Edmonton Oilers at San Jose Sharks, Game 66 Breakdown

Edmonton Oilers
@ San Jose Sharks

Tuesday, Mar 6, 2012, 8:30 PM MST
HP Pavilion

Fear The Fin

Sharks Gameday: Anatomy of A Losing Streak - Fear The Fin
Everyone is well aware of San Jose's disappointing road trip in which they went 2-6-1 over the span of 17 days, but I think there's a case to be made that this current streak can be traced back to a 4-3 loss on January 15th against the Chicago Blackhawks in the United Center. The Sharks sputtered into the All-Star Break with a 2-3-1 record, dismantled the Blue Jackets and Stars by a combined score of 11-2 immediately following the break, but have gone 4-10-1 since.

Sharks Expected Lines (courtesy Left Wing Lock)

Logan Couture - Joe Pavelski - Joe Thornton
Ryane Clowe - Patrick Marleau - Tommy Wingels
Daniel Winnik - Torrey Mitchell - Dominic Moore
Jim Vandermeer - Brad Winchester - T.J. Galiardi

Douglas Murray - Brent Burns
Dan Boyle - Marc-Edouard Vlasic
Colin White - Justin Braun

Weekly Playoff Probabilities: Fairy Tales, Fenwick, and the Accuracy Paradox - Fear The Fin
Fenwick's predicitng ability is not so much derived from it's correlation with winning, as much as it is the sheer amount of information it provides us. From the graph we see that we can't really predict shit until about the 20 game mark, Fenwick is clearly superior to other modalities for a large stretch until about game 60 when Point% catches up, and then they all fall due to drop in number (ie. small sample) of remaining games.

Joe Thornton's Quietly Exceptional Season - Fear The Fin
And while it's true that Thornton is not going to flirt with a hundred points this season and likely never will again in his career, the fantastic year he's having has little to do with winning scoring titles. It's the culmination of a process that began when Todd McLellan took over the Sharks' bench in 2008; the process of turning Joe Thornton, the somewhat one-dimensional superstar into Joe Thornton, the complete two-way center. Defensive evolution is a narrative that's often spun about players on the wrong side of 30 with declining counting stats but, at least in Thornton's case, it's actually the truth and here are the numbers to prove it, courtesy of behindthenet.ca:

Taylor Hall - Sam Gagner - Ales Hemsky
Linus Omark - Ryan Nugent-Hopkins - Jordan Eberle
Ryan Smyth - Shawn Horcoff - Ryan Jones
Ben Eager - Eric Belanger - Lennart Petrell

Ladislav Smid - Jeff Petry
Andy Sutton - Nick Schultz
Ryan Whitney - Corey Potter

Devan Dubnyk
Nikolai Khabibulin

G66 Oilers at Sharks - Lowetide
Tikkanen was an ass. He really was. I loved him, even when he played elsewhere. Tikkanen was an actual hockey player and he could mark his man very well, score goals, and agitate like an old time washing machine. He was so unique I can’t really give you a modern comparable. Esa Tikkanen drove his teammates crazy!

Today's Frustrated Edmonton Fan: OilOnWhyte

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