The Ugly Truth
Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
There are some things in life that we may not want to hear about let alone read about. There are some things in life we simply do not want to believe albeit for whatever reason.
One of the reasons we gravitate to sports is to escape from the realities of life if only for a few hours a day or every other day. We develop a following for teams and ultimately we also form options about that team. As Sharks fans we are as hardy as they come in the NHL. We love this team and we all but live and die with them through the best of times and the worst of times.
After the most recent playoff endeavor that is now over a month past, the Sharks are anywhere but at the best of times. This offseason will test this franchise about as much as the post season and fall out has tested the fan base. The Sharks have a lot on their plate and know that this offseason will define this franchise for the foreseeable future going forward. Team Teal as a franchise must change their philosophy if they ever want to seriously challenge for a Stanley Cup ever again. To do anything less will only leave this team stuck where they are now with a lot of first round post season exits in their future provided they even make the post season again. At this point for this franchise this is all a given.
There most likely will be some changes which will probably start happening shortly after the Stanley Cup finals conclude and should happen in earnest come late June and throughout July. As to why the Sharks have had so many post season failures despite 10 consecutive playoff births may have been answered in a recent column written by Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News. Kawakami’s article, published on May 25th, makes several strong and very valid points of which many Sharks fans will find hard to digest.
However at the same time, the article goes a long way towards vetting the ugly truth of how the Sharks may have operated and why they have failed in the post season year after year. For some fans this would certainly be a tough read. Sometimes the truth is a hard thing to accept. At the same time the truth is still just that, the truth. Truth can be ugly at times, but again it also has no agenda. It’s just simply the truth.