In the late spring of 1967 the NHL officially doubled its size from 6 teams to 12. Added to the Original Six were the Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburg Penguins, St Louis Blues, Minnesota North Stars, Los Angeles Kings and Northern California’s Oakland Seals. The Seals’ home ice was the brand-new Oakland Coliseum Arena. Goaltender Charlie Hodge was the first Seal, claimed from Montreal in the first round of the expansion draft. The Seals, like the other new teams selected from unprotected players, aging stars, prospects, journeymen and career minor leaguers.

The Seals struggled on and off this ice in their first season. The club went 15-42-17 in ’67-68 and home attendance was a disappointing 4,890 per game. Their second season saw things looking up. The Seals improved to 29-36-11, good for 2nd place in the expansion-only Western Division. They faced-off with their California rival Kings in the first round of the 1968 Stanley Cup playoffs. The Kings prevailed in 7.

“Mixed emotions.” That’s how head coach Todd McLellan sized up Sunday night’s stunning overtime loss in Colorado.

As the Sharks have now reached the halfway point of the NHL season, mixed emotions also sums up the first 24 games. For the first 11 days and seven games, the Sharks could do no wrong. They were the hottest things on ice and the top line of Patrick Marleau, Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski was running roughshod over the top of the scoring leaderboard.

But something changed on Groundhog Day in a 2-1 shootout loss to Nashville. The offense sputtered and after that some nights dried up completely. After scoring no fewer than four goals in each of the first five games, the Sharks failed to score that many in any of the subsequent 19 games, a streak that is still intact.

What happened? Where did the goals go? Did the team’s elite scorers forget how to put the puck in the net? What about the offense from Lines 2, 3 and 4? What about scoring from the blueline? These are all questions yet to be answered but certainly must be at the top of McLellan’s list.

And then there’s the good. After finishing one spot from the bottom on the penalty kill last year, the Sharks are third right now. It’s a strength that has kept them in many games the past six weeks.

The goaltending has been great to excellent. The Sharks are 5th in goals against per game. Solid goaltending, strong team defense and a good penalty kill are the foundation for any team hoping for postseason success, and the Sharks appear to have those pillars in place.

So, what do you think of realignment, and what should the schedule look like?

First impressions are pretty good, even though there is a technicality surrounding the relative difficulty for teams to qualify for the playoffs in the East vs. the West. I say that is made up for by the difference in travel, but there is also the reality that there are more teams in the Eastern Time Zone than in the others. It’s essentially organized around time zones and geographical rivalries as best as possible.

From the Sharks’ point of view, it ups the games against Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver, and is a sort of modern-day re-creation of the old Smythe Division, which had San Jose, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Calgary. Yes, that’s right, the Sharks used to be in that division, way back in the Cow Palace days.

Now, let’s look at what the possibilities for the schedule are:

Keep submitting Sharks Territory photos, because every week we will post the best 3-5 photos of the week on the Daily Chomp blog. Fans will vote on their favorite photo each week. The winner of the week's best photo will receive a mini Sharks Territory sign autographed by their favorite Sharks player!

Check out this week's top fan photos and be sure to vote on which one you think is the best in the form below.

Keep submitting Sharks Territory photos, because every week we will post the best 3-5 photos of the week on the Daily Chomp blog. Fans will vote on their favorite photo each week. The winner of the week's best photo will receive a mini Sharks Territory sign autographed by their favorite Sharks player!

Check out this week's top fan photos and be sure to vote on which one you think is the best in the form below.

This and that…

Reports are out there that the NHL will announce a realignment plan very soon. We are hearing 4 conferences, 2 with 8 teams and 2 with 7 teams. This makes me think expanding by 2 teams is in the league’s future. It appears that the Sharks would be Pacific Conference along with Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Anaheim and Phoenix. The present Phoenix club could move to Seattle with little disruption.

It appears that Detroit and Columbus would go to the east while Winnipeg would move west. Best expansion sites (in my opinion) Seattle, Quebec, a 2nd Toronto team, Kansas City and Portland.

The NHL has never been afraid of shaking up the alignment. Remember the Patrick, Norris, Adams et al?