Mark Spector

Mark Spector is a columnist for sportsnet.ca

San Jose struggles when it counts most because too many of its best players are simply lacking heart

EDMONTON -- It's barely a secret across the National Hockey League anymore. Ask players from 29 other teams for their opinion on what's wrong with the San Jose Sharks, and they'll extend an index finger and tap their chest.

"It's right here," they say.

On Sunday night in Edmonton, the Sharks were slapped around by the 30th-place team in the NHL, falling out of first place in the Pacific Division for the first time since the season's early days of mid-October.

The 5-1 shellacking was the Sharks' fifth regulation loss in a row, to an Oilers roster that has lost almost as many games this season (42) as San Jose has won (43). Edmonton had not scored five goals in a game since Dec. 11, but led 5-0 before a late Sharks goal Sunday.

On a night where San Jose hoped to begin the shore-up needed to erase this franchise's embarrassing post-season history their best player, Joe Thornton, opened the scoring when he handed a puck to Edmonton's Robert Nilsson, then drifted aimlessly towards the Sharks bench while Nilsson potted a breakaway goal.

You want to know what's REALLY wrong with this team? Read this quote:

"Hey," Thornton began after the game, "it's hockey. Sometimes you don't play as well as you should."

As a guy, we love Jumbo Joe. He is one of the nicest men in the game. Honest.

But the truth sometimes hurts, and the truth is that this Sharks club just doesn't have any jam. Because too many of its best players don't have any jam.

Asked if there was enough urgency Sunday, captain Rob Blake wished he could have said there was. But he is one leader in this dressing room who isn't about to kid himself that this team wants it badly enough. That there is enough urgency, with now 10 games left in the season.

"You watch the way we played tonight, I don't think it is reflected in our play," Blake said. "In the second period, we would have liked a lot stronger push.

"You look at our skill, the level of talent we have here. We need to have a lot more (effort). We need to be more committed. We have to engage."

While the Sharks still cling to their hopes that Thornton will evolve into a playoff leader commensurate of his regular-season talents, he represents the other scarcely kept secret about this Sharks club.

We've asked enough opponents now to say it unequivocally. They, like us scribes, all love to chat with Joe at a morning skate.

But on the question of whether Thornton has the heart it takes to be a champion, there is only one jurisdiction left where the jury is still out. It is the city where the Sharks play their home games -- a place where they'd better play three rounds this spring, or the GM and plenty of his players are going to be in trouble.

"I don't know if (this) is rock bottom," goalie Evgeni Nabokov said. "I would like to think it is rock bottom."

There is an intrinsic flaw however, on a team where the problem is rooted in its leadership group.

It is players like Thornton and Dany Heatley who were most guilty of mailing in a performance Sunday that lacked any semblance of urgency or necessity. When your best players are the problem, who in the dressing room is going to stand up and tell them they have to be better?

Then there is San Jose's other fatal flaw: Goaltending.

Nabokov was called upon to make a huge save on Nilsson early on, and he did not. He needed to shut the door for the remainder of the period, at least, but instead left a juicy rebound off a routine shot that ended up in the Sharks' net just two minutes later.

Thornton is 30 years old. Nabokov is 34. Heatley, who was supposed to address the team's character deficit when acquired this past summer, is 29.

When do we stop waiting for them to become something other than what they have proven themselves to be: Excellent players when the heat is off, average ones when the burner gets turned up?

With 10 games to go, it is hard to see anything other than the usual playoff flop happening in San Jose. Unless you subscribe to Thornton's theory, proffered at the morning skate Sunday:

"It's good to go through some adversity now, to be ready for the post-season," Thornton said, "just in case you lose two in a row then."

Just in case?

Joe, you play in San Jose. Have you been paying attention at all?