The trade deadline is upon us and the Boston Bruins have wreaked havoc on the costs for underperforming UFAs by sending a boatload of crap to New York for Rick Nash. So if Doug is hoping to pry Evander Kane loose from Buffalo for peanuts, that plan is probably now kaput. Which is fine. Meanwhile, the Sharks had something of an up-and-down week, but that’s better than the couple of weeks that Aaron Dell has had. Alex, Ben and Colin talk about all that and more in this week’s podcast.

In the short term, this was a great week for the #sjsharks. They won 3 of 4 games and kept hold of second in the Pacific. But at the same time, their depth was tested even further when another dirty hit removed Tomas Hertl from the lineup for an indeterminate amount of time. Meanwhile, DeBoer flailed about, first playing Burns at forward and then shortening his bench (potentially wearing down players that can’t really afford to accumulate wear and tear at this point). Which brings us once again to the discussion: what is this season about? What’s left in the cupboard? At least we aren’t Edmonton? All this and more.

Despite technical difficulties, Ben and Alex did pull of a podcast…at least better than Brent Burns pulls off defensive zone play right now. We express our frustrations with the play of the mercurial defensemen, especially as the #sjsharks otherwise solid play would be keeping their heads above water in the Pacific if not for his miscues. DeBoer has one job – to get Burns right before this team falls out of a playoff spot.

With Jumbo out, a team that was already trying (and succeeding, but just barely) to replace Patrick Marleau’s scoring is now faced with replacing a Hall of Famer. This week showed that they can do it, but it requires every player (and we’re looking at you, Burns) to be at their best all the time. When they were, the #sjsharks got points. Otherwise…woof (Pens game). Alex, Ben and Colin talk about all this and moving forward. Also, San Jose gets next year’s ASG!