The regular season is here! No facepunchers are on the roster! Kevin Labanc had 2 goals in the first game! The power play scored! You’d think this would be a recipe for happy Sharks fans. And for the most part, you’d be right — aside from the pesky detail of the final score of game 1. The PK was garbage. Jones was not good.

But it’s one game. So Colin and Ben talk mostly about what you can and can’t learn from a single game at the beginning of the season. There’s a long way to go. Beat LA and Go Sharks!

Preseason is almost at an end and the Sharks have had their share of scary (though apparently minor) injuries and Jumbo still hasn’t skated in a game. That said, some smart people are picking the Sharks to have a pretty good regular season, and not just because the Pacific is a dumpster fire. We talk about that, which guys have seized roster spots, and there’s even a 5-minute interlude about protest at the end — with all due warning —  because politics overlapped with the NHL this week (and only partly because Ben is a militant Constitutionalist).

OK, no, we’re not actually going to talk about Desjardins. He was just dirty enough to once upon a time wear the #69 on his sweater and I love him for it. Instead, it’s FINALLY PRESEASON GAME TIME! We talk about the opportunity presented to a small number of former San Jose Barracuda to crack the opening night roster for the Sharks. There’s still a long way to go in the pre-season, but we already see some of the writing on the wall. Or we think we do. Listen and enjoy and GO SHARKS!

Not a huge news week for the San Jose Sharks, but we discuss some of the odds and ends heading into training camp, including the now-obsolete Cody Franson rumors (that may speak to the preferences of a certain coach), Kevin Labanc’s role this year, and more.

We’re back after a long summer/off-season to kick-off season three by recapping a largely uneventful offseason for the San Jose Sharks. They lost some stuff (including Patrick Marleau to the Toronto Maple Leafs), they added back not very much, and seem to be LeBancing on a renaissance from some young players who might not be up to the task. We talk about some of those losses and our general outlook for the season largely hinging on en elderly Joe Thornton hoping to rehab a knee possibly held together by cotton candy.

…That is the question. What do the Sharks do now, with Jumbo and Patty hitting free agency and the team looking older than Goldie Hawn in Snatched (Ha! Topical)? Well, we advise patience, but you, the fan base, may not agree. Too bad, you’re wrong. Listen and learn.

It happened. Todd McLellan’s Oilers ran the San Jose Sharks out of the playoffs, because of course he/they did. How appropriate. But here we are. Out of the playoffs. Crazy injuries to Marleau, Jumbo (#kneesdontbendthatway), Hertl, Donskoi and Couture surely played a large part in the early exit. But not the only part. We talk about DeBoer’s faults, the organizational decisions that contributed to the pain, and more. Tune in next week when we apply tonight’s topics to next year and beyond.

The Sharks have put themselves in a seemingly insurmountable hole now, having to win 2 straight games in a series where they have been unable to string together 2 truly great performances. Martin Jones has done what he could to keep the Sharks in this series and even gave them a chance to win game 5, but alas. Can the Sharks win both? Yes. Will they? Well, that’s what we talk about. Go Sharks!

Two games into the playoffs we’ve seen two very different Sharks team – one that looked a lot like the Sharks of playoffs 2016 and the Sharks of this March. Hence, we have 1 win and 1 loss heading home. Heading into the playoffs, if you’d told me the Sharks would come home with a win, I’d have been ecstatic. The difference between the two games has us on edge, however. Which team will show up in Game 3? No one, not even DeBoer knows. But they have a lot of work to do, especially on the power play, which was as bad as any team has ever deployed in Game 2.

Well, if you thought we were bleak last week, before Jumbo’s knee was structurally undone by a Vancouver Canuck, just you wait ’til you get a load of this podcast. Allow me to summarize the predicament the San Jose Sharks find themselves in as the playoffs begin:

1. This team was already ill before the injuries hit and no one, including Pete DeBoer, seemed to have a vaccine.
2. This team is now missing its top 2 C’s and they won’t be healthy when the playoffs begin.
3. This team has not been forthcoming about injuries like those suffered by Couture and Jumbo (and why would they be?)
4. The teams the Sharks may face have been gaining confidence over the last month, not setting confidence on fire like our beloved team in teal.

Now, yes — anything can happen when the playoffs begin. Maybe Jumbo and Couture are closer to 100% than we know. Kevin Kurz isn’t saying (insiders…oy), but…don’t bet your house on it, maybe.

One way or the other, I’ll be living or (more likely) dying with this team again. Go Sharks.