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The Sharks somehow end up as a train wreck one way or another in the playoffs. The diving, the invisibility of star players, etc. The Sharks have a few good players, but that's about it. Jumbo Joe and Marleau are definitely on the decline. The Sharks are the team that can't win a Cup but will make sure the opponent that beats them goes on to lose the next round. Congrats, you are good enough to take a toll on a team but aren't good enough to win. Everything else about that organization is going to have to change if they really want to win a Cup. McLellan is definitely not helping things change around there, especially when he had to tell the refs to stop calling his players out for diving. Maybe he cannot make the changes he wants to yet because of current players or politics. You figure he would try emulate Babs after working in Detroit.
Bylsma being extended is shocking. You figure he would have been the fall guy for all the playoff blunders that have plagued the Penguins since 2009. You might say who is going to replace Bylsma, but the truth is it looks like anyone could do that. Maybe Bylsma is on a short leash as the head coach. There is definitely a strong sense of arrogance that the Penguins have had, and I think that is a terrible attitude to take into a playoffs series. During the Islanders series he let his team run loose and play like crap. If Nabokov were a better goaltender the Pens would have been beat by the Islanders. His players decided that they were going to play when they wanted to. The success against the Senators is nothing new, and I thoroughly expected Pens to beat the Senators in the fashion that they did. It is clear to me that Bylsma is struggling to coach that team, given by the performance of his team and his inability to make adjustments.
