Sharks-Flames preseason finale photos
A little belated, but here are a few photos and notes from the Sharks 2-1 home win over the Calgary Flames in the preseason finale on Saturday night. The Sharks controlled the action early, and the line of Patrick Marleau, Joe Thornton and Jonathan Cheechoo is one you are going to be hearing a lot from this season. On the power play, they could move the puck at will. A couple of saves by Calgary goaltender Curtis McElhinney kept the game from getting out of hand early.
The Flames tried to control the action physically, but they were smaller, slower, and took too many ill advised penalties for that to be effective. Without Kiprusoff in net, there was little chance they were going to keep San Jose off of the scoreboard. Iginla, Tanguay and especially Marcus Nillson in the final 15 minutes were the most effective players on the ice from Calgary. The Flames have had a horrible preseason, and although that usually means very little, in this case I think it may foreshadow things to come for the season. Keenan said pregame that he usually has to get very animated at least once a month on all of the NHL teams he has coached. On this team, pencil in a few more. With Darryl Sutter in the general manager role, there could be fireworks ahead. Defenseman Dion Phaneuf was hitting players so far after the play, not to mention from behind, that towards the end of the game it kind of became a joke there was only 1 interference penalty called on him.
The Sharks made three cuts this weekend, assigning goaltender Thomas Greiss, right wing Graham Mink, and left wing Lukas Kaspar to Worcester of the AHL. Dimitri Patzold will backup Evgeni Nabokov in goal. Rookies Devin Setoguchi and Torrey Mitchell have impressed the coaching staff enough to be named to the opening night roster. The Sharks roster is at 26, but Tomas Plihal (shoulder) and defenseman Brad Norton (back) could be placed on the IR. That leaves Alexie Semenov, Rob Davison, and Douglas Murray fighting for the sixth and seventh defensive spots on the roster, with the remaining player targeted for Worcester.
More notes and photos from Saturday's game are available on Sharkspage.com here. Release the Hounds!
5 comments:
Wow, those are ugly jerseys.
The teal home jerseys for the Sharks are really growing on me. I like them a lot. The white ones need work, but these are great.
The Flames have fallen victim to what Uni-Watch has called the "Apron Strings Effect." As you can see, they look lame.
No fin crest on the shoulders??? Ridiculous.
The jerseys kind of look like someone bought a jersey on Hockey Giant and then placed the Shark decal on the front. I don't know, they just look a little cheap to me.
I agree that the logo is a little to large on the shoulders. A smaller fin crest on the shoulders would be better.
But the color, and even the shoulder pad look that I did not like at first, are growing on me.
And the numbers on the front are very cool when you try to pick out a player from the press box.
The Ducks Stanley Cup winning jerseys included a pathetic word mark logo (and discerning fans seemed to enjoy the cup win in spite of it) so I guess I won't mind too much when the Sharks win the cup with a jersey that I don't like as much as I liked the last one.
I suppose it is growing on me a little (like a fungus?).
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