It's time once more to place blame and try to figure out why the Sharks are now zero for 16 in their quest to drink assorted beverages out of Lord Stanley's cup.
Some will call for coach Ron Wilson's head after the Sharks' 4-2 semifinals loss to the Dallas Stars.
Count me out on the fire-Wilson movement. Wilson's team won the Pacific Division, posted a franchise-record 108 points, beat Calgary in a first-round slugfest and won two elimination games against Dallas.
Wilson doesn't deserve a raise, but he hardly committed any coaching sins worthy of a pink slip. Of course, coaches have been fired for less. So we'll see what happens.
Some will play the old Sharks-lack-heart card. Yeah, right. They traded blows with Calgary for seven games. The bruises still haven't healed. They pushed the Stars to quadruple overtime Sunday night before falling 2-1. A team lacking heart would have quit after falling behind three games to zip.
So what went wrong for the Sharks? Why are they swinging golf clubs instead of hockey sticks? Here are a few hints to the No. 1 reason, at least in my book.
They were on the ice for two hours, nine minutes and three seconds Sunday night -- the eighth-longest game in NHL history -- and scored just one lousy goal. They took 62 shots, but only Ryane Clowe's third-period blast found the net. In a series that featured three overtime games and one quadruple overtime test, they scored a combined 11 goals. That's 1.8 goals per game.
Give Stars goalie Marty Turco plenty of credit. But come on. He's not Superman on skates. He just helped expose one of the Sharks' greatest weaknesses.
They have plenty of big, fast skaters but far too few dangerous, skilled goal-scorers, players who have that innate ability to put the puck in the net.
This is a personnel problem that general manager Doug Wilson needs to address, whether via trade, free agency or, if he's truly patient, the draft. Maybe the Sharks can make good use of their ample salary cap space by landing some more offensive firepower.
It's not as if the Sharks' trouble scoring had been a dirty little secret before the playoffs. The NHL's regular-season statistics are available for anyone with a computer and Internet access.
Only two Sharks ranked among the NHL's top 100 goal-scorers. Joe Thornton ranked 29th with 29 goals, and Milan Michalek was tied for 64th with 24. Jonathan Cheechoo scored just 23 goals -- 33 fewer than he had two years ago in what might have been a lightning-in-a-bottle season. Patrick Marleau scored 19 goals, his fewest since 2000.
Thornton is a spectacular pass-first, shoot-later offensive threat. He led the NHL in assists with 67. But if Thornton's also your leading goal-scorer, then you're in trouble.
Thornton needs a better sidekick, someone to not only turn his passes into goals but also create some magic on his own.
The Sharks would have killed to have a skilled goal-scorer like Dallas winger Brenden Morrow. He teamed with center Mike Ribeiro and winger Jere Lehtinen on a line that dominated the Sharks throughout much of the series and kept relentless pressure on goalie Evgeni Nabokov.
Morrow scored the game-winner Sunday night, his seventh goal in 12 playoff games.
Thornton was throttled in the playoffs, scoring just two goals to go with his eight assists. No Shark had more than five goals over the team's 13 playoff games. Turco certainly never faced a line-from-hell, the way Nabokov did.
Of the West's eight playoff teams, only Anaheim scored fewer regular-season goals than the Sharks' 222. Scoring only gets tougher in the postseason when referees let more rough stuff slide and most series feature elite goaltenders. Finding Thornton some help should be near the top of Doug Wilson's offseason to-do list. Re-signing defenseman Brian Campbell is another job that needs to get done.
Campbell's not perfect, as the playoffs proved, but he's far and away the Sharks' most offensive-minded defenseman. He's a skilled skater and puck handler, particularly valuable on the power play.
Jeremy Roenick earned an invitation for another season, if only for the way he turned back the clock in Game 7 against Calgary to put on a high-energy offensive show. If Roenick were 15 years younger and still a 50-goal scorer, the Sharks would probably still be playing. But he's not.
And the Sharks, once again, are on an early vacation.
Contact Eric Gilmore at egilmore@bayareanewsgroup.com.