Colin missed a podcast, but this time it was the universe’s fault. Sorry Colin, it’s you and me next week. This week, though, Alex and I talk about Martin Jones’ pretty good few weeks, his amazing theft of a game in Calgary and the Sharks gaining ground, inexplicably, on both the Kings and Ducks right after we concluded that 3rd place was a lock. Oops! Anyway, here’s to continuing to win three of every four the rest of the way as well.

Two trades with the Toronto Maple Leafs in one week and if you aggregate them it looks like both teams won out. Also, we can no longer change the name of our podcast to Brown Notes because it seems like our long national nightmare is over — he’s a Barracuda now. Regardless, the Sharks aren’t markedly better today, but they’ve plugged the holes that would prevent them from winning a round of the playoffs. Whether they can get further? That’s goalie voodoo, man.

Alex and Ben jumped on the internets to discuss what the Sharks gave up to acquire some DeBoer-friendly veteran player depth. And at the cost of the corpse of Raffi Torres and two future 2nd round draft picks. The main question is: where do the Sharks go to get a legit backup goalie?

Mike Brown should never skate another minute with the Sharks. Goalies should never play both halves of a back to back. Unfortunately, injuries and poor play pushed DeBoer and the organization to make some bad calls. That said, the only cost to these decisions was to lose the second half of a road back-to-back. In other words, a game the Sharks were going to probably lose anyway. Colin and I talk about the reasons and impact of the bad decisions, as we  do. Alex was changing diapers and weeping, as predicted. This means that I (Ben) had to host and edit the podcast again. That’s never a good thing.

This week we talk about Dylan DeMelo’s growth on the Sharks 3rd D-pair, the effect of Brendan Dillon’s mysterious upper-body concussion er injury on the Sharks’ not-so-deep-already D corps (and the upcoming trade deadline) and the solidification of the bottom six with the healthy returns of Logan Couture and, of all people, 95-year old Dainius Zubrus. Also, because Alex had to go like be a dad or something, Ben takes his first shot at assembling the podcast. Next time he has to edit, Ben promises to play with compression to even out volume changes.

We missed last Sunday and the Sharks didn’t exactly have a great week, so we turn the podcast to some other stuff to ramp things up: the All-Star Game (it was good!), empathy for the goons of the world, Brent Burns as a potential ‘face of the NHL’, the strange “puppies for goals” promotion the NHL was apparently running ahead of the break and finally, a little bit on the approaching trade deadline. Finally, some talk about how the Sharks have been dealing with losing games they shouldn’t of late and the worrisome stuff of post-game press conferences. Go Sharks!

What a difference a few weeks make. Points in 8 straight. 7 wins in 8 games. Where has this team been (besides injured)?  Alex was indisposed come Sunday morning, so this week Ben hosts and Colin provides the HOT TAEKS. Mostly we talk about the reasons why this team has looked so much better than in their previous, limited win and point streaks this season. As always, there’s limited complaining about Mike Brown (even before he cost the Sharks a win against the Kings after this podcast was recorded). Stupid Kings.

Man, the NHL sure screwed the pooch with this All-Star game voting thing, didn’t they? Thanks a lot Reddit! Besides the evil done by Gary Bettman and the Arizona Coyotes, we talk about that, Marc-Édouard Vlasic’s recent decision to start shooting more (which we applaud) and the Sharks’ sort of good, sort of lucky week past. Oh yeah, and Colin’s back with us, so it’s the full 3-man team on this podcast, for the first time since before Christmas. Huzzah!

Some combination of Circling the Cup podcasters had been present at each of the last five home games (with Colin here in the states from Sweden, but still absent from the podcast). Despite each home game hosting at least two of us, we experienced a combined 4 wins (Alex and Ben were present for only one win each but Colin was lucky to see both). So, we were on a path to a pretty bitter podcast, I think, until that last one was a 7 – 0 drubbing (somewhat luck-driven) of the Toronto Maple Leafs. In honor of the Sharks’ awful home record, we talked a lot about puck luck (including PDO), and a little bit about last week’s start to the ‘trading frenzy’ with Nashville and Columbus’ joint move of Jones for Johansen, heads up. Spoiler: The Sharks don’t have much room to maneuver over the next 51 days, thanks to No Movement Clauses and salary cap realities. Sorry, fans!