Hurd By The Bay

OK, truth serum time. I’m no hockey expert. I covered the Sharks for parts of three seasons. I soaked up hours of hockey conversation with current general manager Doug Wilson (a good thing) and Dean Lombardi ( maybe not so good). I had wonderful teachers such as Jeff Norton and Darryl Sutter and Mike Ricci. But I never played the sport, didn’t follow it real closely, in fact, until I was assigned to do so.

But from what I know and from what I watched, the Sharks’ latest exit from the playoffs was different from the others. On the one hand, they rarely get swept. On the other, you rarely sweeps that are as close and as one-sided at the same time. The difference was that the Blackhawks were quicker and seemingly more alert. That’s not to say the Sharks lost the intensity battle, but one thing about sports is that the higher you go, the faster the action. The Sharks seemed too often to be watching the action than dictating it. You correct that simply through experience.

Now, the big questions: What to do with unrestricted free agents-to-be Evgeni Nabokov and Patrick Marleau? Nabokov is a great regular-season goalie , and he hardly deserves all the blame for this sweep. That said, your team goes up 2-0 in an elimination game, and you have to win. Too often in the 10 years that Nabby has been the Sharks’ goalie, they haven’t won those type of games. Thus, he’s probably played his last game for the Teal. Marleau, however, should be considered back in the mix, because the Blackhawks had no answer for him. A three-year offer, perhaps with an option, is the right offer for the Sharks to make.

--- Dany Heatley was conspicuously absent. He may have been hurt, and we should find out today how badly? But the Sharks (or any NHL team) can’t go all the way without all the cylinders firing.

--- Sharks would be really smart to bring back other UFA’s Manny Malholtra and Scott Nichol. Without them, they don’t get past the second round --- again --- this year.

--- I’m starting to think the Giants could go 108-54 and the A’s 54-108 but the A’s would still own the interleague series. Another sweep this weekend, and a great life story.

OK, so now I will be able to remember a big goal Patrick Marleau has scored. After a decade, I would hope so.

You say I’m not a big Patty fan? Guilty as charged. Nothing in particular, really. The guy has got ridiculous talent --- speed, soft hands, great vision, a feel for the game --- and without him, the Sharks would not have become one of the most consistent of the really good teams in the NHL.

But the Sharks have said their mission is not to be really good consistently. It is, rather, to be a champion. They’ve been talking that way since I covered the team at the start of century, and for years, they’ve told their customers that Marleau is a guy who can get them there.

As the years have gone by, I’ve become more and more skeptical. And I remain that way, because in victory and in loss, Marleau always seemed to be the same. I don’t want to say he struck me as a JaMarcus-type, detached and uncaring, because 1) I’m not ever around him and 2) his performance in the regular season has proven that would be an unfair assessment.

That said, I’ve just never gotten the feeling that his motor runs as hard as it needs to run to lead your team to great heights in the playoffs. It says much that for close to 10 years, Marleau has been considered the Sharks’ most talented player but that with Marleau, the team has won seven playoff games in one season only twice previously.

Interesting thing is that both the Sharks and Marleau seem to be presented with a new opportunity to paint the canvas. The Sharks have established themselves as the team to beat in the Western Conference, just as any team that takes a 3-0 lead on the New York Yankees in any baseball playoff series does the same. Marleau, and his former invisible teammate Joe Thornton, have shaken off some of the old criticisms. It’s as if the epitaph still has yet to be written.

With free agency fast approaching, what seemed to be a certainty among fans --- namely, the wish to see Marleau earn his riches elsewhere --- might be back up for debate. Should make for a fascinating few weeks, especially since the bandwagon already is getting bigger.

Pondering the buzz around the San Francisco Bay Area on a Monday while trying to remember a single playoff goal Patrick Marleau has ever scored that was … well, memorable.

--- Is it too soon to call Joe Pavelski the greatest playoff player in Sharks history? The center continued his ridiculous playoff hot streak and put his team in position to put some of their old playoff demons to rest. Pavelski is only one point shy of matching Marleau’s total in the 2005-06 playoffs --- ironically, the last time the Sharks held a two-game lead in the second round of a series; they blew that series against the Edmonton Oilers --- and his next goal will set a franchise record for the most in a single playoffs. More important, Pavelski has changed the mo-Joe around the Sharks and given them the feel of a team that can go deep in the playoffs. That’s a new development.

--- Pavelski is keeping some pretty nice company this playoff season, and the Sharks can take heart in what happened to the last team with a player who scored multiple goals in three straight playoff games.

---- Just as important in the Sharks’ Game 2 win was getting the other Joe on the board. Joe

Thornton may not consider himself a goal-scorer, but he’s gonna have to score his fair share if this team is to go where it wants.

--- Not sure I agree with KNBR’s Damon Bruce and Bay Area News Group’s Cam Inman that Pavelski is ready to have the building named after him, as they discussed in an interview I'll post as soon as the station does. But I do agree big-time with Bruce’s opinion that a great team takes this series by the throat in Game 3. The Sharks’ history suggests it won’t happen. As it is, the Sharks have set themselves up for a colossal breakthrough or an epic collapse.

--- How starved is the Bay for a winner? Sharks talk is even outdoing discussion about the Raiders and JaMarcus Russell, who did some positive things in the Silver and Black’s minicamp.

Pondering the buzz around the San Francisco Bay Area as we head into the weekend, and I wonder how a guy can have “Little” in one nickname and “Big” in another.

--- Joe Pavelski has made the Sharks his team during the team’s first eight games of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Sharks have a long history of folding under the pressure of Stanley’s looming presence, and just as Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau were doing their usual playoff thing (namely, nothing significant), Joe-Pa has exploded for seven goals, four assists and plus-six, all team-leading totals in the playoffs. He scored the overtime game-winner against Colorado two nights after Dan Boyle's fiasco created a 2-1 series deficit -- the type of adversity that normally sinks the Sharks. The line he centers with Devin Setoguchi and Ryane Clowe on the wings has replaced the Thornton-Marleau-Heatley line as the team’s best (in fact, Marleau’s status is iffy even if he is playing, and Heatley hasn’t skated on it for a bit).

--- Anyway, Pavelski’s two goals and an assist Thursday night ended the opening-game-of-series misery for the Sharks, and showed they might be ready this year to put in the effort night after night it

will take to beat the Red Wings. It also has increased debate around here about the nickname that best suits him. What do you prefer? I like “Lil’ Joe” (after the old Bonanza character)because at heart, Pavelski is a winner. But “The Big Pavelski” isn't bad, either. Comment below.

--- The other big chatter has to do with the Giants and Tim Lincecum, and it’ll be interesting to see how that team responds in the wake of a disappointing loss to the Phillies on Wednesday. The Giants lost four straight after their only other mini-controversy --- the team’s decision not to retaliate immediately against Vicente Padilla after he beaned Aaron Rowand in the face ---- and while the latest one wasn’t as polarizing, there’s no question the loss lingered. Lin-Cy-cum was two outs away from a dominant complete game, when a one-out walk caused manager Bruce Bochy to yank him. The game got away (sometimes ball is about nothing but luck), and Lincecum got a no-decision.

--- Question for the readers. If you’re Lincecum, do you go into Bochy’s office after that game and tell him essentially, “Next time I want to finish!”? And if you’re Bochy, would you respect or be angry with a pitcher for saying something like that? Myself, I think The Franchise has earned the right to make that call, even if it is April.

--- On the other side of the Bay, the A’s are approaching irrelevance. Until they solve their injury woes, they won’t win, and already, a fourth straight season is being torpedoed. Susan Slusser has some specific numbers in her story. I’m no math wizard, but just using those numbers against the length of the regular season, then the A’s are averaging a disabled list addition every week and a half. Throw the six weeks of spring training into the addition, and it’s about once ever three weeks. Ridiculous, and no end in sight.

--- Finally, a nice story on the potential new owner of the Warriors.