San Jose Sharks 2010/11 Season Preview

"Ten to go, Boyle with a shot, knocked down by Madden. Another try, knocked down by Keith. Madden without a stick, doesn't matter, Hawks to the finals!" Those were last words of NBC's NHL announcer Mike Emrick, as the last ten seconds of the San Jose Sharks season dwindled down to 0.00, in Game 4 of the 09/10 Western Conference Finals, losing 4-2 to the Chicago Blackhawks. Once again, leaving Shark fans with postseason nightmares for the 3rd straight year. Fans became extremely frustrated and weary with the consistancy of the Sharks playoff efforts. After the series loss to Chicago, all fingers pointed to one man, Sharks goaltender for the past 10 years, Evgeni Nabokov. With no argument between Shark fans and hockey analysts worldwide, Nabby needed to step up this postseason, which he had failed to do in previous attempts. It has always been a hard for everyone to understand why Nabby, who has been top 5 goaltender in the NHL in the regular season statistic whise for the past couple of years, to then go into the post season and to basically look like a no-show.

Even though most of the blame has been put on Nabokov, the defense got under the radar a little bit, as most fans didn't notice that the San Jose defenders really were not doing much for the former Sharks veteren goalie. The biggest fault in the Sharks defense, one word: Screens. Countless times in the postseason, Nabokov was blinded by his own defensemen, leaving him voulnerable to being scored on. It wasn't bad enough that the Sharks defense was blinding Nabokov, but they also failed to stop the opposing teams in the post season from screening Nabby many many times. Perfect example: Dustin Byfuglien. Byfuglien broke down the San Jose defense and made it look easy. Though Jonathan Toews won MVP of the Stanley Cup, without Byfuglien, they don't make it. Byfuglien had the biggest impact against the Sharks, as well as Antti Niemi who played sensational between the pipes. Byfuglien had 4 G, 1 in each game, but more importantly 3 GWG, and most of the goals, of course, were done in the way that the Sharks defenders were failing to step up against, Byfuglien getting in front of Nabby and being physical, shrugging off San Jose defenders as if the Blackhawks were playing against the 92/93 Sharks team (who had appauling record of 11-70-2). As always, the Sharks had a great regular season going 51-20-11 with 113, had a huge signing in Dany Heatley, Joe Thorton finshed 4th in the league in points, and the Sharks golden boy, Patrick Marleau set career highs scoring 44 G with 83 PTS. All this is expected in San Jose, but none of that matters if they don't bring Lord Stanley to Northern California. As the playoffs ended, the regular season was in the back of everyones mind in San Jose, and everyone was thinking about the heart shattering moment, and the man who killed the Sharks Stanley Cup hopes for a 3rd straight year sending tears all around Northern Cali, Dustin Byfuglien.