There is no secret formula to winning in the NHL come spring. The blueprint has been out there for decades. It\u2019s written in bruises, blocked shots and blood. You follow the rules, or you go home.<\/p>\n
The San Jose Sharks are going home<\/a>.<\/p>\n There are still games to play, sure, and yes, being in the hunt this late into the season is a victory for a franchise<\/a> that has spent the better part of a decade wandering the desert. But those utterly non-competitive back-to-back shellackings at the hands of the Oilers<\/a> and Ducks<\/a> this week?<\/p>\n That wasn\u2019t just a slump. That was an existential crisis disguised as a hockey game.<\/p>\n The Sharks\u2019 rebuild trajectory was pointing straight up. And everything \u2014 including the ultimate thing \u2014 is still possible for this team in the years to come.<\/p>\n But the team\u2019s poor play after the Olympic break \u2014 especially when the lights were brightest \u2014 has allowed some doubt to creep in.<\/p>\n If the Sharks wants to stop wasting Aprils playing out the string, they have to look at the three tried-and-true rules of playoff hockey, realize they just went 0-for-3, and never let it happen again.<\/p>\n Rule 1: Get dirty<\/p>\n Nobody cares how pretty your game is when the games start meaning something. Ask the Florida Panthers. Ask Vegas. It\u2019s about survival. You chip it out, you grind it out, you win board battles and you throw the puck at the net until something bounces your way.<\/p>\n The Sharks? They spent two games trying to paint the Mona Lisa while a back-alley brawl was going down.<\/p>\n Against Anaheim, it took them nearly 15 minutes to register a single shot on goal \u2014 and that was on a dumped-in icing attempt. They followed that with a shotless first half of the second period.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the classic hallmark of a young team trying to out-skill a league that, when you get to the spring, demands you out-will it. The baby Sharks forwards are out here looking for the extra pass, trying to dangle defensemen, hunting for the perfect high-percentage look.<\/p>\n Guess what? They never came.<\/p>\n Playoff-caliber defenses were simply closing the gaps and laughing.<\/p>\n The Sharks can do some of these little things that win games this time of the year well (but not consistently).<\/p>\n But the team\u2019s frankly unbelievable lack of shots has been damning these past two games.<\/p>\n They were too cute by half.<\/p>\n Embrace the chaos, dig down and know that the only way to beat grit is with grit. Especially when you don\u2019t have a blue-line group that can carry the puck to the red line, much less through the neutral zone.<\/p>\n The Sharks have a forward group that makes things happen in the corners and with loose pucks in front of the net.<\/p>\n If only pucks were put in front of the net.<\/p>\n Rule 2: The blue line is your lifeline<\/p>\n You don\u2019t win Stanley Cups \u2014 hell, you don\u2019t even sniff the postseason \u2014 without a defensive corps you can trust when the building gets loud. You need six guys who can command the ice moving backward, move the puck going forward and keep control of the game.<\/p>\n Solid, if unspectacular, is the name of the game in the spring.<\/p>\n San Jose currently has exactly one defenseman they can trust to do that: Vincent Desharnais.<\/p>\n A reliable, one-way, stay-at-home guy.<\/p>\n After that? It\u2019s a comedy show. Mario Ferraro is getting bullied. Shakir Mukhamadullin is pure chaos, which is why he spends half his time in the press box. Nick Leddy is skating like he\u2019s knee-deep in wet concrete, and John Klingberg\u2019s issues have been documented to death.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s Dmitry Orlov, who has been so unplayably bad lately that he literally became a meme amongst puckheads on the internet. And rookie Sam Dickinson, bless his heart, has spent the last two weeks getting put in a blender by opposing forechecks.<\/p>\n GM Mike Grier\u2019s offseason mandate isn\u2019t a tweak; it\u2019s a demolition. A total rebuild of the blueline corps.<\/p>\n Only Orlov and Dickinson are on the books for next year. It\u2019s a blank slate, but it\u2019s a terrifying one. And if things don\u2019t change dramatically, the Sharks\u2019 fate will be the same next season, too.<\/p>\n Rule 3: Know your matchups (and don\u2019t panic)<\/p>\n Late in the year, every shift is a chess match. This is why, come playoff time, you hear about bench location and last-shift rights.<\/p>\n But, on a more basic level, you need four lines with an actual identity so you know exactly what you have, so you can match up with what your opponent has on a shift-by-shift basis.<\/p>\n What you don\u2019t need is a head coach slamming the panic button like a rat in a Skinner box. (A Jeff Skinner box?)<\/p>\n Yet, here we are with Ryan Warsofsky. Over the last two weeks, his line blender has been stuck on high. He\u2019s triple-shifting Macklin Celebrini. He\u2019s ghosting Will Smith entirely after the first period. His top lines are a total hodgepodge, while he inexplicably leans on his fourth line as a crutch in big moments.<\/p>\n The Ty Dellandrea situation on Thursday said it all. First off, he was playing. Strange enough, but understandable in a back-to-back situation. But then he gets absolutely undressed by Leo Carlsson for a highlight-reel goal in the first. Warsofsky\u2019s response? He rewards him. He moves him up the pecking order, giving him shifts with Michael Misa and, later, with Smith and Collin Graf.<\/p>\n