FOGSquad 2015-16 Season Primer: No Matter How Fast You Swim, You Can't Escape Ennui Edition

In preparation for the upcoming 2015-16 season, FOGSquad will post a season primer of every NHL team every other day until the beginning of the season on October 7th. This is thus part four of a thirty part series. We hope you enjoy!

Last season’s review
As a completely unbiased reviewer, I believe the Sharks’ 2014-2015 campaign was—it was—I…

Okay. So I’m not really an unbiased reviewer. I don’t know what to tell you. How can I explain what happened last season? I don’t know how. I don’t know how to explain a lot of things. Sometimes I look at my own hands and wonder how this heart remembers to pump blood even in the moments where I pray for nothing but silence. Sometimes I look deep into the night sky and wonder how Sam betrayed me, left me to rot in the dust, waltzed away with my best friend without a look behind. Spoke of me in hushed tones with poisonous words that drew the people I loved further and further away until the only conversations I heard were clipped from others.

Something inside—something that is good, whatever is left of that good—tells me that I should be happy for them. They’re happy together. They’re good for each other. I only loved one of them yet they were both my loved ones. I hoped once, before, that we would be friends until our parting breath. But what is good dies young and there is no regaining innocence once it has been lost and we are buried alone in our graves.

This season’s preview
Mike Brown is still on the f***ing Sharks

The FOGSquad prediction
Get drunk. Roll dice. Count number of dots on dice. If higher than 7, the Sharks will make the playoffs. If lower than 6, the Sharks will not make the playoffs. Is your vision blurry? Don’t count again. You made your choice.

Cry because you only get one shot at this life and you already messed up, you messed up so bad, and no one can help you.

Players to watch

• Joe Thornton. Your eyes should already be on Joe Thornton constantly. You know why. Because he’s a really good hockey player and for no other reason, obviously.
• Patrick Marleau. As if you could tear your eyes away from those eyebrows in the first place. 
• Martin Jones. Doesn’t matter where you look. His one drifting eye will find you eventually.