That Jeremy Roenick - after all these years, he remains just so ... irrepressible. Take today for instance. The Sharks were in Calgary for an optional morning skate in advance of tonight's game with the Flames; Roenick, having played the night before in Edmonton, decided not to go on the ice. Instead, he stood there, chatting with reporters, noting how one of the best parts of his new life as a support player with the Sharks was that he didn’t need to be a “quote machine” anymore. Moments later, Roenick was lobbed a soft one – how does he explain the Sharks’ exceptional road record  (an extraordinary 17-4-3) compared to its mediocre (11-11-4) record at the usually friendly Shark tank. His answer: “Because wives and girlfriends aren’t on the road.”

Oops, there goes that old quote machine again.

Roenick felt compelled to elaborate after the laughs died down: “I mean, there is something to say about that. There are a lot of distractions at home, no question. We do have a bunch of young guys on our team, guys that still have to learn how to balance every-day life with professional life. It’s not a knock against wives or girlfriends. It’s just learning how to prepare the right way at home. A lot of our guys don’t want to make mistakes at home, in front of your home crowd. You don’t want to do something to anger your fans. You don’t want to be one of the guys the fans boo every night; it’s not a good thing. These are all things young kids have to learn – and we do have a young team. But we’ve been getting better. We’ve been learning to deal with it. Guys have been learning to deal with it. Hopefully, coming down the stretch here, we’ll put together a good home record the last 20 games.”

Roenick ran through a handful of other topics relating to the team’s performance and its potential down the stretch and then, as the conversation was wrapping up, the “wives and girlfriends” quote came up again.

“I’m going to take some heat over that,” he said ruefully. “All of our wives and girlfriends are wonderful people. They’re wonderful people. They just have to know to leave their guys alone on game days. No grocery shopping. No cleaning up the house. Just let ‘em sleep and get their rest.”