Oct 8, 2008 - 1:18 AM
0 shoutsBy Michael Duca PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer
SAN JOSE, California (Ticker) -- It wasn't an awful season, not at all.
Forty-eight points, 19 goals and possession of all but one of the franchise's major offensive or longevity records. Western Conference semifinals. The first player to score shorthanded goals in consecutive playoff games in six seasons.
His 11th season with the San Jose Sharks, the team that drafted him second overall at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena in June 1997, when he was just 17 years old.
So how does Patrick Marleau, captain and two-time All-Star, look back on the 2007-08 season?
"I definitely do not want to go through that ever again," he said. "It's one of those things, maybe sometime you take some things for granted that you shouldn't. I had to do a lot of hard work to get out of that place, I think. By the end of the year, things were definitely looking up. I just kind of want to forget a lot of it and move on."
San Jose's all-time leader in games played, goals, assists, points and game-winning goals, and just one power-play goal behind Owen Nolan for the top spot, Marleau is not a talkative man. As the Sharks' captain for two seasons, he's had to endure - there's no other word for it - media attention virtually every night.
It's clear he's not comfortable talking about himself, or last season. But he also knows that it is important to do just that in order to finally put it behind him and use all that potential he's still got locked inside.
While he was San Jose's first choice in the 1997 draft, No. 2 isn't No. 1. And, to see No. 1, he doesn't have to look far just across the locker room to Joe Thornton, who is just a couple of inches taller, just a few pounds heavier, just a few weeks older and creeping up on Marleau in all of the team's scoring categories.
On the ice, it used to be a different story.
Thornton and Marleau came from different parts of Canada. Marleau is from Aneroid, Saskatchewan on the Canadian high plains, a grain-growing town with a consolidated school and 10 streets in total.
It is about six hours east of Calgary and three hours west of Regina, located just off lucky Provincial Highway 13. Marleau played at Seattle in the Western Hockey League.
Thornton is a city guy from London, Ontario about 2 1/2 hours from Detroit, Toronto and Buffalo. Joe played for Sault Ste. Marie in the Ontario Hockey League.
Earlier in his career, Thornton played in the Eastern Conference with Boston, so the two hardly knew each other when "Jumbo Joe" was acquired by the Sharks on November 30, 2005. Marleau's team basically became Thornton's team overnight.
Then, last year, came the biggest change of all.
Marleau was asked by then-coach Ron Wilson to stop doing what he had done his whole hockey life about a quarter-century. Stop being a center and become a winger.
Marleau moved around from line to line. His numbers suffered, but he is reluctant to blame that on the position change.
"I don't really know (why), to be perfectly honest with you," he said, shaking his head. "It could have been a combination of things. Getting used to linemates, we switched them up quite a bit last year, but we started to stick with a few lines there so we could get used to who we were playing with. I don't want to make any excuses or anything like that."
The whispers started and grew louder and louder as the trade deadline approached.
Marleau was in Wilson's doghouse and couldn't get out. Marleau was available in a trade. Marleau was all but gone.
The change would do him, and the team, good. Yet somehow, he survived the trade deadline, and actually thrived afterward.
And who was the center on his line when things turned around? Joe Thornton.
Add it up. First-round pick, 11-year veteran, team captain, lifelong "center", being asked to learn a new position at the game's highest level on a team that saw itself as a prime contender for the Stanley Cup.
All your flaws, your big and little mistakes, are right there on display. Fans think it is easy to change positions at the highest level after all, these are the best players, so it should be easy, shouldn't it?
But it's not.
By definition, to get to this level, a player must have a healthy ego, and part of that is wrapped up in a self-definition "I am a center". You can't be thinking very much on the ice or you will get smoked out there.
It's not a matter of thinking that "center" is better than another position a blue-liner feels the same way. It's a difficult adjustment you are out of your space on the ice, have a different view of plays as they develop and possess that same fear anyone would have when asked to do something new.
"That's true," Marleau said with a rueful laugh, "and it's hard. I came to an understanding, late, that (center) is basically just where you line up, where you start, not where you wind up playing. With our system now, I could end up playing center more in the offensive zone than I would have if I started the play at center.
"Now, we have 'forwards,' basically. I don't know about that psychological stuff. It might have played a role, but I'm past that. I'm confident, definitely, going into this season."
That new confidence, the new system they are a product of a makeover from the top down in the offseason. General manager Doug Wilson decided it was time for change, and some of the changes were very, very surprising, even to Marleau.
"I didn't see some of the moves coming," he said with obvious surprise. "I don't have to make those tough decisions, and that is a good thing."
Defenseman Craig Rivet, who led the team in plus-minus, is gone. Ron Wilson now stands behind the bench in Toronto. And Doug Wilson has put his reputation and job on the line with a man who never has coached in the NHL - Todd McClellan, whom he plucked from the reigning Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings.
A characteristic of last year's Sharks team was the "extra pass." Often, it looked like players were afraid of earning coach Ron Wilson's disapproval, rather than trying to win his praise. They never seemed to be willing to take the good shot, instead appearing to be looking for the perfect one.
"Yeah, definitely," Marleau agreed. "We passed a lot, missed a lot of opportunities by not shooting, and I think that is one of the things we are trying to focus on this year creating opportunities off the shot, not looking for the perfect play.
"I think that's one of the things Todd brought in right away he wants us shooting and having guys going to the net. Everything in the offense is geared toward that. It will get ingrained into our heads."
The Sharks are one of the youngest teams in the NHL and one of the fastest. Yet last season, they played a lot of "dump-and-chase" hockey, seeming to prefer skating the puck into the boards or the corners.
McClellan's philosophy is different.
"There's more play down the center of the ice now, less on the sides of the ice," Marleau said, obviously relaxing and warming to the subject. "We're trying to exploit some different parts of the ice, of the game. If it's there, we are going to take that ice.
"A lot of the plays may originate from there, but with people going through, not even with the puck, causing a lot of traffic and headaches for defensemen by driving to the net."
They also got bigger and, presumably, tougher on defense. The stumbling block has been getting past the second round of the playoffs, and it has seemed that opponents have train-wrecked San Jose's key players without fear of reprisal.
All that may have changed with the offseason dealings of the general manager, who added Brad Lukowich, Dan Boyle and Rob Blake to the blue line. Not just good skaters, not just tough defensemen, these folks have some championship rings to show off in the locker room.
Marleau is very much looking forward to the upcoming season. For a man of few words, he is positively verbose when looking to the near future.
"With the new guys we have, Blakey and Boyle and Lukowich, we have pumped up our defense a lot more," he said. "Basically, we have a clean slate with the coaching staff, everybody is looking fairly focused and ready to get at it. Everybody's pretty excited.
"Training camp has run really smooth, and tough. I think everybody's excited to play a new style. In the (preseason) games we've played, when we've done it right, it shows that it really works. It is getting there."
