Sorry I have not been doing a lot of posting lately but I am going to give it a shot here today to come up with something for the game tonight.
First off though, I would like to apologize for kind of going off on the DW acquisition of Ian White. I realize that it has only been 1 game, but holy cow. I think Ian White is EXACTLY what the Sharks needed. He showed an uncanny ability to jump up at just the right time without putting his team in a bad position defensively. I did not get to make it to the actual game but watching it on TV, I saw all three forwards down low cycling the puck and out of no-where I see #9 flash down into the screen. WHOA. What was that? I later discover that that my friends, is how a defensemen is supposed to jump into a play. Drop down to the face off dot while opening up for the pass and if nothing is there circle back to the point. Nicely done sir. The other thing that I noticed that I really liked was that he was not afraid to load up and let loose on a shot from the point. That is going to be something that is really going to serve both himself and this team well as we really have no one on the current roster that can do that. I have noticed over the last 2 years that when the Sharks are getting shots from the point and providing traffic in front of the net, they tend to score in bunches. They also have a tremendous ability to score individually but those point shots open up so much more room for them. And with the addition of a RH shot in White and the promotion of Justin Braun, another kid that is able to get his RH shot through traffic quite well, I think that you can look for an increase in scoring in SJ in the near future. One last thing that I hope this move does is relieve some of the pressure that has been placed upon Dan Boyle. DB is currently among the tops in the league in TOI and you can see he is laboring. He is most effective when he is able to turn it loose and skate anywhere on the ice. But with his lofty TOI numbers, he has had to scale back quite a bit in an effort to conserve energy for defense. The addition of White COULD cut down his ice time a bit but that should increase his productivity. If this happens, I can see an overall surge in scoring for the remainder of the season. So after 1 game, I will say that Ian White has shown me that he is capable of more than I was initially led to believe. My apologies on that.
I will do my best to come back a little later with a preview of the game tonight. For now, I had better get back to work. YIKES!!!
8 Team Keeper - Year 3
G,A,+/-,PIM,PPG,PPA,SHP,GWG,SOG,FOW,FOL,BS,W,GS,GA,GAA,SV %,SHO
Start 3C, 3LW, 3RW, 5D, 3Utl, 2G
25 Man Roster, Keep All
C - Getzlaf, Tavares, J.Staal(LW), Duchene, RNH, Crosby
LW - Kovalchuk, Hall, Benn, Hartnell, E.Kane
RW - P.Kane, Seguin, Yakupov, Eberle, OV
D - Keith, E.Johnson, Carlson, Karlsson, Burns
G - Rask, Schneider, Rinne