Tonight @ 7:30pm

CSNCA and 98.5 KFOX

Do it

Niemi's in, Maven's still out, knit shark cap will not be in attendance.

Not a lot to say about this bout pregame. Our D needs to step up and our team needs to work better as a whole if they want to get the W tonight. Carolina is nowhere near as strong a team as Atlanta is this year, but every team should be considered dangerous. Play all games to win, and you'll be fine. Get a little too over confident and you'll end up like the Emperor. Which is to say, some random dude who had half his face torn off in a motorcycle accident will distract you while your apprentice tosses you down a long metal shoot that goes nowhere pleasant.

Seriously.

That's just wrong.

Let's get the win tonight boys.

Go Sharks!

My defensive corps! They do nothing!

Let's just address the large bloated, and likely somewhat smelly rotting whale carcass in the room; I am REALLY sick and tired of seeing people bitch about goalies.

Three games in and people are all ready to trade Niemi and Nitty for two bags a pucks and a slurpee.  We'll ignore, of course, how all these arguments/complaints/rans/raves/personal expressions of outrage are EERILY similar to the ones that used to be attached to Nabby's name. We'll forget that "Nabby should've had that," has been supplanted by "Nabby would've had that." We'll also forget that, as Mina said tonight, "Nabby goes to Russia and suddenly everyone forgets he couldn't shut his damn legs." (she means his 5 hole, people) Because clearly, clearly, Niemi and Nitty are terrible, and in no way shape or form are subject to the abilities and performance of the team in front of them on a nightly basis. Nay, they can quite clearly win the entire game themselves, and since they're not, well, we should get rid of them.

Seriously, it vexes me beyond words to see this. It's like everyone turned in to freakin Edzo when Nabby left for Russia. What. The. Hell. People.

It was announced earlier this week that the Sharks, despite giving him the number 6, a nice teal jersey, and a trip to Europe, have cut Andreas Lilja from the roster. This brings them down to the 24 man roster needed for opening night in Sweden against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

A cruel cut, to be sure, but would we be saying that if the Sharks hadn't brought him with them to Europe? I'm not so sure.

I suppose a heads up so he could get his family, who is still hanging out in Detroit, back to Sweden with him might have been nice, but then again he also turned down a secure 1 year spot with Detroit earlier this off season. I don't blame him, you have to go where you think you'll get the most minutes, (most money) and a decent contract term. He thought he could get a good deal here, and maybe he could have if the Sharks hadn't already been pretty full up in the 6/7 Dman department.

Mike Moore had a good camp and could easily take the 6/7 spot. We already know Demers and Joslin can handle it, Wallin ain't really a top line guy, and neither is out Patron Saint, the venerable Kent Huskins, (KENT HUSKINS?!), and while they'll each likely be in a higher pairing, they could each easily play in that spot as needed. We had Leach too, and we gave him the boot before the Sharks headed overseas. Really that spot that Lilja was most likely to slide into was already pretty full. He was never really going to be the type of player to take Blake's place, and he likely wanted more money than some of our rookies would get. The Sharks simply don't have the space for another Hamburger like deal.

He may have been a boon to our PK unit and he certainly isn't afraid to block shots when needed, but whatever he could give us, it clearly wasn't enough.

The fact is, someone was coming home from Europe NOT a Shark. This time, it was Lilja.

Something smells fishy in the land of schnitzel.

Thomas Greiss, the oft maligned, (and oft seated), back up to former Sharks goaltender Evgeni Nabokov now finds himself in an odd situation. After a few glorious months were it seemed has was to be the backup for Nitty, a position in which he was guaranteed more ice time than he had under Nabby, and once which gave him the prefect set up to potentially steal the number one job away from our newly signed net-minder. Yes, things were looking up for Greiss. Then the Sharks signed Neimi and things got weird.

Suddenly, it was quite clear to everyone that Greiss' days with the Sharks were numbered. They already have some outstanding kids minding the nets in the AHL, so they can't just send him there. While the likelihood of him being used as trade bait was high, let's be honest here, his trade value isn't great, and he wasn't likely to find himself traded into a starting role anywhere.AT Teal and White you could see how deflated he was. Hell, you could see his thoughts as he stumbled in the net for white while the kid (Stalock) down at the other end of the ice maintained the shut out Nitty had started. Granted Niemi had left him in the whole by one, but Greiss looked shaky and unsure.

Now we find he has headed to Germany, his motherland with the team only to be told he will not start the exhibition game scheduled against his old rival, Adler Mannheim, tomorrow.

To quote a song from my favorite movie of all time "Something strange going on, something wrong."

The question is "what?"

Doing what I do for a living, I'm all to aware that there can be quite the difference between the public story, and the factually based one. Not everything can be made public, so conjecture fills the gaps and quite often fills them in incorrectly. Now we know the Sharks asked Nitty for his blessing before the signed Neimi, but not Greiss (at least not as far as we can tell. To be fair, we have no knowledge if he was asked on way or the other). That seemed odd at the time. And the club had been supporting him as their go to back up guy until they had a chance to bring Neimi in.(I don't actually feel that bringing Neimi is was a dick move. Hockey is, after all, a business and you do what you need to do to improve your team when an opportunity presents itself.) Suddenly Greiss is the clear third wheel and it seems like he's being treated as such, but the Sharks aren't known for that sort of behavior. So what's really going on?

It's possible that the Sharks, having signed a second starter, realized there was little room for Greiss in the organization at this time, and have been slowly shopping him around. The Wild are reported to be interested in him, and he has not (yet) been put on waivers, indicating DW's desire to get something in return when Greiss goes. Given this fact, they had to change their plans. They can't promise him anything, because nothing is certain, so they give him some chances to play, but otherwise have him sit so he can stay healthy and uninjured until a trade is finalized. No sense in getting this guy hurt before he has the chance to be moved elsewhere.

It could be that after the Neimi signing there was a bit of a falling out. It's happened before, albeit under a very different coach.Things like that are kept quiet if at all possible. Sure we all knew Patty and RW weren't speaking, but, it wasn't discussed by the team.

It's even possible that the Sharks have been doing everything to find Greiss a new home, and have been unsuccessful. They know they aren't keeping him, but they don't want to just drop him, so they publicly string him along, while doing a lot of work behind the scenes to get him somewhere good. They respect him too much to just dump him, so they keep him with the team despite it being rather clear that he no longer has a future on Team Teal.

It is also possible the that Sharks are just being douches for the sake of it, and are treating Greiss like crap because they no longer he need him. This really seemed to be the least likely of all scenarios, but it remains possible.

Whatever is happening, it's clear that Greiss has gotten the short end of the stick. What isn't clear is why.

Ah, the preseason. The nights are balmy, the weather is clear, the calendar claims it's fall, even if the forecast disagrees, and hockey is once again near.

I figured, despite it being a game against the Ducks, that this game wouldn't get that big of a draw. I was wrong. 15,500ish came downtown for a preseason game on a lovely, warm, Friday night. I know some of you are scoffing at the number, but considering capacity is 17,562, that's a damn good draw for a game that doesn't mean a thing. That's a helluva testament to the popularity of Sharks hockey in this area. It was as loud and rowdy as you'd expect a regular season game between the Sharks and Ducks to be.

Let me tell you, the people of San Jose are happy to have their hockey back.