Takes and trash talk from both ALL sides of the NHL's most obscure PATHETIC* rivalry

* Thanks, Kevin Lowe!

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Screw you Sleek, and your non-Mighty Ducks too

So, the first volley has been fired in the true Battle of California (at least for this season -- sorry James, but the Queens aren't ready...yet), and Sleek's probably on his way back from the Pond, erm, the Non-Disney Center ready to gloat about seeing Chris Pronger in all his lanky jackass glory. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 6 to 3's a pretty good beatdown. Well, before you get to high on your non-Mighty Ducks, let's do a quick comparison of the lineups. Most notably, let's look at the defense.

Now, I've been a pretty harsh critic of the Sharks defense as it is. But the scoresheet's +/- says it all for this intense preseason tilt between the Sharks and the Quacks:

Doug Murray (5/6 dman): -2
Josh Gorges (5/6 dman): Even
Scott "I wear 28 in tribute to Nils Ekman" Ferguson: Even
Garret Stafford (AHL lifetimer): -1
Derek "Who the hell am I?" Joslin: -2
Christian Ehrhoff (3/4 offensive dman): +1

Up front, the Sharks were the Patrick Marleau line (+2) and no one else. Now, let's look at the arsenal the Ducks threw on the ice...

Defense: Chris Pronger, Scott Neidermayer, and some other guys who don't matter
Forwards: Selanne, Perry, Getzlaf, McDonald, Marchant, Chistov

So, Sleek (and his legion of Ducks fans), you see, your boys smacked around the minor league Sharks + Patrick Marleau. And when Marleau's line was on the ice, they couldn't contain him.

The preseason may be meaningless (check out my other blog for that rant), but there's still pride on the line. Still, don't get too high on your Quackers; things will look MUCH different when the Joe Thornton joins the party and the Sharks throw out a mediocre defense instead of a ridiculously bad defense.

8 comments:

VeryProudofYa said...

Hey, same thing happened to the Ducks a few days ago. Obviously they need to rebound.
Just like the Sharks will bounce back against their next unfortunate opponent.
Unless they play the ducks again, then they'll lose.


Also, sir, might I add that the Ducks put IN those goals against Toskala, the sharks goalie. While this "Uncontainable" marleau line could only put in goals against a goalie that's around 5th on the depth chart.

Anonymous said...

It was nice to see the Ducks coach play those Niedermeyer and Pronger fellas so much. They may just might make the team.

Anonymous said...

I don't think Anaheim is worried about Thornton, they have this new guy, he is like 6'6, I think his job against the Sharks will be to play against Thornton.

Earl Sleek said...

Thanks for taking your teeth out last night, Sharkies! Certainly was a great time.

Anonymous said...

Ok, let's remember that J. S. Giguere looked shaky out there and Bryzgalov gave up 4 goals in a similar situation on Monday. “Giggy” was giving up rebounds left and right and pucks were getting through his leg pads on a couple of occasions. The top three Quack d-men were out-there to gobble them up so he obviously did not give a goal (of course if the Quacks weren’t at home the called off goal would have counted). Also, I counted 8 regular season Shark starters in the press box. So let’s not gloat about this win and wait for the regular season. I didn’t hear the Queen fans gloat about Monday’s game too much, so take it from their example. One preseason win does not make a season.

Earl Sleek said...

Hmm, I thought I was relatively gloat-free today; you are right about the unimportance of preseason wins. I'm generally not very good at gloating anyway, part of being a Duck fan.

Mostly all I've said (I think) is that it was a fun drinky time, and enjoy the photos.

Anonymous said...

My last response was more directed at "VeryProudofYa" and not you sleek.

Earl Sleek said...

Oops. I'm a little hung over today, so bear with me.