The process will be the same in San Jose. GM Doug Wilson will meet with his players and will meet with his coaching staff and his ownership. On Tuesday, there will be a media availability in San Jose revealing explanations that might shed light as to why Logan Couture, Douglas Murray, Joe Pavelski and Dominic Moore underachieved at the biggest time of year.
The process will be the same, but the timing will be different. It's way too soon for San Jose to be doing this evaluation.
After significant changes, including the addition of Brent Burns and Martin Havlat, among others, the Sharks didn't play well enough to extend their season against the St. Louis Blues in the Western Conference quarterfinals. They were beat by a better team, that much was very clear. But their struggles started earlier than that. Had this talented team found the motivation to kick into gear sometime before the last week of the regular season, it probably wins the division and earns a No. 3 seed. It is probably still playing.
But it is not.
"[The Sharks are] not the only good hockey team that feels that way right now," one NHL source said Sunday night after the Canucks joined the Sharks, Red Wings and Penguins as the first four teams eliminated from the NHL postseason. It might be the best collection of talent ever knocked out of the playoffs, as Mike Babcock likes to say, right off the hop.
Sure, misery loves company, but that doesn't make this any easier on the fans in San Jose, who had expectations this year of a Stanley Cup. Wilson and coach Todd McLellan guided this team to two consecutive Western Conference finals and looked poised to finally break through. The opposite happened, and the questions are starting to circle the Sharks in San Jose. None bigger than these five:
1. Is it time for dramatic change at the top?
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- Senior NHL writer for ESPN The Magazine
- Wrote for Atlanta Journal-Constitution
- Wrote for The Sporting News
ABOUT THIS BLOG
Craig Custance
Craig Custance joined ESPN in September 2011 as an NHL reporter for ESPN the Magazine, ESPN Insider and ESPN.com. A graduate of Michigan State University, he lived for nearly a decade in Georgia working for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution where he spent time covering the late Atlanta Thrashers. He was the only Thrashers beat writer to get the team to the playoffs.
From 2008-11 he was the national hockey writer for the Sporting News, writing regularly in print and online. A member of the PHWA, he's a proud voter for the major NHL awards and can occasionally defend his selections.
Like hockey, he left Atlanta to return north where he currently lives in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, with his wife Cassie and their three kids.
Follow Craig on Twitter: @CraigCustance
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