The day in Photos

Sharks vs Penguins:



Surfers vs Mavericks:

Playoff Preview? San Jose loses 2-3 in overtime to Vancouver

This was one of the best games I have seen all year, and both teams approached it with playoff intensity. After losing such a hard fought game in overtime, I almost feel bad for the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins tonight.

Game Notes:

Bertuzzi is a dirty player, pretty much common knowledge, but I respect his attempt to take over the game early in the third period. It reminded me of Forsberg dominating late in games 6 and 7 against the Sharks in the 2002 playoffs. San Jose is going to have 3 lines creating offense in the postseason. It will probably come down to one player taking over the game at a critical time. Bertuzzi tried to do his thing early in the third and the result was a fired up Canucks squad skating with a sense of urgency.

Scott Parker only had 3 minutes and 3 seconds of ice time in the entire game. If I am Sharks coach Ron Wilson, I introduce Parker to Bertuzzi and squelch any ideas of game dominance before they start. Self-preservation would be more appropriate.

SJ has to play more offense in the later stages of the game. When Vancouver carried the play down by a goal in the third, the Sharks were almost exclusively reacting to what the Canucks were doing. The result was a number of quality Vancouver scoring chances and the Sharks playing on their heels.

Hello Vancouver, remember Vesa Toskala? Now tell me how many teams had three legitimate #1 goaltenders [Nabokov, Kiprusoff, Toskala] at one time during the season? Miikka Kiprusoff is leading the league in GAA [1.49], but has missed starts due to the logjam in San Jose, and an injury with Calgary. The secret most outside of San Jose do not know is that Vesa Toskala might have the brightest future of all three.

After San Jose rides Nabokov to a cup this season, of course.

2004 Mavericks big wave surfing contest

This is not hockey related, but bear with me.

For the first time in three seasons, the Mavericks big wave surfing contest will be held on Friday February 27th. The best big wave surfers in the world have been given 24-hour notice as an intense storm has created giant surf along the Pacific.

I read this quote in the San Jose Mercury and realized I have never heard this mentioned about the California coast before.

More showery weather is forecast today in the unstable air following the system's cold front. And storm-spawned 40-foot waves are expected to batter the central coast.

Forecasters warned that a few rogue waves could reach 50 feet high, and the National Weather Service has issued a coastal flood watch for today.

The Monterey County Herald quotes a local surfer who believes the Mavericks break in Half Moon Bay rivals Waimea Bay in Hawaii. In fact, many professional big wave surfers believe the Mavericks break is more difficult.

When it's breaking at 20 to 25 feet, detonating over the reef like a hydrogen bomb, there are only a few people in the world capable of being out there.

And if the right swell comes through this season, the whole nation is going to find out exactly who they are.

The size of the wave and the rocky shoreline overshadow another natural danger. From contestant Grant Washburn:

�It�s frightening to think about all the sharks out there. Usually, they rank about sixth or seventh on the things you have to worry about. I�m not sure that is the case now.�

For more information:

Maverickssurf.com official website.

Mavsurfer.com live webcam. Also make sure to visit the numerous photo galleries on this website.

Weather.com local weather conditions.

Photo Links

Thanks to those who keep sending in the hockey photography links. All of the best links will be archived on this photo links page.

Hockeylegend has an amazing collection of historic NHL team photos for sale. I have a few similar to these from turn of the century basketball teams, but these hockey photos are well worth a look.

After I posted about the 1980 Russian Olympic team and the later KLM line, Vitali sent in a link to this Igor Larionov tribute page. He also found the actual roster of the 1980 Olympic Soviet team. Since I could not find it anywhere else, I will add it to my last Miracle movie post.


Photo posted with permission from ILAS.

Igor Larionov has 0 goals and 10 assists in 40 games with the New Jersey Devils this season.

For whom the trade winds blow

SALE 2 WEEKS ONLY! Trade for one high priced contract, get the second one at half off.

There is really only one way to describe the frenzy leading up to the trade deadline on March 9th. Teams with a legitimate shot at a Stanley Cup are making deals, teams with no shot are dumping salary before an uncertain financial landscape.

A partial recap of the deadline deals from TSN's trade tracker:

• COL - Skoula for Sauer.
• COL - Boughner.
• PHI - Zhamnov.
• OTT - Laich for Bondra.
• NAS - Sullivan.

A few of the names rumored to still be on the market:

• CHI - Berard.
• CLS - LaChance.
• EDM - Smyth.
• FLA - V. Bure.
• NYR - Kovalev, Leetch?
• PIT - Tarnstrom.
• WAS - Gonchar, Kolzig.

To get your fill of all the rumors from Larry Brooks and the Toronto press among others, visit Spectors.

Looking at this from a San Jose perspective, Sharks GM Doug Wilson has to be concerned about the defense and the PP. San Jose usually brings a tight defensive unit into the playoffs, and struggles to score enough goals to get past a 7 game series.

This season the Sharks have solid top 4 defenseman, but are wondering if rotating Preissing/Davison/Fahey and Ehrhoff for the last two defensive slots will work.

Adding a defensive defenseman [LaChance] or an offensive defenseman to help the PP [Gonchar, Tarnstrom, Leetch] would go a long way towards addressing the Sharks problems. More importantly, it would keep said player from Detroit, Vancouver or Dallas. The Colorado Avalanche, or Yankees-lite as I like to call them, might take a premiere player off the market for just this reason.

The other concern is simply scoring enough to get past a 7 game playoff series. The Sharks are currently getting points from all 4 lines. Marleau and Sturm are clicking with Primeau. McCauley, Ekman and Korolyuk remind me of the Conehead line in the new Miracle movie. Cheechoo, Ricci, and Thornton are trying to reclaim the title of "the best 3rd line in the NHL". Damphousse and Dimitrakos are paired with Harvey, but are often mixed into the top three lines.

ESPN's Jim Kelly said goals are harder to come by in the playoffs, something I mentioned a few weeks back. Adding a winger who can finish only adds to the arsenal and increases the chances that the goals will come a little easier.

The most likely outcome will be not making a trade at all. The Sharks are rolling, changing the lineup might disrupt that.

Milan Michalek had a season ending knee injury in Cleveland, but AHL leading scorer Miroslav Zalesak, AHL's 4th leading scorer Brad Boyes, and Christian Ehrhoff [recently sent down] all could add depth to a postseason roster.

Site Updates

Added a few pages to the site, a useful sitemap, a local hockey rink directory [feel free to send in links], a list of hockey photography links, and small Stanford and San Jose State team pages. I also added a reference list of all NHL Stanley Cup Champions.

New weblogs have been added to the massive link list created by myself and KevinB. Tasca's Take has fine analysis of what is happening in the NHL, OntheWings covers the only sports team I hate more than the 49ers, Ottawa Sports blog follows the Senators, and hopefully Ben Wright will cover the Bruins impending world domination. About **** time.

I had to kill Google Images ability to view most of the images on this site. Normally I would not mind who views what dark and blurry image, but the numbers lately have been ridiculous. SP has been clocking a couple of thousand of people a day, so I had to turn it off to save some bandwidth. They will just have to visit the site by clicking on a link like normal people.

More coming later on the trade deadline.