OffThePost.org

http://www.nhl.com/ice/preview.htm?id=2 ... sb:preview

Damn them Sharks, they just aren't very pun-worthy except for the obvious "Couture" and "Vlasic" references.

Hoping SJ continues their underachieving ways.

It's nice to note Ryan O'Reilly leads the league in takeaways, having passed up Pavel Datsyuk. And no, I don't know if the Pepsi Center scorers are being a tad generous there or not.

Just gonna take a wild guess that we're going with an all-AHL 4th line tonight, which, sadly, is worlds better than trying to put Matt Hunwick and/or Cody McLeod out there:

Landeskog - O'Reilly - Hejduk
Duchene - Stastny - Galiardi
Winnik - McClement - Jones
Van der Gulik - Brophey - Malone

Wow. That's a piecemeal lineup if there ever was one. Sucks royally that two key cogs in the system (Hishon, Olver) are still recovering from concussions. I truly think the offensive picture would be radically different if they were here, even though one's fresh out of junior and the other has a whopping 18 games of experience.

To put it bluntly...if SJ loses this one, they ought to be ashamed.

Keeeeeeee-rye-st! Now Jones is out with a groin issue. We may see Hunwick at forward again anyway. Fucking wonderful.

One thing I like about Varly--if one of his teammates fucks up and it leads to a goal against, he makes his displeasure known.

Van der Gulik is playing like he wants to stay.

Do his teammates lose it when he fucks up too? Mistakes happen...goalies shouldn't lose it on their teammates when they do.

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Thanks Chuck, E.L. and Harmy!

He doesn't really lose it so much as shoots said teammate a look when they do something stupid. And Hejda most certainly did something stupid there. But you're right...Varly pulled a Roy earlier in the game and I doubt anyone gave him grief for it. I wonder if that's a Russian goalie thing? I recall reading that Nabokov did something similar with his teammates in SJ.

Avs blow a 2-goal lead before I could type this. Coulda seen that one coming. Even when this team is doing good, they still don't think they're good.

Sharks needed that comeback, hopefully it gives them some momentum and opens the floodgates. I was cursing Havlat's lazy ass just as he made that steal on the Burns goal. I would really like to see what he could do if he went all out. Couture is becoming one of my favorite players in the league, great combo of skill and heart.

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Just goes to show what happens when a bad team lets up off the gas for even a moment, and a good team finally gets its shit together.

A lot of fans are somewhat rightfully calling for Jan Hejda's head on a platter, but the Avs were back on their heels long before that. Oh well...I can't even characterize this as a "meltdown," since this was the expected result.