Battle of Backups won by Patzold

At least for now, it appears that 24-year-old Kazakh goaltender Dimitri Patzold will serve as Evgeni Nabokov's backup. In a press release, the San Jose Sharks announced the demotion of Patzold's primary competitor for the backup position, Thomas Greiss, to the AHL along with forwards Graham Mink and Lukas Kaspar. Greiss had the flashier preseason numbers, with a 1.45 goals-against average compared to Patzold's rather ugly 3.50, but as noted in an earlier post, and reinforced by Doug Wilson's comment that the move "allows Thomas to play consistently in Worcester," the odds were against Greiss from the start. Since the Sharks' brass largely perceives the German netminder as San Jose's "goalie of the future," and since starting 85% of the games in Worcester would be far more conducive to Greiss' development than opening bench doors for the majority of the season, it was essentially determined that Greiss would spend most of the season in Massachusetts.

However, coach Ron Wilson stated that the occupier of the backup goaltending position will be continually evaluated as the season progresses, meaning that Greiss could potentially be stopping pucks in San Jose somewhere along the line this campaign. But with starter Evgeni Nabokov tabbed to play upwards of 65 games, one wonders if the role of backing up Nabby is significant enough for this level of controversy and convolution.

Sharks score first win of preseason

The Sharks defeated the Ducks in Anaheim last night by a score of 1-0, registering their first preseason victory this year.

By all accounts, goaltender Thomas Greiss, expected to battle Dimitri Patzold for the Sharks' vacant backup goaltending position, was phenomenal. Although he was only forced to make 19 saves for the shutout, several of them, at least according to Mercury News reporter Mark Emmons, were of the acrobatic variety. This certainly is good news for the young German netminder, especially on the heels of Patzold's 6-5 shootout loss to the Kings Tuesday night, when the Kazakh gave up five tallies and bit hard on a deke by the Kings' Dustin Brown in the shootout.

Now, as I mentioned previously, reading too far into preseason victories can yield disastrous results. However, the Ducks, after trimming 18 players from their training camp roster as the team gears up for their September 29th season opener against the Kings in London, save for third-stringer Jonas Hiller stopping pucks rather than J-S Giguere, iced a lineup that very much resembles the squad that will face Los Angeles in that England opener. Sure, Francois Beauchemin, one of the team's steadier defensemen, wasn't playing, but with Scott Niedermayer, Teemu Selanne and Dustin Penner no longer with the team (regarding the first two, at least not currently) and Sami Pahlsson and Niedermayer replacement Mathieu Schneider injured, the Ducks' roster was essentially complete.

On the other hand, while the Sharks had Joe Thornton and Jonathan Cheechoo at their disposal (albeit without a competent left wing), Patrick Marleau, Milan Michalek, Marc-Edouard Vlasic et al were not playing, yet the team still defeated Anaheim 1-0.

Again, reading too much into this game is clearly not the smart thing to do, but it'll be interesting to see if the Ducks fare any better Friday when the teams meet at the Tank.