If one thing became obvious this playoff season, it's that the San Jose Sharks as currently built will never win the Stanley Cup, & will probably never even make it to the finals. The core players are not good enough to compete in the pressure cooker of the playoffs. They are a good regular season team. Nothing more.

This is a team suppossedly built to win a cup. But instead, last year the #1 seeded Sharks lost to a #8 seed in the first round. This year they actually made it to the conference finals. Fans of the opponents claim the refs were for the Sharks. Things like games in which the Sharks never got a single penalty or 1 against 6. But I don't think the league or it's tv partners want a west coast team in the finals. Especially one not from LA. One where the announcers have to explain where the city is. (BTW- 50 miles from SF)

No that means nothing. Neither does "so and so is injured". Everyone in the playoffs is at this time of the year. Same thing in the NFL playoffs. The problem has always been players not playing well enough. This team played poorly against Chicago all year. The team isn't built properly to compete with a very young, high performing, high producing team. They are too fast, & their top players are all better than the Sharks top players.

I posted during the Colorado series that Thornton & Marleau need to be traded. Nothing has happened to make me change my mind. Except that neither of these guys was the worst. That would be Dany Heatley, who simply didn't show up. The problem is that his contract is so big, getting rid of this albatross will be very difficult. Nabokov has played his last game here. Also probably Blake will retire. Pavelski will get a big raise & maybe the "C". The team needs more defense & a power forward. Thus maybe dealing Clowe & Setoguchi for someone who actually shows up when it counts. Maybe even Doug Wilson gets replaced as GM.