/6 without.  The average forward not named Thornton, Setoguchi or Marleau went 1/5 this game, making Setoguchi and Couture's combined 11/4 all that much more interesting.

Manny Malhotra's pounding continued - he went 0/5 in game four meaning his combined effort in Chicago was 1/12.  Dany Heatley, Patrick Marleau and Joe Pavelski decided to sit this one out...actually they combined to go 3/18 so the Sharks may have been better off without them.  The normally reliable Douglas Murray (21/11 coming into this game) was shelled, as was partner Dan Boyle.  One line showed up.  In an elimination game.  I don't know if Todd McClellan's blender had anything to do with it, but this one was tough to watch for Sharks fans, I'm sure.

With Marleau likely moving on next year, McClellan might want to explore a top two line set up of:

Couture - Thornton - Setoguchi

Clowe - Pavelski - Heatley

You are reading that correctly.  Jonathan Toews, Dustin Byfuglien and Patrick Kane combined to go 21/1 to eliminate the Sharks.