Rite of Spring '14: Can you fall asleep with a panic switch?

[Kramerica Industries]

San Jose is an elite hockey team with respect to advanced metrics and the eye test bears this out as well. It really is a very good hockey team.

But we must always be sure to use ALL that is at our disposal when making an analysis. San Jose has always been a mentally fragile team, collectively. It's really quite incredible but unfortunately it is also true. It's not a coincidence that they have yet to win a Cup; somehow they always find a way to themselves. I don't get it, it's disappointing from an outside POV, but you can generally bank on this happening.

[STL FANATIC]

The Sharks, as a franchise, are like the Blues' younger brother that wants to be just like their big bro.

Only their big bro is 47, living with his mother, working a few hours a week at Walmart, and has just enough ambition to be annoying.

Couple of tortured fan bases.

[rams80]

The Sharks, as a franchise, are like the Blues' younger brother that wants to be just like their big bro.

Only their big bro is 47, living with his mother, working a few hours a week at Walmart, and has just enough ambition to be annoying.

Couple of tortured fan bases.

I'D LIKE TO AVOID COMPARING THE ST. LOUIS AND SAN JOSE FANBASES THX PLZ.

[STL FANATIC]

I don't care about the stupid best fans in baseball and best fans in hockey titles or the people who let those stupid titles ruffle their feathers. So I'm sticking with my statement.

[LMU]

The Sharks, as a franchise, are like the Blues' younger brother that wants to be just like their big bro.

Only their big bro is 47, living with his mother, working a few hours a week at Walmart, and has just enough ambition to be annoying.

Couple of tortured fan bases.

I'D LIKE TO AVOID COMPARING THE ST. LOUIS AND SAN JOSE FANBASES THX PLZ.

Yes. St. Louis has titles.

[DaRadniz29]

I'm going to need a day to digest this. Not surprising, but disappointing...

[FiddySicks]

The Sharks, as a franchise, are like the Blues' younger brother that wants to be just like their big bro.

Only their big bro is 47, living with his mother, working a few hours a week at Walmart, and has just enough ambition to be annoying.

Couple of tortured fan bases.

I'D LIKE TO AVOID COMPARING THE ST. LOUIS AND SAN JOSE FANBASES THX PLZ.

Yes. St. Louis has titles.

Yeah, except there's the little matter of that orange and black team who swings wooden sticks at leather bound balls.

If the Niners can play in Santa Clara and keep the San Francisco name, then San Jose can sure as hell claim the Giants! It's their "territory", after all

[dfwabel]

Sharks fans: Fire McLellan?

Contraction is probably best at this point.

Doug Wilson has been there since 2003. They have already changed coaches and when WAS fires McPhee, Wilson's time is limited.

The Sharks, as a franchise, are like the Blues' younger brother that wants to be just like their big bro.

Only their big bro is 47, living with his mother, working a few hours a week at Walmart, and has just enough ambition to be annoying.

Couple of tortured fan bases.

But St. Louis had the late Ron Caron keep talking about the 20+ consecutive years they made the playoffs on KMOX or with Mike Clairborne.

But you gave a good comparison, but the current SJS squad as built are more like a "West Coast Caps".

[SFGiants58]

The Sharks, as a franchise, are like the Blues' younger brother that wants to be just like their big bro.

Only their big bro is 47, living with his mother, working a few hours a week at Walmart, and has just enough ambition to be annoying.

Couple of tortured fan bases.

I'D LIKE TO AVOID COMPARING THE ST. LOUIS AND SAN JOSE FANBASES THX PLZ.

Yes. St. Louis has titles.

Yeah, except there's the little matter of that orange and black team who swings wooden sticks at leather bound balls.

If the Niners can play in Santa Clara and keep the San Francisco name, then San Jose can sure as hell claim the Giants! It's their "territory", after all

The Earthquakes also have two titles. St. Louis, tell your Witch Doctor to make the Rams exceptionally terrible so that the Blues and Cardinals may be successful.

[Cujo]

I'D LIKE TO AVOID COMPARING THE ST. LOUIS AND SAN JOSE FANBASES THX PLZ.

Not to worry. We'll be comparing the Indiana Pacers to the Sharks here in a matter of days.

[STL FANATIC]

I mean. The city of St. Louis has titles. The Blues don't.

What the Blues have is 46 seasons of hockey (in 47 years). 38 playoff appearances. 3 Cup Final appearances, all in their first three years of existence, and no Cup Final game victories. And thus, 0 Stanley Cups.

There's a lot of kinds of misery in sports. The Blues fan base sure isn't the only miserable one. So I don't need to compare. But this is a pretty torturous situation. It's better to have a shot almost every year in theory. But it also makes for a whole lot of pain all at once (38x).

Not to worry. We'll be comparing the Indiana Pacers to the Sharks here in a matter of days.

This is my bad. I adopted the Pacers as my team. They never had a chance to succeed in a spring postseason.

[dbadefense1990]

If it weren't for Game 3...

[crashcarson15]

HEY GUYS, EVERYTHING IN SPORTS EVER HAS TO DO WITH SAINT LOUIS, RIGHT?!?

[STL FANATIC]

HEY GUYS, EVERYTHING IN SPORTS EVER HAS TO DO WITH SAINT LOUIS, RIGHT?!?

If you think about it, yes.

[ninersdd]

Todd McLellan said that the Sharks got cheated on that go ahead goal. I'll admit I hate the NHL when it comes to these goal/no goal situations like this. It looked like the puck was dead between Stalock's pads and Justin Williams kept jamming away at it. The NHL referees disallowed a goal in March against the Maple Leafs when they said Reimer had it covered when he clearly didn't(and they said this after they had the benefit of replay!). Obviously the Lightning got screwed last week with the no goal call for BS goalie interference. At the end of the day though, the team still had 8 minutes left to tie it and just quit right after that. It appears we are 60 minutes away from a trip to Disneyland, or a MASSIVE tear down at the end of the year. This is what happens when you win less then half of your games against the bottom 7 teams in the league and could've had Minnesota or Dallas in the first round. But no.

I don't know what happened to this team after they tied it 2-2 in Game 4.

[Cujo]

Todd McLellan said that the Sharks got cheated on that go ahead goal.

How exactly were the Sharks cheated when they eventually lost by THREE GOALS??

McLellan can use whatever excuses he wants, but the guy is a terrible postseason coach. He'll be lucky if he's not out of work later this summer.

[Kevin W.]

something something something Cleveland something something

[ninersdd]

I'll sum up the night for Sharks and Jackets fans:

[Muggens]

The theory that San Jose Sharks choke jobs are a figment of our imagination:

[masterchaoss]

The Sharks have to go back to Niemi, right? I thought that was a panic move before, but you know what? This is a panicked team.

BTW, I want San Jose on Wednesday. I, as a Ducks fan, want no part of the Kings now.

Remember after Game 3, there were a lot of people reaffirming the Sharks as their Stanley Cup pick and that it might finally be destiny? Told you all that was jumping the gun.

yeah I'd prefer the sharks they have no mental fortitude right now, but that's just the thing the about kings they've been playing a pretty bad Shark team since game 4 so I'm not that nervous. I wouldnt really worry about who we played, plus they've seem like we played our best against the kings during the year.