Monday, August 17, 2009

Jonathan Cheechoo; Anatomy of a Free Fall




Amidst a ton of rumors regarding the San Jose Sharks shopping Jon Cheechoo, I had to speculate and thought it would make a great topic to ask the question, "What Happened to this Guy?"

His rookie season was amazing, looked like he was going to be a pretty good sniper with a long fruitful career. Now he is the subject of almost every trade rumor out of SJ, and his stats have gotten worse every year.

2002-03 SJ 66 9 7 16
2003-04 SJ 81 28 19 47
2005-06 SJ 82 56 37 93
2006-07 SJ 76 37 32 69
2007-08 SJ 69 23 14 37
2008-09 SJ 66 12 17 29

To give an idea...last year his stats were comparable to Wayne Simmonds.

Wayne Simmonds RW 82 9 14 23

My questions are...

What makes a guy who popped 56 goals in 2006 all of a sudden drop his goal production drastically? A 34 goal drop in production from 06 to last season. How does that happen? And its not like Cheechoo was a fluke, he was the 29th player taken overall in the draft so it wasn't like he came out of nowhere. And if he potted a ton of goals playing with Joe Thornton; what happened to that chemistry that prevented the two from maintaining and keeping any semblance of consistency? The formula worked and worked big in 2006-what made it fail in 2007 with a 20 goal loss of production?

I don't follow the sharks on a daily basis and would welcome thoughts from hardcore Sharks fans as to why, when, and how Cheechoo's career is apparently in a free fall.

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