For the highest-paid Shark, it has been a season where
production is down and the volume of criticism is up. Dany
Heatley’s two key goals in the Sharks’ 3-1 victory over the Red
Wings show his scoring touch has not deserted him. But he wasn’t
ready to say Friday whether that Detroit game is a harbinger of
what lies ahead.
SAN JOSE
For the highest-paid Shark, it has been a season where production is down and the volume of criticism is up.
Dany Heatley’s two key goals in the Sharks’ 3-1 victory over the Red Wings show his scoring touch has not deserted him. But he wasn’t ready to say Friday whether that Detroit game is a harbinger of what lies ahead.
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“Who knows,” he said. “I think it’s just about getting chances, and a couple went in last night. That’s over, and you’ve got to get going tomorrow again.”
Those two goals give Heatley just 22 for the season — third highest on the Sharks, but a figure that puts him on pace for only 27. While that figure marks a successful season for most players, that number is well below the 39 he scored a year ago and an even bigger drop-off from the 45 he averaged before that in four seasons with the Ottawa Senators.
And it’s not a number that lives up to the outside expectations for Heatley, who is earning $8 million this season. For his part, Heatley doesn’t think the size of his paycheck puts any extra pressure on him to rack up the offensive numbers that earned him that kind of money.
“I don’t think it’s about that. I think it’s about winning games,” the 30-year-old left wing said. “I think we’ve all proven that we can put up numbers in the past. Numbers are numbers.”
The Sharks are on a season-high, eight-game winning streak entering Saturday night’s game against the Dallas Stars. And while San Jose has gone on an extended 17-2-1 run without a major jump in scoring from any of the Big Three — Heatley, Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau — the win over Detroit is a reminder of how much more dangerous the team is if the player known as “the Heater” stays hot.
For one night at least, Heatley silenced his critics, some of whom have wondered whether he has been trying to play through injuries this season. Until recently, for example, Heatley has chosen to stay off the ice on optional practices, raising suspicions.
Injuries are a sensitive topic in the NHL, and the Sharks sometimes go to an extreme level of secrecy to hide them. Asked Friday if he has been healthy all season, Heatley initially responded, “I’m not going to answer that.”
After a pause, he said, yes, he’s been healthy.
That’s the same answer Todd McLellan gave to that question about Heatley in early February. But Friday, the Sharks coach acknowledged that since then Heatley has been “banged-up like everybody else.”
From McLellan’s perspective, there’s a different explanation for Heatley’s off nights.
“For me, Dany Heatley plays well when Dany Heatley skates. It’s as simple as that,” McLellan said. “If he chooses not to take the last two or three strides or the first two or three, he’s not often in a real good position to be battling or to be in an offensive spot.”
McLellan hedged his assessment, though, noting that Heatley still has been productive with 56 points, second highest on the team, and has a plus-5 rating overall. That’s something that Thornton or Marleau cannot claim.
“We have faith in him,” the coach said of Heatley. “We believe in him, and he’ll get there.”
Heatley, of course, isn’t the only Shark whose production is down. Scoring from the entire team has fallen, and its rise to the top of the Pacific Division is mostly the result of improved play in the defensive zone.
“I think this year has been a different year for a lot of us,” he said. “We’ve played in a lot of tight games, the standings being so close and the start that we had. The last couple months have been ‘just win games’ and do what you can to help.”
For much of the season, there also have been concerns about Heatley’s play that went beyond his production. There were defensive lapses, and it seemed almost too easy to knock someone his size (6-foot-4, 220 pounds) off the puck. But his game has shown signs of improvement in those areas, too. Against Detroit, for example, he hustled down the ice on a back check to break up successfully an odd-man rush.
That didn’t go unnoticed by McLellan, who said he hopes Heatley can continue the level of play shown against Detroit.
“Confidence is such a big thing with players,” McLellan said. “Irregardless if you’re Joe Thornton or Dany Heatley or just a young player, you can lose it, and you can gain it. I’d like to think that after last night’s game he feels better about his game and more confident.”
— Story by David Pollak, San Jose Mercury News
