McLellan wants Sharks to fly like Wings

SAN JOSE, Calif. – There was Todd McLellan, alone in his office, dressed in the snappy suit and tie personally selected by his son for McLellan's NHL head coaching debut, and it was 4 o'clock Thursday afternoon.

All the game-day preparation was complete. And it would be almost an hour before any of the players would show up for the 7:30 faceoff. So McLellan gave into temptation. He flipped on the television and allowed himself five minutes to watch a Stanley Cup banner he had something to do with get raised to the roof of Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

And once the game was about to start the TV went off.

McLellan was hired to take the San Jose Sharks where the Red Wings are, on top of the heap. And the hope is that the 40-year-old brought some of those secrets he learned as Mike Babcock's assistant the last three years to San Jose.

Time will tell.

"You know, the challenges are going to be like anything. You've got to establish a program and you've got to keep people accountable, and it's hard to win each night in the West," McLellan's former boss Babcock said. "It's not like Ron Wilson didn't do a good job."

Wilson was showed the door a week after the Sharks furthered their underachieving postseason reputation by bowing out of the Stanley Cup playoffs last spring in the second round for the third straight year. The players had more to do with that than the former coaching staff, but general manager Doug Wilson wasn't about to remake what appears to be a strong roster.

So it's up to McLellan to make the difference. And that means doing things his way, and doing things the way of the Detroit Red Wings, which have had a definite influence on McLellan's ways.

"I would like us to be a workmanlike team," McLellan said. "We can talk about Xs and Os and who is supposed to be where, but I believe we're ready in that area. We want our defensemen a little more active, a little more on the rush. I like to see us get more pucks to the net than in the past and be a little more authoritative in those areas around the net."

Those and other changes were very evident in San Jose's opening-night 4-1 win over the Anaheim Ducks. After playing a tentative, at times maybe even nervous, first period, the Sharks were a different team at the start of the second and until the end of the game against their Pacific Division rivals.

In Detroit, Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk are the Red Wings' two best forwards. They would be the team's best two players, too, if Nicklas Lidstrom didn't patrol the blue line. Zetterberg and Datsyuk are completely different players now than they were several years ago. Both are world-class scorers, but both also are two of the very best defensive forwards in the game.

In San Jose, the Sharks have Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau, their two best forwards, who just happened to get drafted Nos. 1 and 2 in 1997. Both are outstanding offensive threats, but both are being asked to do more. The difference between the Shark pair and the Red Wing duo is size. And both Thornton and Marleau obviously have been asked to use it.

Thornton sent Anaheim captain Scott Niedermayer to the ice with a crushing hit to finish a check in the first period, an uncharacteristic but welcomed action by the San Jose alternate captain. And Marleau threw a shoulder into Ducks top-line center Ryan Getzlaf in the defensive end, another display of physical play that the home crowd hasn't seen in the past.

"We're not asking Joe to change his game completely. We're asking him to grow it a little bit and sometimes play outside the comfort zone," McLellan said. "The dominant players – the Yzermans, the Lemieuxs – they find a way to get a little bit more done night in and night out, especially as their careers evolved. We'd like to see Joe, Patty, just about everybody on our team evolve a little bit more."

When the Sharks went on the power play in the second period, and they did so four straight times, they always had a forward with his backside in the face of Anaheim goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere, Tomas Holmstrom style. It paid off in the form of a Jonathan Cheechoo goal and a 2-0 lead 6 minutes, 44 seconds in.

McLellan wants his defense to be more attentive to the offensive end when the opportunity presents itself. Christian Ehrhoff drilled his first goal of the season early in the third with a blast from the blue line.

Once the Ducks cut into a three-goal deficit inside the final 6 minutes of regulation, the Sharks went back on the offensive instead of retreating into a prevent defense and snuffed the last bit of life out of the Ducks when Devin Setoguchi scored at 15:57.

For one night, the Sharks looked like a rejuvenated team. They outshot a very capable opponent 41-29, including 21-3 in the second period. They carried the play for the most important 40 minutes. And they were convincing winners in the end.

"We did a lot of things well, but we competed and that is the most important part," McLellan said. "It was a nice feeling when the buzzer went off."

Every game won't go as well as Thursday's opener, but it's a step in the right direction for a Sharks team that needs something extra to get over the hump.

"It's all depending on what the commitment is from your players," Anaheim coach Randy Carlyle said. "As a coach, you only have so many ways to sell your program and what you're trying to do. I think it's terrific for Todd McLellan. He's worked extremely hard and had success in all levels of coaching, and now he gets an opportunity to coach a talented team.

"I'm sure the players notice a difference in his style compared to Ron Wilson's style. That's what coaching is about. You have a way you want to sell your program; how you sell it is really something that is your own model. People have to be willing to do some things a little differently and see if they can have success."