My New Years’ Resolution might be to stop talking so much about how Micheal Haley is bad at hockey. Or, like most NYRs I may just ignore it. But Colin and Ben cover a bunch of disparate topics this week — not just how much does Micheal Haley not bring to the Sharks. For example: Who has been great among the Sharks in the season so far? Why doesn’t Daniel O’Regan get to play on the Sharks’ 4th line? What do the Sharks’ recent decisions vis-a-vis Ward, Schlemko, Wingels et al. mean? Also, we talk about a team that sits atop the Pacific and has won 8 of 9, so that’s fun, even if only two of those wins were this week.

Colin joins me this week to talk to about the strange play decisions that the San Jose Sharks made this week (sitting Joel Ward and David Schlemko without there being a clear injury to blame). Are they trying to feature guys for a trade? Resting old people (sorry, Joel)? Just hooked on #timotime? Who knows! But the Sharks played well and took two of three, so who are we to complain? All this and more in this week’s podcast!

The San Jose Sharks forward depth has been tested due to injuries all season long, with Kevin Labanc and Danny O’Regan getting NHL minutes (at least temporarily, in O’Regan’s case). With DeBoer’s decision to start ‘coaching’ this week (i.e. sending guys to the press box for bad luck or whatever), it has, at long last, been declared Time Time in San Jose. As pay back, Timo even scored a goal while having an all-around pretty nice game to boot. This wasn’t the Sharks best or most consistent week, and yet it led to the longest win streak of the season and a pretty dominant period or two of hockey mixed in. Also, Kevin Labanc’s superior shoot out shuffle. Wow. Here’s hoping for both consistent play AND wins this coming week.

Apparently the answer to our podcast title is ‘no’, because the Sharks couldn’t manage to get that decisive goal this week. Two ugly losses and then a second half of back-to-back with travel on the horizon left Alex and I in a worse mood than Doug Wilson in Anaheim tonight. So we finally decide to rip into the handling of Mikkel Boedker and grouse about the schedule makers this week. We also wonder if #TimoTime is near (probably not as near as the org wants people to think).

Still, everyone needs to remember this is a team in playoff position missing one of it’s best scorers and a very good defenseman. The sun will probably come out tomorrow.

Yeah, it’s hyperbolic since we’re only 25 games into the season, but the 2016/2017 San Jose Sharks kinda looks like the best defense and goalie combo in the NHL at this juncture. And, it’s a bit suspicious to Colin and I that we’ve gotten to this point and also can’t buy a goal. Put those things together and it would appear that Peter DeBoer has turned our team into the 2014 Stanley Cup Champions. And I’m not sure that’s even a bad thing. We talk about that, the on-going injury bug, the organization’s forward depth, Brent $%*^ing Burns and more on this week’s podcast.

The San Jose Sharks had a pretty decent week, going 3 – 1, with all three wins coming at home. But with Tomas Hertl out long-term the Sharks already had some decisions to make. Though they seemingly answered them by shrugging and running out a boat anchor by the name of Micheal Haley, bigger decisions must be made now that Melker Karlsson hasn’t healed and Tommy Wingels died or whatever. On the brighter side of things, the defense has been relatively healthy and now Brent Burns is signed ’til he’s 92. All this and more on this week’s podcast discussion.

It started out to be such a good week — the Sharks played one of their strongest games of the year, top to bottom, against the Tampa Bay Lightning. And then, as the games progressed, the Sharks lost Melker Karlsson (short term?) and Tomas Hertl (who knows). On the bright side, Kevin Labanc has continued to look pretty good and scored his first goal in the NHL. On the not-so-bright side, the Sharks may have to fill a Hertl-sized gap for some significant amount of time. And they already have been pretty mediocre over seventeen games. What’s the solution to all these problems? A call up for Daniel O’Regan or Nikolay Goldobin? A trade for Martin Hanzal (as had been weirdly rumored even before the fatal wounding of Tomas Hertl)? Or some combination of those plus patience that a galactically-unlucky team will start finding the back of the net? Colin and I discuss all this and more this week.

This week began with the Sharks being embarrassed at home by their Stanley Cup foes, the venerable Pens. But immediately following that travesty the Sharks left the Tank behind, perhaps for the better. They went on to beat two venerable teams on the road (the Caps and the Panthers), in no small part perhaps thanks to the elevation of Kevin Labanc (and better goalie play as well). It would be good, though, if the Sharks could get Joel Ward and Mikkel Boedker going. We talk about all that and more in this week’s podcast.

It’s not at all unusual for the San Jose Sharks we know and love to largely manage to control the puck and lose on mistakes or bad bounces. So this was a somewhat better week for them, in that they lost one ugly, not well-played game to the Red Wings, but rebounded at home to take down two bad teams. And Marc-Edouard Vlasic showed the world what he could do if a goalie is dumb enough to respect his backhand. The Sharks’ lines were ground up a bit, so we talk about how that went and Ben pleads for people to go watch the hugely entertaining San Jose Barracuda in the mostly-empty SAP Center. Do it for the children.