They Are Kinda Sorta the Road Crew

OK, I'll admit it- the Giants' WORLD SERIES VICTORY has softened my edges. I don't mutter about the pathetic We Believers filling Oracle to watch another losing season with great hopes of free pizza.  I could not care less who starts at quarterback for the Raiders or 49ers. But most shockingly, I've taken a zen approach to the disappointing Sharks season. That, you'll be happy to hear, ends tonight.

If you haven't been paying attention, the Sharks made the conference final and got beat by the eventual champion Blackhawks. OK, they got swept, but they did trounce Detroit, a perennial obstacle and class-of-the league team, and the series had me leaping off couches, at least four times. Expectations were tempered, however, by an off-season in which the one big defensive gun on the power play, Rob Blake, retired, and win-every-faceoff and do-the-little-things scrapper Manny Malhotra signed with the fucking Canucks. In response, Doug Wilson let Nabby go and signed two goalies, including the Stanley Cup-holding Antti Niemi, who left the Blackhawks in odd contractual circumstances. The Sharks did not appear to have improved themselves for arguably the first time in the Wilson era, and then they spent the first half of the season playing  worse than that.

After a six-game losing streak had the usually chipper Shark Tank fans booing the team off the ice in consecutive games, coach McLellan looked like the best candidate for an aneurism since Hal McRae trashed his office. He was trashing players every night in the press, calling his superstars pussies with no heart or work ethic. Don't you just love hockey?

Well, the team looked slightly better after the losing streak, and then they left for a seven-game trip   completed tonight with an overtime win over their usual bitches, the Nashville Predators. They beat the Bruins and the Caps along the way, two of the class teams in the East, but stumbled in New Jersey and Florida, blowing third period leads in both games to shit teams to ruin my Tahoe weekend before completing a 5-2 trip with tonight's Patrick Marleau clincher. I've still got those two chokes stuck in my craw, but I'm struggling to admit that's a pretty decent road trip record. The team stands seventh in the Western Conference as of tonight (with a few games left on tonight's west coast docket), precariously clutching a playoff position in the absurdly tight West. This is new for Sharks fans, who are used to a comfortable division lead and even a small cushion for top spot in the conference over the past few years. One philosopher suggests the Sharks' dominance over the regular season only to fall short in the playoffs makes this year's early failure a new kind of hope, and another offers that maybe this team just isn't very good. I think they're coming together, and I say that begrudgingly. The defense is infinitely tighter than in the early season, and while we desperately need a big stopper on the blue line, the team defense looks far more in sync than at any other time this year. Let's put it this way- in seven road games, the Sharks gave up eleven goals, and Niemi just ain't that kind of stopper.

So for the casual observer, things look relatively bright. But we are Sharks fans, and words like "confidence" and "hope" and  "belief" are for religious fanatics and Obama supporters. We're like the David Humes of hockey, or maybe we're just Missouri- show me or shut up, and keep those abstract nouns to yourself.  I'm gonna hug my Joe Pavelski doll and then pour a long draught from the kegerator. And then I'm going to steel myself for the pain ahead. I suggest you do likewise.