Once Upon a Time in the West

The Sabres finished up their long west coast trip last week which seemed much longer than it actually was. Next up on the schedule is the San Jose Sharks on Friday night, the Sharks are sitting on top of the Western Conference just above Detroit. They came from behind to hand the East leading Bruins a 5-2 loss in Thornton's homecoming back to Beantown on Monday night. The Sharks played a great game sticking to their system, a strong forecheck and great penalty killing, holding the Bruins 0-4 on power play chances. They are playing the Penguins tonight, hopefully the Sharks help us out by keeping the Pens further out of the playoff run.

This Sharks team is different than the regular season powerhouse that we've seen the past 4 years, they have the Patrick Marleau producing this year, and Joe Thornton continuing right where he left off last season with a 96 point year. They have the grittiness of former Sabre Mike Grier, and great secondary scoring coming from Ryane Clowe and Milan Michalek. Also by looking at their roster you can see two notable players whom have suffered from injuries this year...Jonathan Cheechoo and veteran centre Jeremy Roenick.

But the biggest story about this years Sharks is their defence, doing part with the overrated Brain Campbell, and new Sabres captain Craig Rivet, the Sharks went out and got Dan Boyle and Rob Blake who has rejuvenated his career. They follow up with the strong play of Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Christian Ehrhoff. Evgeni Nabokov is back in form after a downfall season where now Toronto goaltender Vesa Toskala shined and nearly took Nabokov's starting job.


This Sharks team is not a team to take lightly, expect a loss if they play like they did tonight pray to Drew Stafford Jesus that they don't on Friday.



"Ohh, it's the deep burn. Oh, it's so deep. Oh, I can barely lift my right arm 'cause I did so many. I don't know if you heard me counting. I did over a thousand. "