Sunday afternoon they won their ninth straight game, and seventh straight on the road, against the Minnesota Wild (not, as you might guess from the uniforms, the Polar Elf Sniper Brigage). Marleau saved the game with one of the most spectacular defensive plays of the year, batting a fluttering shot that was deflected past goaltender Evgeni Nabokov out of the air as it was heading for an open net in the final seconds of regulation. After a scoreless overtime, Marleau scored the game winner in the shootout. Where you been all this time, Patty?

The improved play of Marleau and Jonathan Cheechoo (who has been scoring goals in absolute bunches lately, signifying he's fully recovered from double-hernia surgery) has been one of the primary reasons for the Sharks recent dominance, but the catalyst was the arrival of slick-skating defenseman Brian "Soup" Campbell from Buffalo in exchange for the promising but unseasoned power forward Steve Bernier. Sharks GM Doug Wilson has been looking for an offensive-minded d-man who can lead the breakout and quarterback the power-play for many years now. Campbell is that guy. His spin-o-rama goal to cement the Sharks entertaining win against the Montreal Canadiens last week is going to be in highlight reels for years to come. He's also good defensively, capable of playing the body, and a good mentor for young defenseman like Christian Ehrhoff and Marc-Eduard Vlasic. He'll also be an unrestricted free-agent at the end of the year, so let's hope that Wilson can work on an extension for Campbell. Like a midwestern hot dish, the universal binding ingredient, what brings all the flavors together, for this year's Sharks is Soup.

By our hockey correspondent, Ian

It all started so positively, with Joe Thornton, Milan Michalek, Craig Rivet, and Marleau signing contract extensions, and the team eager to rectify their playoff collapse the previous spring. The team has played maddeningly inconsistent since then, though they have a good record, and currently sit atop the Pacific division standings. Much of Sharks fans frustration with this team springs from their atrocious home record this year, where they are 7-9-4 (or, to translate, where they have only won 7 of 20 games). On the road,
however, the Sharks are one of the top teams in the league, with a record of 16-3-2. That's why we can say that this team is "maddeningly inconsistent" while sporting a winning record and being in first place in their division.

Why call out Patty Marleau for the team's failings? Firstly, well, he's the captain, and therefore he, fairly or not, takes on the sins of the entire team. Secondly, he has, to put a fine point on it, sucked this season. At home. On the road. Night games, day games, games played on days that end in "y." Statistically, he's flirting with career lows in goals, points, plus/minus, and shooting percentage, and he's playing his tenth year in the NHL. His disinterested and distracted demeanor on the ice sure hasn't helped make the fans forget his lack of offensive production.

This November is a big month for all the teams in the Pacific division, as they spend the entire month playing their division opponents. The Sharks have shaken off their lackluster play to go 6-3-1 in their last ten games, three of which were against the Phoenix Coyotes. That includes Thursday night's 6-0 shutout, a game that they absolutely dominated. All told, in the three games against the Coyotes, they had two shutouts and only allowed one goal.

Douglas Murray, hero to college students everywhere and a Cornell grad himself, is now second in the league in plus/minus at +15. Woof.

Jeremy Roenick, of all people, is leading the league in game winning goals. 5 of his 6 goals on the year have been difference makers, including his 500th career goal. His signing, for minimal money, is looking like a genius move right now, as is the signing of Sandis Ozolinsh, who has put in quality minutes on defense, and has helped spark the Sharks power play with some good point play.

Captain Patrick Marleau is finally producing some points, and it's frankly about time. He, Milan Michalek, and Jonathan Cheechoo have been MIA for much of the year, and it's thanks to improved play by Joe Pavelski and Stever Bernier, some nice sniping by the Gooch (rookie Devin Setoguchi) and Torrey Mitchel that Sharks haven't been left behind by the rest of the division.

Image courtesy of Jon Swenson at Sharkspage.

After getting bounced last spring by the Detroit Red Wings for another second round playoff collapse, the refrain from the Sharks brass, coaches, and players during the off- and pre-season has been: consistency and resiliency. With twelve games under their belts in this young season, the San Jose Sharks currently sit atop the decidedly mediocre Pacific division, and unfortunately have shown many of the same problems that supposedly led to their playoff exit last year.

Case in point: they've been stomped by the Red Wings in both games they've played so far this year. Sharks fans have been denied a symbolic payback, and the Sharks brass can't be too happy with the way the team played against their Detroit playoff tormenters, either.

The only real consolation so far is that the Sharks have played an NHL-high number of games on the road, and are still a game above .500.

Photo by Jon Swenson of Sharkpage

It's near the end of March Madness, which means casual sports fans across the North America, and in the Bay Area in particular, start caring about the National Hockey League. Well, maybe "caring" is too strong a word. Noticing? Glancing at the hockey scores and standings when they're done with the stories about minor NFL signings, and baseball spring training notes and box scores? Remembering that the NHL exists?

The Stanley Cup playoffs are right around the corner, and they're what most of the non-die hard hockey fans really care about. The NHL regular season is mostly ignored by the sports-viewing public, a situation made worse by the fact that the NHL is no longer on ESPN (or rather, ESPN2 when they didn't have more important things to broadcast, like meaty, red-faced dudes named Magnus pushing Peugeot’s around a beach somewhere), but rather the Food Network.

Here's a quick recap of the Sharks season so far (broken into 20 game segments, and ignoring the stupid OTL/SOL column):

First half: 27-14, Awesome
Second half so far: 19-20, Very mediocre, but back on track lately

The highlights of the season so far:
-Joe Thornton, the best player to ever wear a Sharks jersey (with genuine apologies to Igor Larionov fans), is still a stud, and having another 100+ point campaign.
-Patrick Marleau continues to be stud 1-a.
-Mike Grier has been a great pickup, with the kind of strong 2-way play that Sharks fans haven't seen since Mike Ricci (and his bacon-rubbed hair) was working his Neanderthal-hockey magic, and getting nominated for Selke trophies.

By Ian, contributing

In fact, we tried to think about when we had a worse year and came up with maybe 1995 or 1996 when both baseball teams kind of sucked and the Raiders still in LA. But then the 49ers were still great. So then we went farther back and came up with maybe '78 or '77. But then the Raiders and Warriors were kind of good.

Either way, this was still a crappy year. The 49ers, Giants, Warriors, and Raiders were all below .500, the Raiders really below .500. In fact, the Raiders had one of the worst seasons in NFL history. As for the Giants, they appear to be mired in mediocrity as they completed yet another immensely frustrating season. As for the Warriors, they occasionally played exciting baseball but failed to make the playoffs for like the tenth year in a row.

But there was some good news out there. The A's finally broke through and made it to the American League Championship Series where the Tigers effectively smacked them around. The 49ers also looked to be on the rebound as they beat a few playoff teams and showed signs of feistiness. But in keeping with our theme, there's still bad news out there as both teams appear intent on moving, the A's to Fremont and the Niners to Santa Clara.

And, oh yeah, there's the Sharks. The Sharks were (are) one of the best teams in the NHL and made a big-time trade for MVP Joe Thorton but they blew a 2-0 start against the Edmonton Oilers to lose out in the playoffs. Even worse, their fans booed the Canadian National Anthem. Never a classy move.

As we said, not a great year for Bay Area sports.

Anyways, after the jump, the Two Chris's take a look at the sports year.

We sort of knew this was going to happen, but here it is: after officially jumping on the Sharks bandwagon last week, they have now lost three in a row to the Edmonton Oilers, a losing streak that started after the Sharks lost an epic, three OT Game 3. We would take some responsibility for causing the Bad Mojo, but after last night's game, Sharks fans only have themselves to blame for any sort of Bad Mojo, something that will happen when fans of a team boo another country's national anthem.

As the song says, Instant Karma is gonna get you. Or is it the rhythm that's going to get you? We can never quite remember.

Yep, before last night's Game 5, Sharks fans, or more like some Sharks fans as we're quite sure not every Sharks fan is a Yahoo, booed the singing of the Canadian national anthem. Yes, Edmonton is a city in Canada and booing the Canadian anthem is, kind of a way of booing the Edmonton Oilers, but only if you're a complete moron. And once again, it's not the disrespect that gets us, but the stupidity. See, most hockey players are Canadian. Ten of the Sharks are Canadian, including Shark stud and MVP Joe Thorton. Because hockey is the Canadian national sport. So, in other words: no Canada, no NHL. In essence, then, the booing Sharks fans booed the national anthem of the country that is the reason for them being there that night.

And do we even have to mention that Canada gave us Rush? How can anyone boo the country that gave us Rush?

This is the equivalent of going to an Australian Rules Football game and booing the Australian national anthem. Or going to Oktoberfest at Fort Mason and booing the German national anthem. We would say the Sharks are going to find themselves in a pretty riled up crowd when they play in Edmonton tomorrow night, but that's if Canadians are capable of getting riled up about anything.

Of course, the Sharks, in the end, would have nobody to blame but themselves if they lost. In Game 4, they were up 3-1 before giving up five unanswered goals. Then last night, they came from behind to tie it up at 3-3, only to give up three goals in the third period. A team that was playing dead-on, old style hockey suddenly found itself playing dumb and sloppy hockey.

One more game full of dumb and sloppy hockey, and all those San Jose sports fans will have nothing to boo except Arena League Football games and league lacrosse.

We're going to talk about something we rarely talk about-- hockey. Why? Because the San Jose Sharks are now up 2-0 against the Edmonton Oilers in the second round of the playoffs, after winning last night 2-1. The Sharks, who have won six playoff games in a row, won on a game winning goal by MVP candidate Joe Thorton (check out the great video of it from a fan in the stands). Then there's how they did it, winning last night's game despite, incredibly, being down two players in a 5-3 matchup, only to have two of those players lose their sticks, and still-- somehow, inexplicably-- kept the Oilers from scoring for over a minute. That's studly. Even better is the fact that in describing the whole thing, Sharks coach Ron Wilson referenced the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. How can you not give some props to a Monty Python quoting coach?

There was a time when we were actually pretty into hockey, a left over effect of having grown up in Flyers-mad Philadelphia. But somewhere along the line, right around the point we started seeing highlights of a Columbus/Nashville game, we stopped really caring that much. We would, however, get a little interested again around playoff hockey because playoff hockey is a whole other beast entirely, hockey at it's purest and with an intensity that ranks right up there with the Big Three sports, (check out this YouTube video of the Sharks' entrance in Game 4 of the series against the Predators to check out the intensity-- it's right out of a rock conert, a Ronnie James Dio rock concert). Actually, one could even say that playoff hockey has even more intensity than the other sports. In hockey, for instance, a star player would never quit trying half-way through a 7th game to sulk because they know that they will probably be pummeled to death their teammates.

This season, we started to pay mild attention to the Sharks only to see them spend most of the season in a funk, mired in the bottom end of their division. But then they traded for Joe Thorton in one of the best trades the Bay Area has ever seen and the team took off, finishing off as the hottest team in the NHL. So now we're back into it, following along with the team and even checking them out on TV (that is if we could find the OLN network). We're even more into it because this series has been a real humdinger and because the Shark's are winning the way hockey is supposed to be played, old time hockey-like, with much hitting and checking and do-or-die intensity.

In other words, Go Sharks.