The Littlest Defenseman

Go Bruins

2009-05-02T00:16:00.001-04:00

Holiday Thoughts

2008-12-22T13:56:00.003-05:00

I've been enjoying the Bruins too much lately to write anything about them. There's not much to say, but there are a few things.

Dennis Wideman hasn't looked the same since missing a game with an undisclosed injury back in the beginning of the month. He's still one of our most solid defensemen, as he has been all year, but Wides hasn't shown the same offense and in the past few games has made mistakes that belong back in the 2007-2008 season. Since he missed that game I've been suspicious that the injury was never resolved completely, but that the Bruins couldn't afford another top defenseman going down. The reduced offense from Wides could also be a result of the pairings, as he's not going to be able to take many risks if he's paired with a rookie. If that rookie is Matt Hunwick, as it has been a lot, then he's often forced into being the more conservative partner. No matter what his problem is, the return of Andrew Ference will help it, whether it means Wides taking a game off or just being paired more appropriately. Andrew would be fantastic with Hunwick, and seeing as all the de but Chara have been struggling a bit lately, his return will help everyone.
I was at both the Toronto and the Carolina game. While David Krejci's phenomenal hat trick and the B's offensive explosion cancelled out the terrible feeling we all had when Marco Sturm was hurt again, nothing could ease our minds after Patrice went down, and the Garden had a strange feeling for the whole game. Patrice was just getting his form back, at least physically, and now he has another concussion. Even if he's not out for long, this could be a major mental setback for him.
Tim Thomas should have started the St. Louis game. This may be the first real complaint I've had with Julien's coaching all year. Keep it up, Claude. But start Timmy.
Jack Edwards' announcing has gotten increasingly ridiculous, likely because as the Bruins keep winning he gets increasingly enthusiastic. He also has a very obvious crush on David Krejci, but I think at this point we all do (this includes Blake Wheeler). Besides the entire Dallas brawl game, the following was my favorite Jack and Brick moment of the year:

Jack: Say, what do you call the five-hole when it closes? The five-not-hole?
Brick: [pause] A save.

The Bruins are making it look so very easy. It's a new and welcome experience to see the Bruins do things right. That's really all it is. They're playing in a way that leads to wins. Again, this is very new. I wish I could say more, such as going into detail about what they're doing right, but I'm in shock and all I think about is how they're now leading the league in goal differential. Over San Jose. The Bruins.
What the hell is up with the Canucks? They not only don't suck, but they've actually played well enough to bait and hook Mats Sundin. I had no idea they were playing this well, and I live in Vancouver. Those fans need to get a little more feisty, though I guess they've never had much to be feisty about. I know it's blasphemous to say anything negative about Trevor Linden, and I'm not bashing him, but the worship he gets from Canucks fans is like a normal person encountering some isolated tribe of people and being called a god because he has a wristwatch. Linden's a classy player deserving of respect, but only on a team with so little history or character would he be considered a legend.

In honor of going to the games, my friend and I made a soundtrack for this year's Bruins team. Here is a sample in case you want your holidays to be full of Boston cheer.

Aaron "AawkWard" Ward: "If You Want It To Be Good Girl" by the Backstreet Boys, because he thinks he's tough but is about as effective as Nick Carter.
Zdeno "Charizard" Chara: "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred. Just picture it.
Claude and Wides: "Our Song" by Taylor Swift, because we suspect they listen to it when they're alone together.
Andrew Ference: "Sexual Healing" by Marvin Gaye. When he returns from injury it will become "Let's Get It On". The reason is his face. Yowza.
Shane "The Hman" Hnidy and Mark Stuart: "An Honest Mistake" by The Bravery, because they put in an honest effort and together come out only with honest mistakes.
Matt Hunwick: "Miss New Booty" by Bubba Sparxx
Jack Edwards and David "The Kretch" Krejci: "Cupid's Chokehold" by Gym Class Heroes, because it captures the nature of their love.
Manny Fernandez: "Gasolina" by Daddy Yankee, because I refuse to believe he's not actually latino.
Michael Ryder: "Summer Love" by Justin Timberlake
PJ Axelsson: "Take on Me" by A-ha, because he is an awkward but loveable Swede.
Blake Wheeler and David Krejci ("Wheeler and the Kretch", also an excellent name for a sitcom): "U+Me=Us" by 2Gether, because I like their calculus.
Tim Thomas: "Rock Lobster" by B-52's, because he is inexplicable and all goalies look like crabs.

One more game til the holiday break. Hope both are merry!

Milan Lucic Makes the Habs Our Bitch

2008-11-14T16:29:00.003-05:00

I don't know what they put in the Bruins' water, but I want to thank whoever did it (my guess: Tim Thomas). It's hard to articulate quite how happy the B's 6-1 win over Montreal made me, mostly because I'm not used to the Bruins making me happy. Seeing as the last time they made the Stanley Cup finals was right around my first birthday, I've only ever known the terrible, disappointing, lackluster Bruins that seemed to suck the life out of any player unlucky enough to be stuck in the black and gold. Not that I'm bitter about this. No, everyone is bitter about this.
That being said, how quickly was all of it forgiven in last year's playoffs? My mantra for...well, my entire life, has been "I hate the Bruins", but after a few wins in a losing series we're suddenly on good terms again. There are many, many people in Boston who didn't even bother hating them- they gave up, instead just waiting for them to be good again. Even they're coming back, though we're all tentative. When the team blew a 2-0 lead to lose to the Leafs on October 23, I assumed they had just been leading us on, and this was the inevitable let down. I defaulted to hating them again. Since then they've won 8 of 9 games, which...exceeded expectations? That's not the Bruins I know and hate.
You can argue that a lot of things brought about this change- good coaching, better trades, actually spending money on players- but all of those will go back to one major difference: these Bruins care. Just a few years ago, Tim Thomas was the only player on the team willing to do anything to win. This year, everything just clicked, sparked by Milan Lucic and his violently passionate play. The players are oozing with character, from Lucic down to the fourth line, to Andrew Ference on the blue line, and all the way back to Thomas. And that's the difference. Maybe it's due to more than just Milan, but all of the reasons that the Bruins lead the division go back to the fact that they look like a real team. They've not only made other teams look bad in terms of execution, but also in terms of heart, causing every announcer to comment on how "flat" their opponents look. Yes, they're on a hot streak right now, but it's hard to be cautious about falling for this team. It's the first time I've had the opportunity to do so, and I'm not holding back. Hopefully the city of Boston feels the same way, because if they get passionate about hockey again, it'll be nearly impossible for the Bruins to stop caring.

Quick notes

Andrew Ference (officially my favorite Bruin) injured himself on a blocked shot and won't be traveling with the team on this upcoming trip. In his press conference, Claude Julien made it clear he's a few choked up cries of "Why?!" away from being as upset about this as I am. I have to say, Julien has really impressed me this year handling players, in that it's been exactly how I would. Rabidly praising Ference whenever possible? Rewarding Petteri "Angry Finn" Nokelainan for his effectiveness and work ethic? Finally limiting Aaron Ward's ice time? Yes sir.
Andy Brickley and Jack Edwards (who I'm convinced is on some kind of uppers) were wondering what the whole thing with Milan and Mike Komisarek was about. I've been told that last year Komisarek made fun of Milan for having a hunchback. Can't be sure whether this started it or was just another chapter, but we can be sure that it was a big, big mistake on Komisarek's part, and also that Milan is well on his way to being a Boston legend. Maybe the best part of the video of the event is Phil Kessel laughing to himself at the end as Milan has his psychotic episode (or as Edwards called it, "boyish enthusiasm").
Remember to vote Milan, Ference, and, of course, Tim Thomas into the All-Star Game.

Tim Thomas

2008-11-12T14:52:00.004-05:00

I was lucky enough to go to the Bruins/Cancucks game in Vancouver a few weeks ago. The win was nice, but it was a typical 1-0 game in that not much actually happened. Even Milan Lucic couldn't start something, though not for lack of effort (damn Bieksa). Tim Thomas was legitimately terrifying for the whole game, making me think that maybe people were right about his value as a goaltender. Looking back, though, the only thing in the entire game that made me stand up and cheer was his amazing save in the third period, and this is completely ignoring the fact that it was his second shutout in two nights. If he had let in a single goal in either game the Bruins may not have won.
It's nerve-wracking to watch him sometimes, but not only is he the biggest reason the Bruins have won any games in the past few years, he's also very often the only interesting thing on the ice. We love Tim Thomas, and he is an All-Star. Vote Timmy!

2008-2009 Predicted Standings

2008-10-05T16:10:00.002-04:00

Eastern Conference

Montreal
Washington
NY Rangers
Pittsburgh
Buffalo
Tampa Bay
Boston
Philadelphia
Ottawa
New Jersey
Carolina
Florida
NY Islanders
Atlanta
Toronto

Western Conference

Detroit
San Jose
Calgary
Anaheim
Dallas
Colorado
Chicago
Edmonton
Columbus
Minnesota
Phoenix
St. Louis
Nashville
Vancouver
Los Angeles

I won't go into too much detail about my methodology (highly scientific, much too complicated), but I will explain a few things.

I've been waiting a while for New Jersey's success to disintegrate, and clearly I'm pegging this as the year. In all likelihoods they'll sneak into the playoffs yet again, losing in the first round to a far, far superior team, but what little glimmer of hope I have that the Devils will fail is all I need.
Maybe it's because I've only ever predicted the playoffs, where goaltending is huge, but starting goalies were a pretty big factor in these picks. Ottawa and Columbus's skaters, for instance, are of vastly different quality, but vastly different qualities of goaltenders puts them both at 9th.
The possibility of trades was never considered with any team. Unless they're done early in the season, I don't believe they dramatically alter a team's position in the standings.
Personal biases were considered with pretty much every team. For instance, I claim goaltending is a huge factor, yet the only reason I put the Canucks as high as 14th is that the Kings are too disasterous to be anything but dead last. This is because I live in Vancouver.

Here's hoping the Bruins and Avs bump themselves up, and that someone bumps off both first place teams.

Shaughnessy's Remarks Are Sad

2008-10-02T17:53:00.004-04:00

I usually read mainstream sports articles only for recaps, quotes from players, or other bits of information I need. Especially with the writers we have covering the Red Sox in Boston, anything outside of that feels like a gossip column- sensationalist, idiotic, unimportant and self-important fluff. Ninety percent of the time, it's not even worth getting upset about.

Then there's the other ten percent. His name is Dan Shaughnessy.

Those air sickness bags come in handy sometimes. Flying coast to coast, you cram into your coach seat (like John Glenn in Mercury 1), open the paper to read Manny Ramírez's latest remarks, and you need the barf bag before you're over Kansas.

Quick show of hands here. Which person do you feel worse for- Shaughnessy for being stuck in a coach seat (from the sound of it, literally), or his seatmate for being stuck next to Shaughnessy? We can only hope that the poor guy had a soft spot for nauseas panderers, or at least that he had some way to entertain himself.

But this article ("Ramirez's remarks are sad") isn't about Dan Shaugnessy's numerous personal hardships, or about getting back at Manny for hating on the Boston sports media. It's about the fans, who should be enraged at the unbelievably pompous way Manny has taken them for granted.

We know what he thinks of you. He thinks all you Sox fans are losers who need to get a life. You just care too darn much. It doesn't matter how much love you showered on his head. You bothered him with all that caring.

It's a horrifically disrespectful, completely unwarranted, and almost painfully delusional thing to say. For Shaughnessy, that is, because Manny didn't actually say that. He said this.

"It's just a different atmosphere. The fans in Boston got your back no matter what, but I'm talking about the people who write all this bull because it means so much to them. If your happiness depends on Boston winning or losing, you have to get a life."

This was quoted in Shaughnessy's article. It was his "favorite part of the rant". If he expects to pull off that sort of blatant misrepresentation, it should be clear to Sox fans who really thinks they're losers. I know- it isn't worth getting upset over something so crassly manipulative, and even hypocritical to respond so cruelly. But in this article, Shaughnessy almost perfectly demonstrates what's so wrong about most sports writers. They don't care about sports.

A fan is someone who wants their team to win. They watch the game from their team's perspective. They root for offense when their team is batting and defense when their team is fielding. They always see calls in their team's favor, however irrationally. They love players that help their team win and hate players that help their team lose. Behind all of that there's a passion that causes them emotional trauma and ecstasy but can never be extinguished or satisfied.

A good sports writer is someone whose writing is relatable to fans, not because he also has to fly coach, or is also overweight, or also failed either history or math in high school (there was no Mercury 1), but because he is also driven by that same passion. I don't know what Shaughnessy's driven by (greed, fame, totally distorted self-image), but I don't really care. He said all he needs to when he tried to prove why Manny was actually talking about the fans.

He's right about some of this. There certainly are people in Boston whose happiness is connected to the Sox' fortunes. But it's not the "people who write this bull." Trust me when I tell you that Sox wins and losses have zero bearing on my happiness.

Real fans of the Red Sox shouldn't be reading someone who admits to not caring about the team (someone who would be happier with the Sox losing if it gave him something to write about), and maybe real fans don't. CHB is pretty universally hated by anyone even mildly familiar with Boston sports media, and it'd be nice to think that at least these people are intelligent enough to form their own opinions on issues surrounding the team. But there's no denying that a mass exists that lets itself and its passion for their team be poisoned by all the negativity we're being bombarded with.

Professional sports aren't all hugs and sunshine and unicorns, and I'm neither defending Manny nor claiming anything he says actually makes sense. But I've let it go. That's the result a lot of people want from this situation, and soon. Manny puts it well.

"Just let me be happy someplace else."

Yeah, he's still talking about it, but Shaughnessy isn't exactly convincing with his "give it up, Manny" routine. He's the one still reporting it, "reluctantly" or not. The Sox are in the playoffs. We just won our first game against the best team in the league. We get to look at Jacoby Ellsbury almost every day. And Manny is having a good time, too. Instead of letting us be happy, Shaughnessy fabricates insults to incite the rage of Boston fans, and while he may be the worst with this, it's not just him. I'm just tired of the hyenas that cover the team I love, and I wish there were more of those writers whose passion is their team and not their ego.

Avs Season Preview

2008-09-07T17:19:00.005-04:00

Goaltenders: Peter Budaj, Andrew Raycroft

Defensemen: Adam Foote, J-M Liles, Scott Hannan, Ruslan Salei, Jordan Leopold, Brett Clark, Kyle Cumiskey, Daniel Tjarnqvist

Forwards: Joe Sakic, Ryan Smyth, Milan Hejduk, Paul Stastny, Wojtek Wolski, Marek Svatos, Tyler Arnason, Ian Laperriere, Ben Guite, Darcy Tucket, David Jones, TJ Hensick, Scott Parker, Cody McLeod, Cody McCormick

Before we get started on this, I have to admit that it takes effort to feel good about this season in Colorado. Lined up side-by-side with the Bruins, the Avs don't seem to be in very bad shape. Their goaltending situation isn't that much worse, their offense isn't that much thinner, and there's no one in their division that strikes immediate fear in my heart. It just seems worse because of the way last season went. Usually the Bruins are the ones with the potential they never live up to and the Avs are the powerhouse that deservingly has our faith. While the roles aren't reversed exactly, they have switched a bit. To overcome the holes in their lineups, both of them have to come together as a team and work for it. For once, that sounds more like the Bruins. It's funny what one season can do.
Anyway, here's how the Avs are looking going into 2008-2009.

Stopping Goals
There's reason to be nervous about the goaltending situation on the Avs. With Jose Theodore gone, they're relying entirely on Peter Budaj. He's shown in the past that he can thrive in a starter's role, but he's never had to do it for the entire season. If he hits a rough patch, Andrew Raycroft isn't exactly the rock they need to pick up the pieces. God knows Boodz can come through, but if he doesn't then the season is lost. Gulp.
The defense is another story. Wow. Can I just say wow and leave it at that? Where's the weak link? There's not a guy in our top six that would be out of place in a top pairing. Barring injury, the Avs defense can make up for a lot of weaknesses at both ends of the ice.
In last year's playoffs, the Avs were most (or only) effective when the forwards were very aggressive defensively. The defensemen can- and need to- play their minds out, but if the forwards slack off in their own zone, they'll be spending most of the game there.

Scoring Goals
I'm curious to see how the offense will shape up. It can actually end up looking pretty good if the right people have good years, such as Marek Svatos. If he plays like a top-sixer, they'll have two solid lines, one excellent checking line, and an energy line that can fill in the gaps (I'd like to see Jones and Hensick there). However, if any of the top six forwards are injured or go through serious slumps, there aren't really any good replacements for them. Considering who's on the top two lines, this makes me very nervous.
Like the forwards have to play well defensively, the defensemen have to play well offensively. There's no way the power play can be as terrible as it was last year, and while most of that will have to do with coaching, it will also hinge on players like J-M Liles, Jordan Leopold, and Ruslan Salei. The Avs should use their speed and smart defensemen to dominate teams on the transition. If your players alone can't put the other team on their heels, then your plays should.

That's really the key to the Avs this year- playing more cohesively. They have the heart players to spark the effort, but they need a coach that can focus it. It's also vital that Boodz comes up big, that no one on the top two lines is injured or slumping for an extended period of time, that the defense plays phenomenally in all three zones, and that special teams are at least good enough not to cost them games. If they do all that, they can be a pretty solid playoff team. There's a lot to be optimistic about, but there's even more that can go wrong, and for the first time in a while it seems more likely than not that it will.

Bruins Season Preview

2008-08-31T17:31:00.011-04:00

Goalies: Tim Thomas, Manny Fernandez, Tuukka Rask

Defensemen: Zdeno Chara, Dennis Wideman, Andrew Ference, Andrew Alberts, Aaron Ward, Mark Stuart, Shane Hnidy, Matt Lashoff

Forwards: Patrice Bergeron, Marc Savard, Milan Lucic, Phil Kessel, Michael Ryder, Marco Sturm, PJ Axelsson, David Krejci, Chuck Kobasew, Peter Schaefer, Petteri Nokelainan, Shawn Thornton, Vladimir Sobotka, Jeremy Reich

The Bruins don't look bad.
They're no Red Wings, and we all know that just because they seem to pass on paper doesn't mean they won't fail miserably on the ice, but the B's are a few answered question marks away from being a solid team. Even if they stall at first, there are plenty of options for trading. Seeing as they've preferred to take their time in recent years bringing prospects up, I'll assume for now that this is going to be pretty close to the starting roster. Let's take a look.

Stopping Goals
The Bruins' biggest unknown going into the season is goaltending, and one that won't likely be solved immediately. Barring an injury or a total collapse, the B's will start the season with three goaltenders. Though he'll get more ice time and a much more serious look than last year, Tuukka Rask will still be limited for the first half and probably won't take over as the starter this season. My bet is that Tim Thomas once again wins his job, the Bruins trade Manny Fernandez, and at some point in the second half of the season they start splitting time evenly between Thomas and Rask. That being said, it will probably happen completely differently. For all I know the Bruins are starting Jeremy Reich in net.
Whatever happens with goaltending should be buffered by defense. The de on this team have gotten way too much credit in the past couple of seasons (probably because it seemed more plausible than giving the credit to Tim Thomas), but they might actually deserve it this year. Once Dennis Wideman stops making terrible mistakes, the Bruins will have a genuine top pairing, and though the thought of Aaron Ward and Mark Stuart together is terrifying, at least Stuart is bound to improve. The cherry on top is the return of Andrew Alberts, i.e. the return of a large, physical, surprisingly intelligent de man who clicks well with Andrew Ference. Fantastic.

Scoring Goals
On offense there's a good mix of experienced veterans who haven't quite slowed down yet (sorry, Muzz) and young talent that's coming into its own. Though it's never out of the question for Boston forwards to muddle around in mediocrity for the whole season, I think the team is poised to score some goals. Marc Savard, a playmaker who feeds off the energy of his linemates, should put up big numbers playing with the likes of Phil Kessel and Michael Ryder. If all three can keep their heart in the game, they'll kill. I can't believe that Patrice will be anything less than phenomenal, especially if he has Milan Lucic to watch out for him and his old linemate Sturm at his side. With all the attention on the top two lines (something Lucic will have to deal with better to be successful), David Krejci can have himself a strong year flying under the radar. They can end up mediocre, but with some effort and luck they can also be very good.
Charizard and Wideman will make the power play unit intimidating, which can hopefully translate into actually scoring power play goals this year. Besides those two, the defensemen aren't particularly dangerous offensively. Andrew Ference, for instance, is an excellent playmaker in all three zones, but lacks the shot to score from the blue line. The de will have to become more of a threat in order to open up the offensive zone for their forwards, who (as a whole) aren't big enough to thrive in tight checking.

Everything can go either way. They've got big defensemen, talented forwards, and three decent options in net. They're also the Bruins. But that's not such a bad thing anymore. The team is full of heart (Patrice, Milan, Thomas, etc.) and after last year's playoffs the whole team should have a jump in their step. Maybe one series is too much to glean hope from, but for the first time in a long time the Bruins came together and willed themselves some wins. I think the team finally knows what they have to do, and with Claude Julien coaching them, hopefully this year they can do it.

Go Pens?

2008-05-29T16:20:00.008-04:00

Glory, gloryHallelujah.

A break was necessary after the Bruins dragged me mercilessly back into caring about them in a non-sarcastic way, then left me with the Avs, who responded by giving up on the series halfway through their first game against Detroit. But there's no way I could take off a Stanley Cup Finals in which neither team is from California or the Southeast Conference. Still, I didn't expect to care, and the Penguins have won me over. It's likely because I've developed definite man-crushes on Jordan Staal, who has played with intelligence, poise, and effort way beyond someone half a year older than me, and Ryan Malone, whose gritty, "I don't care if I fall down when no one's around me" style of play should be an inspiration to his team. The latter was also the subject of this series' "Tim McCarver Award for Inexplicableness in Broadcasting" (the actual recipient of which I forget) for the following statement:
Announcer: Look at Ryan Malone's face. He's sporting all sorts of colors. Red beard, red scabs, yellow nose, black helmet...

All that aside, before the series started, it looked like this to me: Detroit should and probably would win, but Pittsburgh could win. I imagined it ending up fairly even, with Detroit sticking to their system and Pittsburgh occasionally overwhelming it to score a goal. It just wasn't clear if the Penguins were really good enough to throw the Red Wings off their game. I suspected they weren't, so it came down to a matter of which was worse: believing in the Pens and being wrong, or not giving them a chance and being right. Pens in 7 is the retrospective prediction, which is unfortunate, because the Red Wings have managed to bring their dominance to the Finals.

Anyone who's watched Detroit this year knows there shouldn't be any competition for the Jack Adams. That team is a machine. The phrase "puck possession" is beaten like a dead horse, and it doesn't do their system justice. I get the feeling it's become one of those phrases that people parrot without understanding, like "leadership qualities" or "beating a dead horse". To some people (ie Crosbunnies) it likely comes off like some elaborate game of keepaway. It's so much more, and so freaking good, that I think their system can only be explained in Chuck Norris-like expressions.

The Red Wings know where you're going with the puck, and they will get it from you.
Because they clog up dangerous areas, attacking players have to choose between settling for perimeter scoring chances, and risking a turnover in a heavily-defended area. Eventually they have to choose the latter, with a small success rate. In addition to basic positioning, Detroit also finds advantages in their opponent's game. Against Pittsburgh, for instance, they favor low coverage (sometimes with all five players below the hashmarks), knowing that the Penguins rely heavily on their forwards.

The Red Wings will pass the puck back down the ice with dazzling crispness to places you didn't even know another Red Wing was.
Their impossibly smooth transitions are the most devastating part of their game. Here's where the term "puck possession" may mislead people (if it actually does), since Detroit prefers passing, which moves the puck much faster. Yes, their forwards will carry the puck if they have space and no better options, but they usually hold on just long enough for defenders to collapse on them, opening up a quick dish to a teammate. If they can pass immediately they will, since the faster they move the play up the ice, the more likely they are to catch the defense flat-footed. However, their willingness to carry the puck (in addition to skill and positioning) is one reason they rarely make very sloppy or forced passes.

Even if you get the puck from one Red Wing, another will get it back.
Close puck support enables those quick dishes, but even more importantly it recovers control after mistakes. They've managed to turn botched attempts at offense into creative-looking plays that almost seem deliberate. Whatever the intention is, the result is overwhelming. If one player loses the puck, his teammate is right there to make sure the drive doesn't die, which can spell trouble for a defender who's accustomed to dismantling an attack with one poke check (coughHalGillcough).

The Red Wings have many tricks, and they're not afraid to use every last one of them.
Players are encouraged to, within the system, use their strengths to create chances. If Datsyuk has space, he'll twirl around you. If Franzen doesn't, he'll go through you. If both of them are stopped, Holmstrom will continue to slash your goaltender long after the whistle has blown out of the possibility that the play is a zombie and will come back to life, or because he is an asshole. They utilize their best option on the ice, no matter what it is, which forces teams to defend them by reacting, not anticipating. There's no cheating when defending against the Red Wings. And even if you do gain control of the puck, the Red Wings know where you're going with it, and they will get it from you.

I hate to praise them so irrationally, but to watch a team as confident, enthusiastic, and freakishly talented as Pittsburgh be controlled and intimidated like they were in Detroit is frustrating. Game three played out a lot like I imagined the rest of the series would. Part of me is encouraged enough to think it will turn around now. Penguins players have been saying the right things in interviews (like get the puck back to the de more) and have adjusted their forecheck a bit to be more effective. The rational part of me, however, expects the Red Wings to own the next game, seeing as they only lost the last one because they didn't play like the Red Wings (ie the Brad Stuart turnover). You never know- maybe the Penguins were really just good enough to throw Detroit off their game, and I say it's better to believe that than to believe Ryan Malone's nose is yellow and scabs are red and helmet is black for nothing. Go Pens!

Second Round 2008

2008-04-24T23:06:00.000-04:00

Detroit over Colorado (6 games)
The Avs play the kind of game Detroit can completely dominate. Their defense has played well and Theodore gives them a clear edge in goaltending, but their disorganized offense leaves them vulnerable to the Red Wings' transition game. Detroit picks apart and quickly turns back weak attacks, which have become the Avs trademark. It's not impossible for them to win the series, but they would have to play with more strength, creativity, intelligence, consistency, effort, and edge than they have all season. All the Red Wings have to do is score on Theodore, though Nashville proved last round that goaltending can go a long way. It's because of Theodore that the Avs have any shot at all, as even with massive improvements they will still likely be the lesser team. Detroit always seems to play to their potential; the series depends entirely on if the Avs do.

San Jose over Dallas (7 games)
It's all up to San Jose's forwards. Despite overall talent, the strength of both teams lies in their defense. If either team really breaks out offensively, it'll be devastating. Neither goaltender had a very good first round, but Turco was a bit worse. Because Nabokov is (more) likely to raise his game and the Sharks give up far fewer powerplays than the Ducks, Dallas' offense will struggle more in this round than the first. Therefore, if San Jose breaks out (which they can against Turco and with Boucher injured), they also win. It's not at all out of the question that Dallas will win (they're just full of surprises), but it's more likely that they'll crack first.

Montreal over Philadelphia (7 games)
While goaltending is the biggest key with two open teams like this, and Price will likely outduel Biron in most games, the series also depends on whether the Flyers can use their physicality to overwhelm the Habs. This will not only take away space from Montreal's forwards, but also put pressure on their sketchy de (and take pressure off of the Flyers'). If their effort is inconsistent or they end up in the box too much- two very possible outcomes- they won't win.
One note on the Habs- they beat Boston so badly in Game 7 for the exact reasons they should have beaten them that badly in the series. In addition to being genuinely outplayed in the first half of the game, their defense was incredibly shaky in their own zone and their forwards fairly inconsistent. But, like they have been all year, the Habs' weaknesses were cancelled out by their strengths. Their lethally opportunistic forwards seemed to capitalize on every mistake we made (mostly by Chara), while Price made sure that we couldn't do the same. By the third period the Bruins looked completely broken and hopeless. The Habs don't play flawless hockey- they can just play flawed hockey better than other teams. If they're really on their game, the Flyers' effort level is inconsequential. They'll win.

Pittsburgh over NY Rangers (6 games)
The Rangers' lineup looked like a recipe for a turnaround- if they got Lundqvist and the forwards playing as well as their incredibly solid defense, they'd be a force. But as soundly as they beat the Devils, they still haven't made the leap. Lundvist was good, and could give them the advantage in goaltending, but it seems that their offensive "breakout" was helped a lot by Brodeur. Additionally, their defense was less than solid against a very bad New Jersey offense. It's like they tried to morph into the Penguins, but they're not good enough to play like Pittsburgh does. They need to be firing on all three cylinders to compete with the Penguins' two. Even if they do, it still might not be enough. It would take elevated play from all skaters, robbery from Lundqvist, and at least a minor breakdown from the Penguins for New York to win this.

It's becoming customary for me to put these up after the first day, but I did have both of tonight's series done before the teams played (as is evident by the comments about Theodore). His strange game aside, the Avs-Red Wings game went as well as I could have hoped, especially given how Colorado played in the first period. They looked terrified. The effort was mostly there, but without confidence it was unfocused and they were just lost. Pierre McGuire insightfully pointed out (many, many times) that Detroit's speed was too much for the Avs, but that was really only the case with Datsyuk. It wasn't that the Red Wings were getting places faster- it was that they were already halfway there by the time the Avs realized where they were going. As they spent the first period simply reacting to the Red Wings, it's no wonder the Avs had trouble stopping them. Detroit's intelligence was too much for them. It was only after Liles' goal (wonderful play all-around) that they gained the confidence to control the puck in the offensive zone and aggressively step up on the Wings' attack. For the second half of the game, they stayed with Detroit, and if not for a partial relapse into weak puck support and a late recovery from Osgood, they could have come back to win. They need to play like that for the rest of the series (especially Tyler Arnason, who inexplicably decided not to suck) and they've got a shot.

Shout out to Medford: I don't hate the Bruins anymore. It's a miracle...but there's always next year.

April 19

2008-04-19T03:48:00.002-04:00

1775: American Revolutionary War begins (Battle of Lexington and Concord).
1861: American Civil War begins (Baltimore Riots).
1943: First LSD trip (Bicycle Day).
1996: A record 36 tornados documented in one day.
2004: After being down 3-1 in the series, the Montreal Canadiens cap their first-round comeback against the Boston Bruins with a game seven victory.
2008: Katie O'D is able to legally drink in all of Canada.

It may seem unlikely that the Bruins take this series to seven games, but April 19 is a strange day.

Quick Notes and Thoughts

2008-04-17T17:26:00.004-04:00

Phil Kessel is sitting again. I have no complaints about the Bruins' play last game- they did everything they could, and it just wasn't enough against Price. But doesn't that mean we need something else? We need offense, and Phil can bring that. If it's an issue of effort, I can't imagine that watching a series like this from the sidelines is going to make him complacent and lackadaisical. I respect Claude Julien for sticking to his decision, and maybe he sees that Phil isn't ready attitude-wise to come back, but if the Bruins lose tonight because they can't score that decision of his could look pretty bad.
[Edit: Phil is a "possibility", according to an update from my "source". Additionally, he's skating warmups, which might be a pretty good indicator itself.]

That being said, these are the five biggest keys of the game:

Tim Thomas vs. Carey Price. The obvious one- it's whoever cracks first (or worst).
Officiating. Special teams have had less of an impact than most people thought, but the calls still make a difference. Since the first brutal couple of games in Montreal, it's improved, but poor calls have the ability to sap a team of its momentum.
The reliability of the Bruins' defense. Another improved facet of the team since the start, the defensemen have to play smart. The Habs will be pumped up enough by their crowd to convert any mistake into an opportunity, and goals are precious.
The first period. The first period has been low-scoring for the Bruins all series, despite strong play in later games, but if they can do some actual damage early it'll go a long way to improving their confidence and taking the Montreal crowd out of it a (little) bit.
The "Milan Lucic Effect". After Kovalev took exception to his hit, Milan responded by mockingly wiping his cheek with one glove and taunting, "Boo hoo." Best moment of the series. The kid has been so relentless, Josh Gorges admitted in between periods that their defensive strategy was to let him go into the corner and get the puck first, as the hits were taking them out of the play and wearing them down. It isn't empty, mindless goonery, either- not only does he create chances and play sound defense, but it's clear his heart is 100% invested in the game. His insane efforts have been contagious, spawning even players such as Savvy to start finishing their checks. The Bruins last game refused to let down, and they have to carry the Milan Lucic Effect into this one.

It's going to take a miracle to win this series; that miracle will have to happen tonight. Go B's!

The Avs keys are covered a bit in the last post, but just for good measure, go Avs!

Five Reasons the Avs Scored Five Goals

2008-04-16T02:30:00.005-04:00

1) The Defense
I never would have thought sitting Jeff Finger would help a team whose biggest problem was heart and team play, but the Colorado defensemen had an outstanding game. From the inconspicuous dependability of Scott Hannan and Kurt Sauer to the fierceness of Adam Foote and (oddly) J-M Liles, the defensemen both fueled and supported the offense.
Jordan Leopold, for instance, showed a poise, creativity, and intelligence that I hadn't seen from him before. He made effortless-looking plays all night that kept the ice tilted in the direction of the Wild net. It's even harder to find a fault in Ruslan Salei's play. A defensive wall and offensive force, he led the team with 25 minutes of ice time- and I wish it could have been more. He was the best player on the ice.

2) The Lines
At first both exciting and inexplicable, the new line combinations last night seemed to address a stagnant Avalanche offense that lacked any chemistry or coordination. While some players just didn't suck as noticeably, others immediately found themselves more effective- and everyone looked a bit more comfortable.
How putting Wojtek Wolski on the checking line causes him to score is beyond me, but he had a game for himself. It wasn't flawless, but he played with an almost strange sort of confidence and seemed even more devoted to his defensive responsibilities than usual.
Ryan Smyth, the Avs best forward this series, found his superhuman grinding powers actually lead to a goal by a very gracious (and deserving) Milan Hejduk. And, in a bizarre and blissful twist on Smytty's previous line, the peskiness of Cody McLeod and energy of David Jones reacted in such a way that almost completely neutralized the suckiness of Tyler Arnason.

3) The Wild
Minnesota is as upset with their play as Colorado is pleased. The defense were caught back on their heels, their normally suffocating system collapsing under pressure. The defense wasn't helped much by their forwards, who couldn't manage to keep the puck in the offensive zone for very long. Over the course of the night, there were more than twice as many faceoffs in Minnesota's end than the Avs', due in large part to the skewed shot count. Clearly the frustration got to the Wild, as they took so many penalties that a fairly terrible Colorado powerplay still converted twice. By the midway point of the game, it seemed like the Wild players had forgotten that the point of hockey was even to score goals.
While all of those problems were due in large part to strong play by the Avs, Backstrom's weak game was all on him. Letting in so many early goals, some of which he could have stopped when he's on, took the life out of his team.

4) The Attack
All the Wild had to do the game before this to kill the Avs' offensive attempts was clog up the middle of the ice. The forwards were too slow and weak on the puck to drive to the net, and their sloppily forced passes to the middle of the ice were read and stopped easily. Minnesota expected it all the way, and rightly so- even with the slot packed with Wild players and the points open, the Avs kept at it.
Last night was a shocking turnaround. Aiming to capitalize while they had all their energy, the Avs lacked any of the tentativeness they had shown before and came out flying. Our forwards kept their feet moving and drove through tough areas, led by again Smytty, the only player to consistently do this all series, and Jones, who has also played hard so far. Not only did all four lines play strong hockey, but the defensemen also contributed to the rush. Andrew Brunette's goal (a perfect example of the reformed attack) was entirely the making of Ruslan Salei, and J-M was all over the offensive zone (unfortunately, so was his shot). Even Scott Hannan was leading the charge early on. They were relentless, and it forced the Wild to play terribly.

5) The Fire
In the first few minutes of the game Jose Theodore received a face full of snow, and J-M Liles immediately stepped in to tell the Wild player off. As the CBC announcers discussed what sort of message Minnesota was sending Theodore, a close-up of the play showed that J-M's message wasn't too hard to make out: "Fuck you, man."
When your 5-10 defenseman is looking to get into it right from the start of the game, you know you're set. For the first three games, plays like Sean Hill's psychotic tackle of Peter Forsberg went unchallenged, something that seemed to demoralize Foppa a bit as time went on. The players looked detached and disinterested.
Evidence that things changed (or that every person on the team simultaneously took up meth) was everywhere last night. In addition to the Jones-exacerbated spectacle that was Cody McLeod, Adam Foote infuriated Brent Burns by telling him off for his work on Forsberg. Foote also responded with ferocious enthusiasm to a challenge from Derek Boogaard before Ian Laperriere stepped in to (try to) pull Boogaard off. Lappy later followed up on Stephane Veilleux for his dangerous hit on Stastny and general douchiness.
All over the ice players were pushing back for themselves and their teammates, from the Liles and Wolski types (attempted to start something late with Hill) right up to the McLeods and Lappys. It explains why McLeod was put on the third line- to light that fire. It may seem irrelevant to scoring, but hockey can't be played like a business. You need to be a real team to win in the playoffs, and nothing makes someone a teammate faster than when they stick up for you.

I don't expect them to score five goals every game. Clearly everything just fell into place last night. However, I don't remember the last time I saw the Avs play so cohesively as a team, and I believe it's due to a change in attitude more than any change in tactics or lines. The Avs can win Game 5 with Sakic centering McLeod and Laperriere (joking, Q), but if they don't respond to the inevitable Minnesota brutality, they're through. The key to the rest of this series- and any success the Avs hope to have this postseason- is whether Colorado can keep it on now that they've turned it on. Was that a random burst, or will the Avs finally be the dangerous team we all know they should be? Strangely enough, we'll probably have to ask Cody McLeod.

Dennis Wideman plays 10 minutes more than J-M Liles

2008-04-14T15:32:00.004-04:00

Memo to Claude Julien
Defensive suggestions:

Show your players a map of the defensive zone, with "Little Billy"-type directions if need be. The reason the PK is so good is that the guys seem most comfortable when they can sit back and blindly whip the puck out of the zone, but 5-on-5 they have to be cleaner and more aggressive. They can't be if they don't know who or where to attack.
Only Andrew Ference and Zdeno Chara make sound decisions in all three zones, and only sometimes. Keep it as simple as possible for your defensemen and take measures to insulate their inevitable mistakes.
Dennis Wideman is talented. He is also dumb. Do not put him out on the penalty kill. Do not put him out with Aaron Ward or Mark Stuart.
Stuart and Shane Hnidy are terrifying, and not in a good way. Split them up and please, please play Andrew Alberts. A lot, if possible.
Never forget Tim Thomas. Buy his children extravagant gifts.

Offensive suggestions:

Please develop a forechecking system that doesn't consist of one forward running the defensemen and hoping they make an egregious error while his linemates watch interestedly from a distance. This may occasionally force a mistake, but a forecheck that relies on the opposing defense sucking might backfire against some teams. Try running Chris Pronger and waiting for Scott Niedermayer to panic.
I know you don't like Phil Kessel, but every time Jeremy Reich is on the ice I die a little inside. Phil is pissed off enough now to "grind it out" like you want, and as a plus he actually has talent.
For the love of all that is holy, keep Milan Lucic and Marc Savard together. It's a favor to Savard, trust me. And skate Marco Sturm with that line instead of Glen Murray- he's played well since game one. If you like Muzz too much to bench him, put him on a young, energetic line (ie with Kessel), but something must be done with that man.
After a Montreal goal, immediately put out either the Savvy-Lucic line or the Metropolit-Schaefer line. Skate Sobotka with Metropolit-Schaefer.
When you yell at the refs, look angry, not like a constipated duck. (Too offensive of a suggestion?)

The Avs coaching situation is above my head. I can't even pinpoint what's wrong- just that no one seems to really know what they're doing. Any success players have seems to come from natural talent alone, and even that has been stifled in a few cases. I can criticize Julien because I can tell what he's trying to do; I can't criticize Quenneville because it doesn't appear that he's trying to do anything. I give him credit with the defensemen, as he has both paired them up well and played them in appropriate situations, but like many people I believe he has mismanaged the forwards. Consistency has been the main problem, with some forwards being immediately chastised for somewhat weak games and some immune to punishment after a season of suckiness. My memo to Joel Quenneville is simply this:

Smyth-Stastny-Forsberg
Wolski-Sakic-Hejduk
Brunette-Hlinka-Jones
McLeod-Guite-Laperriere

Stick with it for the whole game and see if the offensive zone gets detangled a little.

Go Avs, Go B's, and for god's sake someone beat the Red Wings
-Katie O'D

2008 Playoffs

2008-04-12T16:20:00.005-04:00

Random, I know, but I couldn't resist. Though it's a bit better here in Canada, when I talk to normal people about hockey they still go pretty quickly from thinking it's cute, to being impressed, to being genuinely concerned. This is mostly for my benefit.

Team Rankings

1) Detroit
Scarily complete team with effective, suffocating puck-possession system. Potential weaknesses in goaltending (shielded for most of the season) and the fact that they're the Red Wings.
2) Anaheim
Confident, dominant team with excellent playoff goaltender and best defensive unit in the NHL. Very physical but not as much natural offensive talent as some teams.
3) Montreal
Oozes offensive talent, up front and on the blue line. Well-coached for the regular season but the over-reliance on offense and a young goaltender could be deadly in the playoffs. Price is key and his confidence will likely be reinforced by playing the Bruins. Risky team.
4) Pittsburgh
Mix of terrifying talent and veteran toughness up front, but the defense is suspect and goaltending situation curious. Dangerous but vulnerable.
5) San Jose
Excellent two-way defense and solid goaltending, but top-heavy, underperforming forward squad needs to be addressed by otherwise good coach.
6) NY Rangers
Underperforming (and unlucky) talent at forward and goaltending supported by unspectacular but extremely solid defense. Numbers weaker than the team is, which has the potential to be very good.
7) Minnesota
Team carried by excellent goaltending and one-sided but effective system, as talent is thin at forward. Injuries to defense severely cripple them.
8) Dallas
Have been lucky (league-leading Sh%) to score as much as they have with forwards not playing well all season. Team can be effective within system if good defense and Turco perform.
9) Washington
Not very deep on forward or defense, but has some amazing players. Regular season numbers may not say much as they were in a terrible division, and also acquired Huet late. A flawed team that is carried by youth and enthusiasm.
10) Colorado
Based on players, should be higher; based on numbers, should be lower. Success depends on Theodore and if their painfully talented but painfully mismanaged players can find some sort of organization amongst themselves.
11) Philadelphia
Dirty team with decent depth and talent that put up good numbers in a good division. May have benefitted from regular season luck, and both injuries and a lack of sufficient defense could hurt them in the playoffs.
12) Calgary
A fairly balanced team that suffered from subpar regular season goaltending. Can come together to win games, but have been inconsistent and no one aspect of the team is very intimidating (though their defense should be).
13) New Jersey
Completely one-sided and successful mostly due to system, which relies on defense (have outperformed their talent level, to their credit) and Brodeur (still good but not quite as scary). Not enough offense to win.
14) Nashville
Despite good goaltending, have struggled against better teams. Injuries to their somewhat thin collection of talent can't likely be overcome by the hard work and solid team play that got them to the playoffs.
15) Ottawa
So much talent and so many problems, from dehabilitating injuries to poor performance from a talented defensive squad to a high-scoring system that's too reckless. The biggest flaw of all in the playoffs is their lack of goaltending.
16) Boston
They can't score (24th in GF), can't defend (over 30 shots against/game), are either dumb as dirt, poorly coached, or allergic to making clean plays, and unfortunately, every goaltender plays as hard as Tim Thomas in the playoffs. I hate the Bruins.

First-Round Predictions

Detroit over Nashville (5 games)
Nashville might be able to pull off a win if they work hard and Detroit loses focus.
San Jose over Calgary (6 games)
San Jose is a much better team that won't win any games easily. Could go to seven.
Colorado over Minnesota (7 games)
Minnesota doesn't have the ablity to win; Colorado has to start using it. If the Avs hit their stride it could end sooner, and if they don't Minnesota could will themselves a series win.
Anaheim over Dallas (6 games)
Dallas is pesky and frustrating enough to steal a couple of wins.
Montreal over Boston (5 games)
Best case scenario: the Bruins rally together to win one game after finally taking Tim Thomas' suicide threats seriously, then are shut out for the rest of the series. I hate the Bruins.
Pittsburgh over Ottawa (5 games)
Ottawa wins by out-scoring, and they can't outscore the Pens. They might not win a game.
Philadelphia over Washington (7 games)
Though Philadelphia injuries give the Caps an advantage, the Flyers may cancel that out by the end of the series. A Washington win would be nice but if the Flyers break their spirit at all (which they can) they won't pull it off.
NY Rangers over New Jersey (6 games)
The Devils will drag the series out longer than it should go just because they're the Devils, but they're done.

Back to life now,

Katie O'D

Last Post

2007-07-05T13:50:00.000-04:00

It's starting to become pretty clear to me that this is done. The main reason is that, for a while, I had nothing to do with hockey. I figured that once next season started, I'd come back to this. But when the free agent signings (Smytty as an Av is freaking me out) brought me back even sooner and I still couldn't find a way to write, I knew it was done. With college (UBC) a month and a half away, this is just another of many things ending right now, but I'll still miss writing here. It was a fun outlet for my obsession with hockey that helped me understand and appreciate it even more. Thank you to everyone who supported and read me for my extremely short run. It's nice to know that there are people even crazier about the game than me. Until I stop watching hockey for good (which, despite everything, won't happen any time soon) I'll be reading your blogs.
-Katie O'D
Last note: When I tell people that I'm going to school in Vancouver, they make some comment about the inevitability of becoming a Canucks fan. I want to say that doing so is, to me, roughly on the same level as hooking up with the creepiest guy at a party out of desperation, excusing his subsequent stalking as sweet and doting, marrying him after six months, and eventually becoming an alcoholic to block out the fact that he's spending all my money on some coked-out 19-year-old girl he's having an affair with. But I don't think they mean to insult me, so I just tell them that it's unlikely.
Go Bruins, Avs, and Oilers!

Break

2007-05-11T14:15:00.000-04:00

It's been so long since I last posted that I feel that I need to write something. Things have been a little off around here, and because of that hockey has gotten pushed into the background. Until everything stabilizes I'm going to have to take an official break. I can't imagine that it'll be too long, though.
Go Sharks!

Buffalo Wins, Vancouver Doesn't Lose: Round Two Update

2007-04-29T11:31:00.000-04:00

Things aren't going as well this round. They're not going horribly- San Jose split the first games in Detroit, and Ottawa also got a road win- but they're definitely not great. I forgot how Buffalo plays, and that was a bad mistake. A while ago the Oilers played them, and I noted that "the Oilers would control play for a decent amount of time, then Buffalo would come down and get a point-blank chance". Even in the Islanders series, the same thing would happen. The Islanders would forecheck rabidly and keep the puck in the Sabres' zone for a while, but never get any real scoring chances. Then the Sabres would come down on a 2-1 or something and score. Buffalo's numbers aren't very intimidating- they let up more shots than they get, their team SV% is middle of the line, their special teams are bad, and they've got mediocre defensive numbers. The two things that stand out are that they have the best offense and the best overall record, and now I remember why. They're maddeningly opportunistic. I always thought of having a very skilled 4th line as a bad thing, at least in some ways. They have no toughness. But in reality it just means that the other team can't hide their worst de anywhere. It's what they did against the Oilers that one game, and it's how they win. The Rangers can control play for the entire game (like they did last game), but as soon as their weaker players step on the ice, the Sabres are gone. If the Rangers are going to beat them, they have to capitalize on the chances they get and be a little more wary of Buffalo's transition game. And if they don't beat them, I still believe that Ottawa, San Jose, or Anaheim will.

First though, they have to make it to the next round. The Sharks and Senators were on the road, meaning a split isn't terrible (though I thought Ottawa could take both games). The Ducks, however, are now in a little trouble. It's not fatal by any means for them to split, but they could have made it a whole lot easier on themselves by taking both games. It seems like Vancouver never wins any hockey games, but they never lose either. They remind me of Homer in the episode of The Simpsons where he takes up boxing, and his strategy is to take punches until his opponent gets tired enough to be pushed over. They're not scoring goals, or even trying it seems like, but somehow they're still winning. This last game was like every game in their series against Dallas. The troubling thing is that I thought the Ducks could avoid that.

Tonight they play again, and this afternoon the Rangers play the Sabres on their own ice. It doesn't even need to be said that this game is huge. I'm going to assume that the Rangers will win. If they dig a hole for themselves, it'll be in Game 4.

[Edit: I hate Sean Avery with the best of them but he is kicking ass in this game. That being said, the Rangers haven't scored yet, and it's only a matter of time before Buffalo goes against all momentum and reason and takes a lead.]
[Edit Again: Oh god...phew. Time for my heart to return to its normal rate. That was the best game I've seen so far in the playoffs.]

Western Conference
-Detroit 1, San Jose 1
Goals: 3-4
-Anaheim 1, Vancouver 1
Goals: 6-3
Eastern Conference
-Buffalo 2, Rangers 1
Goals: 9-6
-New Jersey 1, Ottawa 1
Goals: 7-7

Western Conference Round 2

2007-04-25T18:00:00.000-04:00

The Rangers have been getting a lot more support than I thought they would. I had to go against every instinct I had to pick them, so I figured I'd be alone, but the series isn't so one-sided after all. Woo!

Anyway, I'm finally getting around to these Western Conference picks. With the Vancouver win, I was 7-1 in the last round, which means I'm beating Paula by 3 series, Liz by 4, and am that much closer to $50. The little bet we have was another reason that I chose the Rangers- they were both definitely going with Buffalo, and I had enough of a cushion to take the risk. Onto the West.

-Detroit (1) vs. San Jose (5)
It'll be a fantastic series. Detroit is nearly unbeatable at home, but San Jose was second only to Buffalo on the road this season. The Sharks are more talented, while Detroit is smart and disciplined as all hell. Their regular season numbers are extremely close; San Jose scored 4 more goals, and Detroit let in 6 less. As far as special teams go, the Sharks had the league's second-best powerplay and 14th-best kill, while Detroit had the 21st-ranked powerplay and 6th-ranked kill. In the first round, the Sharks' powerplay fell to pieces and Detroit had trouble killing penalties. However, the Sharks improved their penalty kill against a good offense, while Detroit's powerplay didn't fare any better than it did during the regular season. A key will be goaltending. Hasek will be good, but Nabokov may be able to outmatch him if he's on. Whether he will be or not can decide the series.
Who Should Win: The Sharks. It could go either way easily, but the Sharks are my Stanley Cup pick, so I can't really go against them. Also, they're a balanced team that can potentially outplay their regular season numbers. Detroit seems to be as good as they're going to get.
Who I Want to Win: The Sharks, of course. That's the best part of this series. For me at least, it's good vs. evil.

-Anaheim (2) vs. Vancouver (3)
This series isn't so close. Vancouver prides themselves on not letting in goals, but the Ducks only let in one more than them this season. Anaheim just crushed a Minnesota team that had the best GA numbers in the league, as well as some legitimate forwards. Vancouver lets up more shots and gets less, they can't score, they don't have a powerplay, and they barely beat Dallas last round. Anaheim has a better shot ratio, can score like hell, has two of the best defensemen in the league, has a good powerplay that only got better against Minnesota (one of the best kills), can kill penalties equally well, and soundly beat the Wild. Vancouver may have Luongo, which is an advantage over anyone, but the Ducks' goalies are also good.
Who Should Win: Anaheim. Vancouver's small advantages are not enough to beat the Ducks.
Who I Want to Win: Anaheim, I guess. I don't like them but I can't root for the Canucks without getting physically ill. If San Jose wins, it'd be nice for them to only have to face Vancouver- if Detroit wins I want them to be punished. That's a wash; Anaheim it is.

There you go. I don't expect to have as much success in predicting this round, since the first round is always more clear-cut. I do, however, expect to win $50, and that's always a plus.

[Edit: I just realized that the two teams that keep playing "Shipping Up to Boston" are Detroit and Buffalo. They keep this up and I'm going to go Frank Costello on their ass. Also, I think the Buffalo fans were just laughing at the Sabres' powerplay.]

Eastern Conference Round 2

2007-04-23T17:49:00.000-04:00

I've just been told that squirrels are nesting in our New Hampshire house. I feel the same way about those squirrels that I do about the Vancouver/Dallas series. They have to leave now. And Vancouver has to win, because if Dallas does then the Sharks have to face the Ducks. That would just be cruel. But whatever- I'm done waiting for the Western Conference to be ready. I'll just preview the Eastern Conference matchups for now.

-Buffalo (1) vs. NY Rangers (6)
I laughed when people started to call the Rangers a legitimate threat in the playoffs, but this series isn't looking how I thought it would. Buffalo has the better offense and, despite Jagr/Nylander/Shanahan, the better forwards overall, but the Rangers have the better defense (ranked 9th to Buffalo's 13th). It's not a big enough advantage to offset the disparity in goals scored, but Lundqvist might be. He posted a .939 SV% and 1.50 GAA against Atlanta, while Miller had a decent .918 SV% and 2.21 GAA against the Islanders. Both were improvements over their regular season numbers; Lundqvist more than Miller. When it comes to special teams, the Rangers own both categories. Buffalo had mediocre PP/PK numbers during the regular season, and while their penalty kill improved against the Islanders (who have a decent powerplay), their own powerplay got even worse. The Rangers, on the other hand, improved on their good regular season special teams. Part of this can be attributed to the awful special teams of the Thrashers, but part of it is the Rangers on a roll. Even if they're scoring and defending way above what they usually do, it still counts for something. If either team has momentum it's the Rangers.
Who Should Win: The Rangers. It's a pretty dumb choice, but it's not based entirely on the momentum thing (that would be really dumb). The Rangers have good enough regular season numbers to make an upset possible, and have been insane in the playoffs and the end of the season. Going on the assumption that they're going to play above their regular season numbers (though definitely not as far above as they did against Atlanta), that Buffalo isn't playing very far above their regular season numbers, and that Lundqvist will outduel Ryan Miller, the Rangers have a chance.
Who I Want to Win: Anyone but Buffalo.

-New Jersey (2) vs. Ottawa (4)
It's not defense vs. offense for New Jersey this round. Ottawa may have the second-best offense in the NHL, but they also have the 10th-ranked defense. That defense held up well against the good offense of Pittsburgh, averaging 22 shots against/game. This allowed Ray Emery, with a .909 SV%, to have a 2.01 GAA. Emery will be outplayed by Martin Brodeur, but not badly enough to lose the series. In the first round New Jersey faltered on defense, but found ways to score more than they had during the regular season. Ottawa, on the other hand, scored at about their regular season rate, but were better on defense than they had been. Both teams saw no change, relative to other teams, in their penalty kill, but both improved on the powerplay.
Who Should Win: Ottawa. They adjusted well to Pittsburgh, improving their defense while maintaining their scoring. New Jersey caved a bit to the strong offense of the Lightning, while taking advantage of their weaknesses enough to win. They have no weakness to exploit in this series, and if Ottawa can stifle the strength of their opponent like they did in the first round, they'll win just as neatly.
Who I Want to Win: New Jersey. Gionta hasn't grown. I also had lunch with a thoroughly embittered Thrashers fan, and through a crazed series of grumbles he convinced me to kind of not like Dany Heatley.

The lunch was actually before the Sox game yesterday. I got the tickets for my birthday and took Liz. They were decent seats- close enough to see the action well, but not quite close enough to do anything about Kevin Youkilis' facial hair. The four straight homeruns, the strangely amicable mood of the crowd, Daisuke pelting A-Rod and Jeter, and the first home sweep in 17 years made it a great game, but a couple of things made it especially memorable. First off, it was the first time that I ever paid attention to players' entrance music, and I have to say that I've been missing out. Youk played a Justin Timberlake song, Mike Lowell played "Ironman", Papi played "This Is Why I'm Hot", and Dustin Pedroia played a strange, smooth hip-hop beat, accented by chimes, that Liz nicknamed the "Get Naked for Dustin" music. This was also the first time I've ever seen Papelbon pitch in person. The way the crowd reacted when they realized he was coming in made his cheesy entrance song of "Wild Thing" seem almost fitting, and watching him stare down the batters literally gave me chills.

On another completely unrelated note- saw "Children of Men" and didn't like it. It tried to be gritty and emotional, but was too cliched and I just didn't buy it. I also saw "Hot Fuzz" and liked it a lot, but "Shaun of the Dead" was better. And if this movie-watching spree doesn't cool down, I'm going to burn out before the Sharks even make it to the Finals.

FUCK YEAH!

2007-04-19T00:16:00.000-04:00

It's my birthday and I'm 18! FUCK YEAH!

Quiet In Words

2007-04-17T11:22:00.000-04:00

I caught the Sharks/Preds game last night. It may have been the first full game I saw this whole postseason. It was a great, entertaining game, but I thought both teams had a lot of trouble handling the puck. The Sharks' were especially bad on the powerplay, going 0-6, but in part I credit Nashville's kill for that. They had one of the most agressive 5-3 kills I've ever seen. The Sharks had no idea what to do with it. Other than that, though, San Jose dominated, and especially after the first period. They got 41 shots to Nashville's 20 and only had 7 faceoffs in their own end (compared to 29 in the Preds' end). Vokoun was solid, though he never had to make any unbelievable saves and maybe could have stopped Clowe's goal. Anyway, it was a hard fought and encouraging win, not ruined by Versus no matter how hard they tried (informing us at one point that Patrick Marleau was a leader despite being "quiet in words").

A lot has been said about the Colby Armstrong hit on Patrick Eaves, but I think the consensus among hockey people is that it wasn't a dirty hit, and it really wasn't. I like Patrick Eaves (I even went against all proper etiquette and cheered for BC when he was there) but he didn't get elbowed or charged or blindsided or anything. A few Ottawa people let it go because of the hit Neil delivered on Chris Drury, but I don't think they're comparable at all. From what I remember, Neil came across the ice at Drury and threw an elbow into his head. You can't compare Armstrong's hit to that.

Not surprisingly, the highest-scoring series so far have been the Sens/Pens series (22 goals) and the Sharks/Preds series (20 goals). After them, however, is the Devils/Lightning series (18 goals). It's a little unexpected, but it helps to make sense of why the Devils are losing this series. They're not a team that wins high-scoring games and Tampa Bay is. I haven't caught any of these games so I'm not sure whether Brodeur is to blame, but his numbers aren't very good. He's let in 3 goals in every game, while only facing 26, 20, and 24 shots for a .871 SV%. New Jersey wasn't going to win this series by outscoring the Lightning- they were going to shut them down and trap the hell out of them. If they don't change the dymanic of this series from a high-scoring one to a low-scoring one, they're going to lose and have to watch painfully as the Sabres sweep the Lightning in the next round.

One interesting (and kind of scary) thing is that the lowest-scoring series is the Ducks/Wild one, with only 11 goals in 3 games. The fact that the Ducks are up in this series 3-0 is a serious testament to what a complete team they are. Minnesota is a team that wants a low-scoring series. It's how they play and where they thrive, and if they were playing a team that relied only on offense, they'd be winning right now. But Anaheim, with the defense and goaltending they have, is in no way one-dimensional. They can play a high-scoring series and win with the forwards they have, but they can also play a low-scoring series and win (possibly even sweep) with the defense they have. They were Liz's Cup pick (because she thinks Giguere is cute...) and I'm beginning to think more and more that she made the right choice, as painful as that is. I haven't given up on the Sharks, and if someone in the West is going to beat Anaheim it'll be them, but it won't be easy.

Tonight the Thrashers go to New York, down 2-0, for the first time this series. The Sens/Pens again face off in Pittsburgh and the Canucks and Stars try to finish a game in less than 4 hours. The Ducks can be the first team to end their series with a win in Minnesota tonight. Calgary hopes that maybe they won't lose quite so badly at home. I've stopped caring who wins that series, because the winner most likely won't make it too far anyway. If Calgary wins (ha) they'll have to face Anaheim, and if Detroit wins they'll most likely have to face either the Sharks or the Preds (unless they get lucky somehow pull Dallas). All of the series are starting to take shape, with the Sens/Pens and Sharks/Preds being the best and most entertaining so far. I can't see either series going less than 7 games, unless one team implodes (which isn't out of the question).

Unrelated movie note: Knowing it'll be out of theaters soon, I dragged a few people to see a late showing of Pan's Labyrinth in Davis Square (love that theater). It was brutal, gruesome, creepy, depressing, and one of the darkest movies I've ever seen, but I loved it. See it in theaters.

Western Conference
-Buffalo 2, Islanders 1
Goals: 9-6
-New Jersey 1, Tampa Bay 2
Goals: 9-9
-Atlanta 0, Rangers 2
Goals: 4-6
-Ottawa 2, Pittsburgh 1
Goals: 13-9
Eastern Conference
-Detroit 2, Calgary 0
Goals: 7-2
-Anaheim 3, Minnesota 0
Goals: 7-4
-Vancouver 2, Dallas 1
Goals: 7-7
-Nashville 1, San Jose 2
Goals: 10-10

Game Twos

2007-04-14T13:25:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday night I got a call from my uncle Mike, who wanted to cheer with someone about Dice-K striking out Ichiro. I was watching hockey, so we got to talking about that instead. He agreed that Anaheim and San Jose are nasty, that Buffalo sucks (though apparently they always used to get beaten by the Bruins, so he feels bad for them), and that the Penguins can surprise people this year. Just as he said that, Ottawa scored the second of its six goals. Surprise!

Last night the Pens were off, which was unfortunate. They were really awful last game and probably don't want to sit on that for an extra day. Still, I have confidence that they'll come out and play much better in their game today. They pretty much have to. It would help to get a win, but on an even smaller scale they just need to play better. If their defense is as bad as it was last game, they're going to have a hard time in this series.

I'm betting on the playoffs with Paula and Liz, except that none of us really know what we're doing. Basically we're picking the winners of each series for each round, and whoever wins the most series overall wins, plus there's a bonus for picking the Stanley Cup winner. I picked using the predictions up on this site. Paula just picked the higher-ranked team in every case but Pittsburgh (because she loves Malkin). Liz used such mathematical criteria as: "Flames, because I don't like the city of Detroit", "Canucks, because Texas shouldn't win a Stanley Cup", "Sharks, duh", "Lightning, because I still hate the Devils from 2003", and "Thrashers, just cause". Both Liz and I picked the Sharks in this series, but I also picked them as my Cup prediction, which is (one reason) why it sucks that Nashville is trying to kill them off one by one. First Cheechoo got knocked out with a nasty knee-on-knee hit (though the Nashville-based replay clearly shows that Hartnell's hit would have been a shoulder check had Cheechoo not thrown himself at Scott's knee in a spontaneous act of masochism), and then Bernier was taken out on a hit from behind by Raffi Torres. Granted, Cheechoo is back and Bernier might be fine, but it's still a little annoying, and especially since it's not Raffi doing the hitting. It's Alexander Radulov. I mean, he had an amazing goal in the first game of the series, but if even he's injuring people then Nashville's gameplan is clear. I'm not saying they're trying to be dirty, but they're definitely trying to be physical. It's playoff hockey, so I understand, but if they go after Patrick Marleau then I'll be less forgiving. (By the way, that was my biggest fear in the Oilers/Sharks series last year. After Raffi destroyed both Bernier and Michalek, I wondered if they should have Patrick switch jersey numbers with a teammate for a game or two. You know...just in case.)

Thursday morning I was sitting in school and, having missed some games the night before, decided to check the scores on my phone. When I saw that the scoring recap for the Canucks/Stars game went to "Period Seven", I figured ESPN had no idea what they were talking about an had mistaken hockey for cricket or something. Nope- there were four OTs. I really believe that this couldn't happen with any other series in the playoffs right now. It reminds me of the triple OT game between Winconsin and Cornell last year. Watching that game was painful because it didn't appear that either team would ever score. They were both defensive and focusing on not losing more than necessarily winning. If two teams in the playoffs were to do that, it would be these two. I don't think that Pittsburgh and Ottawa, for instance, could ever get that far into overtime without scoring a goal because they would be playing offense more than defense. That being said, I didn't watch any of the Canucks/Stars game and am only speculating.

The biggest surprise to me this far was the Islanders/Sabres game. While the Islanders lost solidly and didn't have a realistic chance of winning that game, they weren't as completely dominated as I thought they'd be, and I got the feeling that if DiPietro had been in it could have been closer. That's about as positive as I can get this far, but the Islanders were strangely easy to cheer for and I don't see them getting swept anymore.

Today all of the Eastern Conference teams play. After hours and hours of statistical analysis, I say that the Buffalo/Islanders and Ottawa/Pittsburgh games are closer, the Atlanta/Rangers game is a massacre, and Tampa Bay wins in a shootout. Go Sharks!

Western Conference
-Buffalo 1, Islanders 0
Goals: 4-1
-New Jersey 1, Tampa Bay 0
Goals: 5-3
-Atlanta 0, Rangers 1
Goals: 3-4
-Ottawa 1, Pittsburgh 0
Goals: 6-3
Eastern Conference
-Detroit 1, Calgary 0
Goals: 4-1
-Anaheim 2, Minnesota 0
Goals: 5-3
-Vancouver 1, Dallas 1
Goals: 5-6
-Nashville 1, San Jose 1
Goals: 9-7

Anyone But Buffalo

2007-04-08T10:49:00.000-04:00

Before I even look at the standings, I have to ask how the hell the Oilers won- did the one thing I needed them to do to partially redeem themselves- and the Avs lost. It's not worth getting flustered over, but Jesus Christ. Anyway here's the first round of the playoffs as I understand it:

Western Conference
-Detroit (1) vs. Calgary (8)
Season series: 2-2 each
All signs point to a Detroit win in this series. While they have identical GF this season, the Red Wings have an edge in GA (ranked 4th to Calgary's 10th). For Detroit, this comes from a solid defensive team, not just goaltending. Calgary averages 31 shots against per game; Detroit averages 25. For the Flames to win this series, they'll have to be rougher (both teams have nearly identical penalties drawn/taken), work harder, and take advantage of any and all mistakes or injuries that have happened or will happen. They also have to take all of their home games, because it is a bitch to get a win at the Joe.
Who Should Win: Detroit. There's that little voice in the back of my head telling me I'm an idiot for picking the Red Wings to win a playoff series, but I can't not pick them this time.
Who I Want to Win: Calgary. Basically it's the lesser of two evils. I'm always down for Canadians winning, and Detroit is one team that I absolutely refuse to cheer for under any circumstances. The other two are Vancouver and Buffalo. If any of them meet one another in a series I'm sticking my fingers in my ears and singing "lalalala" repeatedly until it's over.

-Anaheim (2) vs. Minnesota (7)
Season series: 2-1-1 Anaheim
Minnesota's strategy this year seems to be a suffocating defensive game+Gaborik/Demitra. The Ducks, however, have scary-consistent numbers. They have the 2nd-ranked powerplay and the 4th-ranked kill. They're ranked 4th at home and 5th on the road. They're 7th in GF and 7th in GA. Minnesota, on the other hand, is 2nd at home and 17th on the road, 1st in GA and 19th in GF (though they have good special teams). When Gaborik/Demitra are both healthy and clicking, they've got a little more offense going for them, but overall they're a mostly one-dimensional team. The one thing they have is that they always seem to win games when it feels like they lost. I can't count the number of times that the Avs or someone were playing the Wild, and we were dominating the game, and I'd look up at the score and realize that we were losing. Maybe they can win a series in which it feels like they lost?
Who Should Win: Anaheim. They've got experienced veterans, promising young guys, scoring, defense, they're physical, they're quick...I'd be shocked if they lost. Minnesota's good, but Anaheim might be the best team in the playoffs.
Who I Want to Win: Minnesota. I kind of like them, and despite the insane comments that were made about his wife, I still hate Pronger.

-Vancouver (3) vs. Dallas (6)
Season series: 2-1-1 each
I'll be surprised if this series doesn't suck. Two defense-first teams that no one really likes? Woohoo! But honestly, it should be extremely low-scoring with the 21st-ranked (Vancouver) and 22nd-ranked (Dallas) offenses going at it. The difference is that Dallas is a better defensive team overall, allowing 25 shots per game to Vancouver's 29, while Vancouver has Roberto Luongo.
Who Should Win: Vancouver. Everyone knows a good goalie is worth way more than a good defense in the playoffs. If the Sedins do anything in the scoring department, Vancouver should win. Plus they kick ass in OT with a 12-3 record (not including the shootout), and Dallas is probably the weakest Western Conference team.
Who I Want to Win: Dallas. Another lesser-of-two-evils scenario, and like I said before I just can't bring myself to root for Vancouver, even if it means rooting for Dallas. It doesn't matter. I won't be watching this series anyway.

-Nashville (4) vs. San Jose (5)
Season series: 2-1-1 Nashville
By far the Western matchup I'm looking forward to most. Despite their middle-ranking in the West, they're the 3rd and 5th-ranked teams in the league and could have easily been higher in the standings. Nashville is, record-wise, better than both Anaheim and Vancouver, meaning San Jose might have been better off dropping a few spots. Even still, I think the Sharks have the ability to be even better than they were during the regular season. Both teams are solid in both ends of the ice (Nashville is 4th in GF, 8th in GA; San Jose is 6th in GF and 6th in GA) and have two good goaltenders each. Scoring won't be a problem for either team, though- Nashville oozes offense, while San Jose will have two awesome lines centered by Thornton and Marleau. The Sharks' powerplay is deadly, but will be facing the 3rd-ranked kill of the Predators. One disparity is that Nashville gets 28 shots/game, but lets up 31, while San Jose is more balanced at 29 for/26 against, but that doesn't mean too much, except that San Jose is a little better defensively.
Who Should Win: San Jose. It's close, but I like them in the playoffs this season. This series is awful- either team has a shot at the Stanley Cup this year, and that one of them has to be knocked out in the first round when some pretty weak Eastern teams will go on is painful.
Who I Want to Win: San Jose. I like both teams, and the Paul Kariya action figure staring at me from my desk (it was a gift) is making me feel a little guilty, but the Sharks might be my favorite team this postseason. It's not just because of Joe- I actually like Patrick Marleau more than him. Also, Scott Hannan reminds me of Dominic Monaghan, and I tend to automatically like people if they look familiar.

Eastern Conference
-Buffalo (1) vs. NY Islanders (8)
Season series: 3-1 Buffalo
The best offense in the NHL against a potentially DiPietro-less Islanders? Oh no. The Islanders are not good enough defensively (33 shots against/game) to make up for a second-string goaltender, and especially not against Buffalo. With Smytty (God bless his soul) as their best forward, they also have no shot in hell of outscoring the Sabres. In fact, there is nothing at all remarkable about the Islanders, statistic-wise, that would make me think they have a chance in this series.
Who Should Win: Buffalo. The Sabres have the best road record in the NHL, meaning this could be over quickly.
Who I Want to Win: The Islanders. Despite the obvious Smytty factor, which is the only real reason I want to see the Islanders do well, I just really, really hate the Sabres. In fact, my motto for this year's playoffs is "Anyone But Buffalo", which is a lot catchier and more appropriate than my original motto, "I Will Make Sweet Sweet Love to the First Person to Give Daniel Briere a Concussion". Though the offer still stands.

-New Jersey (2) vs. Tampa Bay (7)
Season series: 2-1-1 Tampa Bay
It's defense versus offense, it's St. Louis and Lecavalier versus Brodeur, it's...not going to work for Tampa Bay. Like I said before, goaltending is huge in the playoffs, and Tampa Bay doesn't have any. They average a very respectable 27 shots against per game, yet they're 24th in the league in GA and have the 28th-ranked PK. Yeah, New Jersey themselves are 27th in GF, but at least they have a few forwards that can score for them if they need it. The Lightning have just terrible defensive numbers- too terrible to win any series.
Who Should Win: New Jersey. No way Tampa Bay is beating them- they're the worst team in the playoffs.
Who I Want to Win: New Jersey. I always hated them until Brian Gionta came into my life. Now I might even say I like them a bit. Should Gionta leave the Devils, that would change, but for now I don't mind them too much.

-Atlanta (3) vs. NY Rangers (6)
Season series: 3-1 Atlanta (with 2 OT wins)
Series like this make it even harder for me that the Avs missed the playoffs. Both teams have unbelievably mediocre numbers, particularly Atlanta. They're 14th at home, 14th on the road, 14th in GF, and 15th in GA. The only thing notable about them is that their powerplay (19th) and penalty kill (26th) are both pretty bad. The one thing they have going for them is a promising young goalie, which tend to miraculously become Conn Smythe-winners, in Kari Lehtonen. The Rangers, though, counter with Henrik Lundqvist, who is hot right now. It'll be him against a potent Atlanta offense.
Who Should Win: The Rangers. I don't really know why. Neither team is particularly scary, but the Rangers have slightly less mediocre numbers, and Lundqvist.
Who I Want to Win: The Rangers. I don't like either team, but I kind of like Petr Prucha. That he's the deciding factor shows how little I care about this series.

-Ottawa (4) vs. Pittsburgh (5)
Season series: 3-1 Pittsburgh (with 2 OT wins)
Like the Western Conference 4-vs-5 series, I'm excited for this one, but then again who isn't excited to see the Penguins this postseason? Both teams are great offensively and mediocre defensively, with the Senators having a slight edge in both areas. Pittsburgh has a strong powerplay; Ottawa's better on the kill. The Sens are nearly as good on the road as they are at home, but the Pens are better at home than them. It should be a thrilling and close series.
Who Should Win: Pittsburgh. They're all young and excited. You can say they're inexperienced, but does anyone really want the kind of postseason experience that the Sens have? Moreover, I trust Crosby to up his game, and if he does then the Pens win for sure.
[Edit: After spending way too much time looking at more numbers, I can't believe I picked Pittsburgh here. Ottawa was top-five in every way I ranked teams. Even still, I'm sticking with the Pens. If a team is going to pull an upset this season, it's going to be them.]
Who I Want to Win: Pittsburgh. I like Crosby, I like Malkin ("Shrek on ice" according to Paula), and I'm a Staal family fan. Plus, anyone that has a soul is rooting for the Penguins, and (surprisingly enough) I haven't sold mine off yet.

As you can tell, I'm excited for the playoffs. It's the only time of year that I can root for random teams nearly as enthusiastically as I root for my own. Like most Bruins fans I've talked to, I hope San Jose can win it all. And like most people who put a large, triple cappucinno-fueled amount of energy into making predictions, I hope I'm right.

*Disclaimer: I'm always wrong.

The End?

2007-04-07T12:44:00.000-04:00

Not much has been going on in the hockey world, which is part of the reason why I haven't posted for a few days. But there's something now. Tonight might finally be the night that Calgary clinches the last playoff spot. Despite their inability to do so until now, there isn't much hope that the Oilers can beat them. If they drag it into overtime they have a shot, as the Flames suck there, but I can't see that happening. There are still too many "if"s to be fulfilled. Basically, if the Avs are going to make the playoffs, something incredible has to happen. I'm ready for it to happen, but not all that hopeful. As was pointed out, however, should the Oilers pull this off, Joe Sakic will die before he sees the Flames beat them on Sunday. Why am I still nervous about everything? It's over, right? Damnit.

I've heard (and I can't remember the article) that the Bruins are going to keep the same defensive corps that they have now for next year. This would be fine, except for two things: something with the defense is off, as they suck, and we have some prospects that seem primed for recall. I haven't seen much of them, but from what I hear it's about time that Mark Stuart and Matt Lashoff should get some big league time. As far as I'm concerned, it'd be better to do this sooner rather than later. If they can get time from the start of the season on, they'll be at least mildly trustworthy should the Bruins make the playoffs. Of course they'll be given a fair shot in training camp, but that's the way the Bruins should be leaning.

In other Bruins news, there's actually an article about Andrew Ference and his bike-riding ways. Apparently he's into saving the environment. My favorite part is that, in an article that paints him as a devoted, conscious, caring individual, he cites "If somebody slashes you, you slash them back twice as hard" as one of his most valuable lessons learned. Granted, it was about gaining respect, but it's still something I love about hockey.

Partially unrelated note: I've noticed that a lot of arenas are playing "Shipping Up to Boston" by the Dropkick Murphys as their pump-up song. Unless they're planning on shipping the Bruins a few good players (which I'm entirely welcome to) they really have to stop that.

Completely unrelated note: I saw "Grindhouse" last night and absolutely loved it. Watching it, you can see just how much fun they had making those movies. It's not for everyone (I'm a Tarantino freak) and I'm sure it would have been better if I had any B-movie experience (especially for "Death Proof") but I still think everyone should go out and see it. Don't wait, either- it has to be seen in theaters.

Right now I'm eager to see the first-round matchups for the playoffs. As soon as that's solidified, I'll pick who I want to and think will win each round. The end of the season can't come soon enough.

The Bruins Rnt Guna Win

2007-03-30T00:20:00.000-04:00

With their loss to the Penguins, the Bruins are officially eliminated from the playoffs, and at the moment they're losing 2-0 to the Thrashers. Liz and her friend John are at the game. Earlier today I went out to lunch with her and she tried to convince me to go. Other than the fact that I was wearing bright pink-and-purple plaid pajama pants (I was only planning on dropping the tickets off), I just didn't have it in me to go to another game. Barring a miracle (read: kickass seats), the Penguins game will be the last one I'll go to in a while. By the time the season starts next year, I'll be away at college, and because the nearest places I applied were in Toronto and Minnesota, home games will be rare. It's strange to think about.

Eric Frede is saying right now that the Garden is "lacking energy" during this game. On that note, the best part of the Penguins game had nothing to do with the game itself (outside of Kessel's goal). It was when they showed a Cam Neely montage. It started with big hits and various scenes of him screaming at someone, spitting blood with every word, then moved on to show some of his better goals. Everyone in the building, including all players on both benches, were completely captivated by it. If only the Bruins took more than entertainment from that, we wouldn't hate them so much.

You have to look at the other side of things, though. Tim Thomas has been the only person who has looked like he cared for the whole season. When the rest of the team sucked and was barely skating, he kept them in the game and never gave up. To show our appreciation, we gave him the 7th Player Award. Then he let in a soft goal, and people started booing him. Infuriated, I started in on a loud, obscenity-laden rant about how angry I was and how much people suck, which caused the booers in my section to quiet down (I don't think I intimidated them so much as there were children around and they anxiously wanted me to stop). These were probably the same people that, seeing that the Bruins would show your text message on the jumbotron, texted them "the bruins r guna win" when they were down 3-2. Sigh.

After the game I went home, but Paula stayed after with a couple of people to wait for the players (don't even ask). They met Andrew Ference, who was apparently very nice, friendly, and dorky. She mentioned the video that I showed her when he was first traded here in which he talked about DDR and Guitar Hero, and he enthusiastically replied that they used to have intense Guitar Hero battles up in Calgary. He gave some guy his stick, then went into the parking lot. He then came out on a bicycle and rode away into the night. With the effort he's put in on the ice, him calling out Dave Lewis, and his apparent dorkiness, he's well on his way to becoming my favorite Bruin.

With the Flames' insane play as of late, the Avs playoff hopes are all but over. It feels awful to admit it before they're mathematically eliminated, but I'm not hoping much anymore. That being said, I'm still watching, and I'm still pissed off that Marek Svatos is on the fourth line. The fact that he deserves better, though I believe it, can be argued against. But what I think most people can agree is that he's much more useful in a scoring role. His biggest contribution will be his offense, so he should be given the opportunity to score. I know he's been given that opportunity, but later in the year he showed flashes of being able to sustain his production. If you're not going to put him on the top two lines, at least put him with Tyler Arnason again and give him a chance, for these last few games, to show that he can contribute somehow.

The Bruins just lost in the last 20 seconds to the Thrashers. I've heard from a few people that they're not going to fire Dave Lewis. That would be a huge mistake. Even my crazy grandmother knows he's bad, and she's my version of Bill Simmon's mother- if she knows something, clearly it's big news. Except that she's also completely insane. One time, her electricity bill was about $5 higher than she thought it should be, and, assuming the man who lives beneath her was stealing it, unplugged every appliance in her apartment to catch him. That woman knows Dave Lewis isn't doing his job. He should take a page from MacT. I cringed reading what he made the guys do. That means he's doing his job.

Unrelated to hockey, the Phoenix FSN station, which broadcast the Avs game the other night, had commercials running for The Eric Byrnes Show, which nearly gave me seizures. Outside of anyone on the Yankees, he's my least favorite baseball player. The animosity stems back to the 2003 ALDS against the A's, and has in no way dimimshed since then. I loathe Eric Byrnes maybe as much as Daniel Briere, though Eric Byrnes is actually an asshole. I can't believe that people like the guy.

Edit: Wicked Bruins Fan has a nice Dave-Lewis bashing post up. Hating him is my new favorite hobby, though I'm afraid it could get out of hand. Oh well. Obsession is a young man's game, eh?

Joe Sakic...yee

2007-03-28T18:37:00.000-04:00

It's been a few days between posts, but for good reason. I had figured my throat hurt because I was "cheering so loud for the hopeless Bruins that my voice [was] still partly gone". Turns out I was about to become deathly ill. I tried to write a post after the first Avs game against Vancouver, but all I managed before I passed out on the couch was "Joe Sakic...yee." After that it just seemed smarter to wait.

But I'm better now; watching the New Jersey-Buffalo game, snacking on perfectly burnt popcorn, wondering what the mathematical chance is that not one of my three teams would make the playoffs (about 10% by my probably inaccurate calculations). I'm not saying the Avs are out of it. If they sweep the head-to-head games, they'll only be 3 points back. And if Calgary loses just two more games than the Avs do in their other games, then the Avs will be in. So I'm not saying they're out- I'm just saying that it's a lot of "ifs". The most important factor in them making the playoffs, in my mind, was their ability to match Calgary's record against other teams for the remaining games. Not so hard- that is, before they failed to beat the Oilers and the Flames went 4-0. They needed to match the Flames' 8 points; instead, the Avs only got 5 themselves and dropped back 3 more. It's not impossible, but it's worse than we expected. The Avs announcers couldn't even hide this, having the following exchange.
Guy One (I don't know who said what): So if the Avs lose this, they'll be seven points back. What did we...uh...what had we hoped for before?
Guy Two: (after a long pause) I think we were looking for four.
Guy One: Right, so...we're not quite there.
Awkward, disappointed, disenchanted- what happened to my stress-free, winning Avs? Their confidence is diminishing (though I still have faith that Joe Sakic can stop that) and the first Oilers' game was the last time a point came easy. I'm not criticizing their win over Vancouver, mainly because I still have clawmarks in my arm. During the action I spent my time hugging my legs to my chest, bug-eyed and muttering anxiously. Once a commercial came, I would relax a little, realize that the new tissue box was half gone, wonder if the last powerplay made my temperature go up and try not to fall asleep. That was a huge, very appreciated win. But the second game was a different story. Even in my worst state I would have questioned why Quenneville valued defense over offense against the Canucks, matching Sakic's line with the Sedins'. In the first game, he seemed to want the Stastny-Hejduk lovefest line out against them, which didn't work in stopping them at all. But the Avs won, because the Avs have the ability to win higher-scoring games. Those are the kind of games that they want to create. Instead of looking at the Canucks as 3rd in GA and feeling the need to match them defensively, why not play to your strength and exploit their 23rd-ranked offense? Even scoring two goals would have won the second game. They're a one-dimensional team. Granted, they're damn good at that dimension, but you don't want to play into it. Quenneville should have let Sakic and his line, which had been the hot scoring line, run free, rather than chaining them to defense and hoping that the Stastny-Hejduk lovefest would, in fact, be a lovefest again. The lovefest never happened, the Avs never scored, and, as defensively fantastic as Wojtek Wolski was, they lost.

Still, I have confidence in Quenneville, and faith that he'll let the Avs score some goals and be the Avs again. I don't know why I trust him, but I do. It's probably because he just looks so much like a coach.The gray hair, complete-face frown, and phenomenal moustache- he pulls off the Grumpy Old Coach look flawlessly. One can trust Grumpy Old Coach. He'll never let a player slip through the cracks effort-wise. He'll never get flustered by new situations. He'll give Paul Stastny extra ice time because he uses a wooden stick like they used to do "back in the day". He's ornery.

Craig MacTavish, on the other hand, takes a different angle. He's Intellectual Coach.Well-managed hair, brow often furrowed in thought, and of course classy glasses are more his game. He's put thought into his plan and will outsmart the other guy for sure. True? Doesn't matter. Those are the glasses of a competent man.

Yeah, it's shallow, but let's look at the flip side.
He pulls off no angles- bizarre Hitler moustache, bad glasses, not properly grumpy, not convincingly intellectual. Nothing. He is at best a figment of my imagination, and at worst someone who really looks that ridiculous. You'd think this wouldn't actually matter, until you hear someone question his ability and in the same breath say he looks like a cartoon character. It's strange, stupid, and somewhat merited. He's a cartoon character that hasn't done any good here. He's probably done more harm. He's like a negative coach.

So no matter how many times NESN and the rest mention that the Bruins had a hard "no puck" practice, I'm not buying into Lewis. Just like no matter how the B's fare against Ottawa (win), I'd still rather watch the Oilers (loss), and no matter how much I hate the Bruins I'll still go watch them play. I'm going tomorrow with Paula to my aunt and uncle's season ticket seats, which have a great view of the game itself. I ran into them at the last game. Or rather, they saw me decided it would be hilarious to come up behind me as I was walking and whisper in my ear "Baby, you are so hot" to freak me out. My family is completely insane. Oh well, they've got good seats for watching Sidney Crosby. Gotta love them.

Andrew Ference to Coach Bruins Next Year

2007-03-24T13:20:00.000-04:00

Wicked Bruins Fan highlighted a Boston Herald article in which Andrew Ference suggests what we've all been thinking lately- Dave Lewis isn't coaching the Bruins right. This is a team that has all of the right components. Their defense and offense is talented and capable. Their goaltender isn't considered a star, but he's been the only good thing this year. Yet they suck, and in all the ways that leave the coach accountable. The Bruins have fallen apart in the third period, giving up leads and losing games too many times for it to be a coincidence. Lewis is supposed to be a defense-first coach (Brad Boyes even complained, once traded, that he had been held back by Lewis's coaching style), but the Bruins are one of the worst defensive teams in the league. They are 28th in the league in goals against, only ahead of Washington and Philadelphia. Tim Thomas can't be blamed for this. The B's have averaged 34 shots against per game, which is worse than both Washington and Philadelphia. Thomas is 34th in GAA, 21st in SV%, and 5th in total saves, and 3rd in saves/60 minutes. Clearly not superstar numbers, but anyone who watched Thomas this year
he's been the biggest victim of the Bruins' awful defensive play. Lewis' system doesn't work. I went to the painful Montreal game with Paula. Between dodging beer cups, cheering so loud for the hopeless Bruins that my voice is still partly gone, and trying to figure out if the section of Habs fans behind us was chanting in English or French, we noticed that the Bruins suck. More specifically, Paula pointed out, that they were poorly coached. She said that their dump-and-chase-only style of play was "like high school hockey" and that Lewis needed to be harder on them, which is the point Ference makes. He says that some players aren't working their hardest, and suggests that:

“Sometimes it takes calling people on it. . . . If it’s just leading by example, that’s great. But sometimes it takes a little harsher criticism and some brutal honesty.”

Nothing gives me less confidence in a coach than when a player says they aren't brutal enough. I would rather have players complain that the coach is a crazed Nazi who threatens their families when they don't play well than one that's too lax. If Lewis is a coach who stifles players' offensive abilities without holding them accountable so as to make a team captained by Zdeno Chara the 28th-best defensive team in the NHL, why is he still here? I don't know who would replace him, but I think at this point anyone might be better, though my mom's completely serious suggestion of Andy Brickley might not be the answer.

In other news, Tom Gilbert has given me a good idea about how to deal with this Oilers' season. Of all the teams to break their losing streak against, it had to be the Avs. I only caught part of the game, but of course it was the part in the second period where the Oilers tied up the score. The Avs got a point out of the game, but the knowledge that they only got a point against the Oilers might be more damaging to their psyche than anything else. I'm praying that they can recover from this without any further damage, and also for a Chicago win tomorrow, though I don't know if I see that happening when Calgary just beat Detroit and Nashville. There's nothing to do but wait and see at this point. The good news is that Marek Svatos scored (and might finally get put back with Arnason, which I'm convinced will help) and that the Avs still have Joe Sakic. With him there I give them the benefit of the doubt, but the outcome of tomorrow night's game against Vancouver is huge. Win, we're still in it. Lose...well, even Joe might have trouble helping them if they lose.

Pregaming and "Not Mentioning" the Playoff Push: Avs vs Oilers

2007-03-21T08:21:00.000-04:00

To say that the Avs should win this game is an understatement. The Oilers are still missing Stoll, Moreau, Reasoner, Hemsky, Hejda, Gilbert, Roy, and Tjarnqvist. Steve Staios is out for the remainder of the season with a knee injury that's probably needed repair since it first happened in November. The only non-rookies on the blueline are Jason Smith and (technically) Matt Greene. It's barely even worth saying that this "winless streak" has happened for a reason. It's not bad luck. It's not something they're going to shake off and move on from. The Oilers aren't good enough, especially on defense. With scoring like the Avs have, of course they should win this game. It would be embarrassing if they didn't.

Even more than they should win this game, they have to win this game. It's almost stupid to look at the Oilers as a legitimate threat to spoil this for the Avs, but I've watched the Bruins struggle against Philadelphia enough to not dismiss anyone. Those games were the most soul-crushing, as they all but killed my belief in the B's. The Avs have to be able to win "easy" games like this, because if they don't, how are we supposed to believe that they can win any of their remaining games against legitimate teams? Or make the playoffs?

The Avs can't falter. They have ten games left. Calgary has nine. Looking at these games, there are three things the Avs have to do to make the playoffs:

Beat bad teams (Edmonton and Phoenix).
Fare at least as well as the Flames against good teams (Vancouver, Minnesota, Nashville).
Get enough points in their two head-to-head games against the Flames ("enough" depends on the other results).

One should be a given. If either team loses games they should win, it's going to put them in a tough position. The Avs, for instance, have one more easy game than the Flames- they play the Oilers twice and Phoenix once, while Calgary plays the Oilers and Chicago once each. If all else is equal and they win all of their easy games, the Avs can make up the remaining four points by sweeping the head-to-head games. If they lose even one of the easy games, they'll be in a tough position. Likewise, if they Flames lose one of those games (a little help here, Oilers?) then the Avs can overtake them with a sweep.

This is all going on the condition that the other games yield equal results, which most likely won't happen. The Avs play Vancouver three times, Minnesota, and Nashville. The Flames play Vancouver, Minnesota twice, Nashville, and San Jose. These are pretty even schedules, though Colorado has fared better against their opponents (8-5-2) than Calgary has (5-9-3). In fairness, Calgary has had the most success (3-1-2) against Minnesota, who they play twice, and the Avs haven't exactly dominated Vancouver, outscoring them 15-12 and posting a 3-2 record in five games. All in all, I'm not too concerned with the past, because it doesn't really matter if the Avs beat Nashville in November if they can't beat them now. They have an equal number of games against good teams, and as far as I'm concerned an equal opportunity to get points. The outcome of these games might be the most important factor of the three. Sure, the head-to-head games will affect the outcome, but they'll be meaningless if one team falls off a cliff and the other excels. There are four points that can change hands there, while any number of things can come of the games remaining against other teams.

So what's going to happen? I have no idea. None. I've looked everywhere and I can't figure out, logically, what should happen. I've looked at Avs stats, Flames stats, stats of all the teams they have to play, stats of the Avs and Flames vs these teams, stats of the Avs vs [team] vs the Flames vs [team]...still nothing. Honestly, it's been torturing me. The only edge I can find is that the Avs are playing well, have a game in hand, have a better record this season against these opponents, and are captained by a god. The Flames, though, are still six points up, starting Kipper, and don't have my luck going against them. I still get the sinking feeling that, now that I've written all this after swearing not to mention anything, and now that everyone's all excited, the Avs are going to lose to Phoenix or the Oilers, the Flames will go on a winning streak, and this will all be for nothing. But I have a little more faith in them than that. They're not the goddamn Bruins. They can reinforce that by beating the Oilers tonight.

Bright and Shiny

2007-03-19T08:05:00.000-04:00

I'm not going to mention the playoffs. I'm not going to say a word about the Avs and how they're only 4 points back now. I'm going to avoid talking about the two games left against the Flames, and, for that matter, two games left against the Oilers when the Flames only have one. I'm just not going to mention anything, because as soon as I acknowledge all of this, there will be some sort of terrible accident that wipes out almost the whole team and forces them to start Mark Rycroft, Ossi Vaananen, Toby Petersen, and two kids from juniors. No, what am I talking about? I kind of like Ossi Vaananen. He'd be killed off for sure.

The Avs continue to be a bright light in a bleak NHL. They're the goal scorers, the streak getters, the hangover curers, and the little Slovakian puck stoppers. What else is there? The Oilers finally got a point, but that's a bad thing at this point. The Bruins nearly caused me to crash my car Saturday when my friend's boyfriend called to bitch about the fact that they were losing 6-0 in the second period (the last time I had checked the score it was 1-0). Of course I'm going to be thankful that the Avs aren't trying to kill me.

For anyone who missed the game last night, it was insane; one of those games in which you have no idea what's going on or what will happen next. Both teams are lethal offensively, so to counter that both teams played great defensively. The Sharks refused the Avs any control of the puck in their zone when they were up, and used their awesome breakout to quickly transition the other way. The Avs forwards backchecked like hell, and because of it the Sharks had little time to make anything happen. Unlike Nabokov, who kept the Sharks in the game, Peter Budaj didn't play his best, but it was good enough to get the OT win. J-M Liles looked like himself for the first time since his injury. Milan Hejduk has solidified my belief that he can score from anywhere in the offensive zone with his OT goal. Tyler Arnason decided to play hockey tonight. I correctly predicted that Andrew Brunette would score, which is very likely the first time I've correctly predicted a goal scorer all year. This is all great. The best thing, though?

Marek Svatos is back!...again. Yes, before he was just on a vacation from his usual level of play, while this time he was injured, but he was back in both senses tonight. I missed his return in the game before this, but I imagine it wasn't impressive as he appeared to play with the fourth line and started there tonight. I couldn't understand why they didn't put him with Arnason again, to the point where I came up with the idea for a program where fans can text the coach, and if their idea is good then it actually gets through. This was a serious idea. That's how flustered I was, and conversely that's how ecstatic I was when they finally did put Marek with Arnason. Marek had an absolutely terrifying game, and I mean that in every way possible. He was terrifying to the other team, as he was working as hard as a person can work, forcing turnovers, and creating chances. He was terrifying to his team as he was also turning the puck over himself and had a few scary moments defensively. He was personally scaring the crap out of me because he was speeding around, throwing checks, and playing recklessly, all of which are dangerous. I didn't want him to get hurt again, as he was finally playing like himself. The Altitude announcer even pointed it out, saying, "This is the Marek Svatos that we know- he's so determined and tenacious in the offensive zone." More than that, he was dynamic. When he was on the ice, you knew, and when he had the puck exciting things happened (good or bad). That's Marek Svatos; that's why he's one of my favorite players. If he's really back this time (and I think this is actually the third or fourth time I've said he's back this year), it doesn't matter about the playoffs. Next year we'll be fine.

You know that's a lie, but maybe it'll bring them good luck. God, I need to shake this superstitious complex I have. Getting out of Boston will help. Having a hockey team win something will kill it for sure. But I'm not saying anything about the playoffs.

I'm for the Bruins; but then, what do I know? I'm a bear. I suck the heads off of fish!

2007-03-17T13:13:00.000-04:00

Uh...I was kind of right. Kind of. Sorry, I'm struggling to grasp this. Usually whatever I say will be important ends up being insignificant and whoever I say will play well then gets eaten by the zamboni. But the Bruins game went roughly as I expected, besides the fact that I said the Caps would win, which is meaningless because I'll always bet against the Bruins. Savvy (3 assists) and Patrice (goal and an assist) both played very well. Tim Thomas survived again, and made 31 saves to boot. The Bruins powerplay completely dominated the Caps, scoring all three goals with the man advantage (one was a 5-3). ChariWard was massively incompetent and Ovechkin embarrassed them plenty of times. I was surprised at how good he is. He's tenacious, extremely fast, tough, has good vision, and wants the puck more than anyone else on the ice. I was at a game against the Caps in November, and remember being very unimpressed with Ovechkin. I couldn't even tell when he was on the ice. Curious, I went back and checked to see who they had matched up against him then. They had Axelsson healthy, which makes a difference, but that was also during the timespan when they had Andrew Alberts paired up with Chara, and those two were out with Ovechkin on every shift. This got me thinking- why didn't they have Alberts facing Ovechkin a little more? The reason Chara kept getting brutally owned was because Alex would fly by him to the outside or catch the big guy in transition. Despite being 6-4, Alberts is a very good skater with pretty quick feet. I'm not saying he could beat Ovechkin in a foot race, but I doubt he'd look as bad against him as Chara did. I've also gotten over the weird dynamics between Alberts and Ference on the ice, because I realized it makes sense to send Ference flying around to get the puck and make breakout passes while Alberts stands in front of the net and punishes people. Yes, I'm rationalizing because I like Alberts. But it does make sense.

There were two things I thought about mentioning in my pregame, but decided against because I figured they'd be irrelevant. The first was that Kolzig has the ability to play fantastic, and that the Bruins have bad enough luck to catch him on a good day. Since he was returning from injury, I counted this out, but shouldn't have. He single-handedly fought off the Bruins through the first two periods, letting in the first goal with a minute and a half left in the second. Overall, he only allowed powerplay goals. The other thing was that if the Bruins could only get to OT, they'd probably win. While both teams had a 4-2 record in OT, the Bruins were 8-3 in shootouts while the Caps were 1-10. Again I figured it wasn't worth mentioning, but the game did end up going into a shooutout, and the Bruins won thanks to goals from Patrice and Phil Kessel. Kessel hasn't produced much in the last few games, but he's been great and helped get Savvy going again. I've always believed that energy is contagious, and because of this putting Kessel with Savvy is genius. He flies around, forechecks hard, and creates turnovers. Every time he works hard and makes something happen, you can see Savvy and Kobasew pick it up as well. Their line has been electric lately, and I credit Kessel with that.

The Oilers surprised me, only losing 2-1 to Minnesota, though I suspect it had more to do with Minnesota not playing well than the Oilers being legitimate. They hustled, of course, but they really just don't have NHL players. Their only goal scorer was Robert Nilsson, called up due to "emergency conditions". I'm pretty sure that once everyone, or most everyone, gets healthy again, then they'll break the losing streak against some crappy team. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) that won't be for a while. I've gotten over it. At first I was horrified by the losing, but now my expectations are so low that I'm pleased whenever they get a shot, which really makes the games more enjoyable. Screw standards. I can't afford those when a 21-year-old Czech kid is leading the team in ice time (no offense, Laddy).

Quick notes

The Bruins just finished playing ex-B Milan Jurcina, and now they move onto New York where they play ex-B Michael Nylander. Nylander was one of those rare players that came into Boston and played above our expectations. He was basically the Bruins' version of Orlando Cabrera, except that the Bruins didn't win. That's the Bruins' version of everything. I'm giving this game to the Rangers.
The one encouraging thing I would look at in the Bruins' play last game, if I were still concerned with the playoffs, would be that they sucked for the first two periods, to the point where you could hear the crowd grumble and Andy Brickley had to admit, "The natives are getting a little restless here as they're a bit disappointed...well, no, not a bit. A lot disappointed in the way things are going so far." Everyone expected them to continue to suck, but they came back out and tied the score before two minutes had elapsed in the third. They usually don't do that.
The Oilers play the Blue tonight. I find that the more I watch, the more I'm rooting for them in the "race to the bottom", too. I would have a hard time with doing that if I recognized any players on the ice, but without half the roster (especially Horc) it's pretty easy. Still, maybe they could score a few goals to make themselves feel better? Or make me feel better? Or because that's the objective in hockey? Anyway, this game goes to the Blues.
The Avs play Phoenix tonight. Thank god. Besides the Bruins and Oilers, I'm wicked stressed out about college stuff. I got a couple of acceptances back from schools, but none of my top choices yet. I've never been so nervous in my life. If there's one thing that will always calm me down and make me happy, it's Joe Sakic. The rest of the Avs are just a nice little bonus (though I'd love to have Marek and Karlis back, as they make me happy, too). What the hell- I'm saying the Avs will win.
Despite rocking my green shirt, green rings, green bracelets, green nano, green coffee mug, and green purse, it's not the most festive of days because of the snow that randomly hit. Two days ago I was wearing a t-shirt; this morning I was shoveling, and now there's too much snow to run outside so I'm forced to go to the gym (which I hate). Bluh.
On another completely irrelevant note, I saw "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" last night and loved it. It was ridiculous in the most entertaining way, sort of like "The Boondock Saints". Except where "The Boondock Saints" was serious, "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" was hilarious. I forgot how much I loved watching movies- I used to do it a lot more. Anyway, I highly recommend it.

Pregaming: B's vs Caps

2007-03-15T16:40:00.000-04:00

The Bruins should beat the Capitals tonight, but this in no way means they will. There seems to be almost no correlation between how good their opponent is and how well they fare. It's not that they always lose to bad teams and always beat good teams, because that would be a pattern. The Bruins strive to be an enigma, and they succeed wildly. They just don't make sense.

But, though it gives me a horrible feeling to say it, they really, really should beat the Capitals, for a number of reasons, such as...

Both Patrice and Savvy are playing well. Especially in Savvy's case, the team only plays well when they do. They tend to take turns being good, so to have them both going at once is a huge boost for the offense. They're both players who create success for their linemates, meaning even without Glen Murray the Bruins can have two solid lines.
Tim Thomas hasn't died off yet, despite our defense's best efforts.
Speaking of the de, the Alberts/Ference tandem has played well. They have their limitations, but they've been the closest thing to consistent on the Boston blue line. Also, Wideman doesn't suck. All positive for the B's.
As mediocre as the Bruins have played recently, the Caps have played much worse. They're on an 8-game losing streak. That's Oilers-bad.
The Caps are better than LA on the road. That's it. Even the Flames have a better road record.
The Bruins have an overall special teams advantage. Their 11th-ranked powerplay should be able to score on the Caps' 21st-ranked kill, and their 16th-ranked kill should be able to stop the Caps' 20th-ranked powerplay.
The Caps are one of three teams who are actually worse defensively than the Bruins.
It's Kolzig's first game since returning from a knee injury.

Of course, there are always reasons why the Bruins can lose, too.

They'll send out Chara and Ward to fend off Alex Ovechkin, and that won't work. Those two have been awful lately. Paula has started calling them "ChariWard" (like the pokemon thing named "Charizard") as they are "a huge firebreathing dragon of failure".
PJ Axelsson won't be there to help them out on defense as his wrist is broken.
Even though the Bruins allow fewer goals, the two teams have almost identical shots for/against numbers. This can be a good thing if the B's decide to tip the scale in their favor (they're 14-6-2 when outshooting their opponents) but there's no reason to think that they'll do that. They've been outshot twice as many times as they themselves have outshot their opponent.

So basically, they have a lot working to their advantage, but one very important thing working against them: they're the Bruins. I'm giving this one to the Caps.

Way out west, it's a different story. There's not really a good reason that the Oilers should beat the Wild. Not only do the Oilers have their own 8-game losing streak, but Minnesota has gone 5-1-2 in their last 8. Not only are the Oilers almost completely depleted of players who have all four limbs working, but Minnesota is only missing Wes Walz. Not only have nearly all the Oilers players struggled recently, but the right players are getting hot for Minnesota. I see almost no reason to even watch the game. I'm going to, of course, but there's no good reason.

Oh well. St. Patrick's Day is in two days, meaning I'll forget all of this very soon. Liz wants me to go to Southie with her to celebrate, but I don't want to die, so I'm staying in Winchester with Eliza. This holiday was made for us two. I mean, Eliza Mac and Katie O'D, the Bostonians who can put on a wicked Irish accent? Psh. We own St. Paddy's Day, though I'm guessing that we'll be sick of the accents before the day is done. Again, oh well.

Stanley's Cup

2007-03-11T22:33:00.000-04:00

It's really bad that I keep getting flashbacks to this whenever I watch the Oilers play. Even tonight, when they only lost 3-0 (WITH an empty netter), I still looked at the Sharks and their fans cheering and thought, "Come on, guys. You're playing against peewees here."

Since I've Been Loving You

2007-03-10T15:25:00.001-05:00

Going into today's game against the Flyers, the Bruins were 6 points out of a playoff spot, with 2 games in hand on Carolina. This was a more desperate situation than they've been in lately, even more so because they're playing Detroit tomorrow afternoon. Going by the numbers, it would have been reasonable to say that if they Bruins didn't win this game, they'd have a tough time making the playoffs. I didn't go by the numbers, but before the game I told myself that if they didn't beat the Flyers outright today, I would have to stop believing that they have a chance of making the playoffs. It wasn't because getting one or no points makes the playoffs impossible, but more because if they can't beat Philadelphia when they're in dire need of the points, there's nothing to make me think that they can win enough to catch any current playoff team. They had to win this game to keep my faith.

And they didn't. The Bruins lost to the Flyers, and not even in overtime. Moreover, they got beaten by the Flyers. They sucked. Sure, there were some positives. Patrice was noticeable on a few plays after being invisible since he came back from injury. Wideman wasn't useless for the whole game and actually scored a goal. Jeremy Reich absolutely clobbered Darren Reid in their fight. Savvy decided to care again and, having a little chemistry with Kessel and Bochenski, played a good game. But this isn't the beginning of the year anymore, and it's not good enough to have some positive things going on if we're still losing to the Flyers in regulation. Overall, they didn't play well enough to win when they really needed to. Most of the Bruins were useless today, and even those that were good at times were useless more often than not. Outside of the Savvy-Kessel-Bochenski line, the forwards got very little going offensively. The de couldn't keep anyone in check on the other end of the ice, except maybe Ference and Alberts, who still weren't anywhere near perfect. Chara and Ward are supposed to be our shut-down line, but they were brutal. For a good example of how this game went, watch Mike Richards' game winning goal. Chara skated the puck out from behind our net and, with two Flyers nearby, lost an edge and went crashing down to the ice. Dmitry Afanasenkov came up with the puck and skated in on Ward with Richards. In a 2-1 close to the net, Ward did exactly what he shouldn't have done- he left his feet. Afanasenkov took an extra stride or two and simply passed around Ward's helpless body to Richards, who took a whack at it and forced Joey MacDonald to make a great save. But Bochenski (putting in a good effort to get back on such short notice) accidentally knocked the puck in the net, putting the Flyers up for good. At this point I had to leave the room to watch the game alone, after muttering things like "Ward never sucked this much for Carolina" and "If they lose this game I'm going to start killing people". Keep in mind this was before the Bruins gave up a shorthanded goal to Scottie Upshall. You don't want to know what kind of things I said after that.

After the shortie, NESN went to commercial saying, "...as Scottie Upshall tries to stick a dagger in their hearts." I thought, after I finished twitching, that it was a good analogy. Upshall metaphorically stabbed us, and for the rest of the game we were metaphorically bleeding to death. This is what it feels like to be a Bruins fan. Actually, it's also a good representation of what it feels like to be an Oilers fan right now, except that the Bruins keep dragging me back in and refusing to let me die. With the Oilers right now we're just waiting for the end to come. At least with the Avs I'm still in a good place. With the current winning streak, everyone's suddenly speculating about them making the playoffs, but I stubbornly refuse to. I'm happy right now. They're winning and playing well and I'm enjoying every second of it (except when it was against the Bruins). I don't want to start stressing out and counting points and filling up pieces of paper with reasons why they might possibly maybe make the playoffs if everyone else starts to suck. Come on; they're 8 points back of Calgary and have played one more game. I'm not being pessimistic when I say that it's a tough hill to climb. The Oilers might not win another game this year and the Bruins are trying to kill me. Is it too much to ask for a stress-freeteam that actually wins games? They score goals, which I've already explained makes me happy. On one end, they have Joe Sakic, who is maybe as close to perfect as they come. On the other end, they've got a great group of young talent coming along, from the rookie tandem of Paul Stastny and Wojtek Wolski to the slightly older Marek Svatos (humor me- he'll return) and J-M Liles. The B's and Oilers are going to make me lose my worried mind. The Avs I thank for keeping me sane.

Quick notes

In addition to being stabbed in the heart and slowly bleeding to death, being an Oilers fan is apparently also like watching the innards being squeezed out of a live caterpillar. This fanbase needs Prozac.
Paula came with Liz and I to the Bruins/Avs game and sat with us in one of the few extra seats (front row- how pathetic). I pointed out Milan Hejduk and told her that he was the one I'd had the dream about. Her, Liz, and the woman next to them agreed that he actually was kinda cute, which freaked me out.
I missed the Oilers game last night because I was out and "didn't care". I still checked the score on my phone until it got to be 4-0 Anaheim. Then I did stop. I don't know if there's a point where I'll stop watching the games. Maybe when they have to forfeit because the only defensemen left are Jason Smith and Laddy Smid? The de situation reminds me of the episode of "Pete and Pete" when the older Pete joins the wrestling team and is forced to actually wrestle when every other person on the team is killed off. I have no idea how I remember that.
While giving a presentation on Dante's Inferno to my English class, I accidentally pronounced the name "Simon Magus" like "Seemon Magus". Eliza asked if I had done it to sound like "semen" and make Skinder feel awkward, but I told her I had actually been thinking of Simon Gagne. She seemed disappointed, but not surprised.
When at the Avs game with her and Liz, we each got the attention of a different person. Liz waved wildly at Petr Tenkrat while he was stretching, and got him to keep looking over and smiling amusedly. Paula (according to her) made eye contact with Zdeno Chara, whom she has dreams about. She can't figure out why; he's her Milan Hejduk. I got the attention of the Bruins mascot Blades, who is, outside of Daniel Briere, my sworn enemy. As he walked by I took a picture, and he started pointing and waving at me, giving me a mild panic attack. Due to him and Wally the Green Monster, I just really hate mascots.

Would you want that thing waving at you?

Update: The Bruins beat Detroit. I was asleep for the first two periods, but according to NBC, they played with a lot of desperation. From what I saw and read, Patrice was finally on today, getting a goal and an assist. Savvy still played with some fire, but today it paid off, getting him 3 assists. Tim Thomas was again fantastic, stopping 35 of 38 shots. I still don't care. My faith in them was killed yesterday. Goddamn Bruins.

Pregaming: Avs at B's

2007-03-06T14:17:00.000-05:00

This game makes me nervous, and not just because I'm afraid I'll pass out when I see Joe Sakic in person. If the Bruins win this game, they'll move into 10th place in the East- 2 points behind Carolina, with two games in hand. If the lose, they idle at 12th, suddenly behind both Toronto and the Rangers with no games in hand. They have a good shot at catching Montreal and Carolina, but they absolutely have to keep ahead of the Leafs and Rangers. That's why this game makes me nervous- and that's why yesterday I looked up every possible statistic related to the game instead of, say, doing my homework, or even going to the last half of the school day.

Through my exhaustive research (which made me look "wicked burned out" according to a few people), I found some interesting things that could come into play tonight. Firstly, there's a fair amount of evidence to show that the Bruins have played much better over the past two games than they did through their 4-game winning streak. I see the Bruins' recent play in three sections- the four game winning streak, then the three game losing streak, and finally the past two games (another winning streak, you could say). The goals during these three stretches go:
Goals for-Goals against
Winning Streak1: 21-8 (AVG 5.3-2.0 per game)
Losing Streak: 7-14 (AVG 2.3-4.7 per game)
Winning Streak2: 7-2 (AVG 3.5-1.0 per game)
The numbers make sense. If there's any disparity between the two winning streaks, it's style of play. It looks like the Bruins focused more on offense during the first, and defense during the second. But looking at shots seems to prove this wrong.
Shots for/Shots against
Winning Streak1: 92-128 (AVG 23-32 per game)
Losing Streak: 88-127 (AVG 29-42 per game)
Winning Streak2: 66-59 (AVG 33-30 per game)
They were outshot during their first winning streak in all games but Buffalo. So if they were awful defensively, not generating more shots than the other team, and bad on the powerplay (11.8%), how in god's name did they win? The answer lies somewhere in between opportunistic scoring and Tim Thomas' .945 SV%. It's easy to say that it's entirely Thomas' doing, especially when you see that the losing streak started in a game that he was pulled from, but it can't be entirely. Even with that game, he posted a .938 SV% during the losing streak. The real problem was that the Bruins got even worse defensively and stopped being able to pull goals out of thin air. When they played the Flyers during the winning streak, they scored 6 goals on 18 shots for the win, despite letting up 33 shots against. When they played them during the losing streak, they scored 3 goals on 37 shots and let up 55 against for the OT loss. The Bruins have corrected both problems. They may not be scoring 5 goals a game, but they're also not letting up a mind-boggling amount of shots and expecting Tim Thomas to hold the fort. That's what real teams do. How exciting!
E had a line about Thomas in her last post that absolutely killed me.

Also, even though he murderized us tonight, I kind of like Thomas for his sheer stubborn refusal to look even the least bit athletic. It’s like the Bruins decided to put a big stuffed panda bear in goal.

So true, but I guess that's just another reason why I love the guy.

Even though the Bruins are getting good offense, great goaltending, and acceptable defense, and they're hungrier for the points, and they're on home ice, there's still one thing that could hurt them: the Avs powerplay. If I were looking strictly at the numbers, I'd say that the Bruins have an advantage in the special teams department. While their mediocre penalty kill might struggle with the Avs 4th-ranked powerplay, they have a good powerplay themselves that should take complete advantage of the Avs useless killing squad, which is even worse without Karlis Skrastins. But, having watched the Avs all year, I'm not looking strictly at the numbers. Their powerplay has bailed them out of a lot of games this year and always seems to be able to get them a goal when they most need it. This doesn't bode well for the Bruins, who, led by their fearless captain Zdeno Chara, take the dumbest penalties at the worst times. If they take too many penalties this game, they might end up losing to a team that they should and need to beat. That being said, the Avs penalty kill has bad timing to the point that it almost cancels out the good timing of their powerplay. So pretty much everything is saying that the Bruins are going to win.

Prediction: Avs. I'm always wrong. Besides, this makes it a win-win situation. If the Bruins win, they get the points they need and will move that much closer to the playoffs. If the Avs win, I'm right for once and will ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach that I get when I look at the Eastern Conference standings. Yay insurance!

It's Not Bad, It Just Looks Good

2007-03-04T13:35:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I needed a mental health day, so I decided to take a day off from hockey and spend time with my friends. With everything the way it's been lately, this was exactly what I needed. We went to the mall, fooling around for a bit with the iPhoto in the Apple store.

We were on the same page with the "blinded by the light" picture...

...but had some unfortunate miscommunication on the "product placement" one.

Then went to my house with a few more people to watch movies and relax. When one was over my friend was flipping through the stations and I noticed that the Bruins game was still on. Unable to keep my pledge of a no-hockey day, I told her that I "just needed to quickly check the score". She begrudgingly flipped to NESN, noting that I sounded like a crack addict looking for a fix. Of course when I saw that the Bruins were beating the Canadiens 2-1 with 5 minutes left in the third, I admitted to my addiction and made them watch the end of the game. When Murray scored again to make it 3-1, I started raving that I couldn't believe the Bruins were doing this to me, and that they couldn't just let me give up on them, and that if they had only lost this game, I would be able to let go, but now I was stuck with them, and so on so forth. Good god, do my friends hate hockey. After they left I turned to the Oilers game, watching them lose then Lowe and Horcoff being interviewed on After Hours. I'm pretty sure someone from the Oilers was holding a gun to Horc's back throughout the interview, making sure he didn't say anything that could be perceived as vaguely negative about the trade. So much for a mental health day.
Edit: Credit to The Battle of Alberta for going into detail about the After Hours interviews. I couldn't manage to myself.

The Avs are on now, beating Detroit 2-1 going into the 3rd. It's a fun game to watch, especially on a Sunday afternoon when I woke up 20 minutes before gametime. The Avs are playing well, though with strange line combinations. Instead of having Arnason centering Lappy and McLean like they used to, they have Brad Richardson on that wing, with Mclean playing on the Stastny-Hejduk line. I would have switched the two, but that's why I'm not an NHL coach. Both lines have scored (Arnason and Hejduk). I'm very sentimental in my choice of linemates, meaning I'm usually wrong.

Tonight the Bruins are playing the defensively-minded, 2nd-ranked Devils. That game won't be so much fun. My prediction: The Bruins score twice early (Patrice, then someone normally unassuming on a feed from Savard). They completely own the first period, causing everyone to talk about the playoffs. They get bombarded in the second period to the point that it's a shock they're still winning and let up a late goal. New Jersey scores an early third-period goal; I dismiss the Bruins as bums. They come back and score again, dragging me back into it, then lose the game in the last 5 minutes. I'm found several hours later in the trunk of my car, curled in a ball and muttering to myself about Brad Boyes. That's a best-case scenario.

Quick notes

I've decided to stay insanely positive with the Oilers and focus on the young guys for the rest of the season. Everyone else is looking at the negatives, and I don't think that's a bad thing. It needs to be examined, but just not by me, lest you want me to wind up in the car muttering about Long Island.
One of the movies my seriously strange friends made me watch was "Alice in Wonderland". They decided that I was Alice, the normal-esque girl who's stuck trying to make sense of people who are completely mad and often drugged. It's a scarily accurate comparison.
Remembering that my parents doubted Dan Spang, a prospect from our town, would ever make the NHL, I looked him up on Hockey's Future. Contrary to what they thought, he seems to have a decent future ahead of him. If he solidifies an NHL position, I could see the Bruins trying to snag him. They love hometown boys, and in addition to growing up 10 miles north of Boston, he went to BU. He's worth following, for me.
NBC has Mark Rycroft miced up, which is exceedingly random, but produced a good clip. Rycroft got cut with a stick and had blood trickling down his face. After complaining to the refs, he skated to the bench and asked the trainer, "Is it really bad?" The trainer took a quick look, then told him, "It's not bad, it just looks good." This is why I love hockey.
Update: The Avs just beat Detroit in overtime. It was a fantastic game and put me in a good mood. And I was about as wrong as a person can be about the lines. The goals were: Arnason, Hejduk, McLean, and Richardson. Sigh.
Last game the Avs announcers said that they were always wrong when predicting whether something would be a goal or not, so they should just always predict in the opposition's favor. It worked. I'm thinking of starting the same thing, because I'm phenomenally wrong about almost everything.
Brodeur has won so many games for New Jersey- he's a goal-stopping machine. And gosh, that Patrik Elias has been durable this year. Go Devils!
Update: The Bruins handily beat the Devils 4-1. I've heard that Dave Lewis informed the players they would be killed off one by one until they played a more defensively responsible game, starting with Stanislav Chistov. You hate to see it come to that, but I guess that's what it takes to win. They were fantastic this game. Have I mentioned that I hate them?

Ouch

2007-03-01T22:11:00.000-05:00

Did this:
"I'm still legitimately terrified that because I've talked about him he's going to get hurt."
cause the injury to Marek Svatos? It's a direct quote from my post on Tuesday, and some pretty damning evidence that I really am a bottomless pit of bad luck. However, the true reason that Marek now has a groin injury is this, uttered right before the above quote:
"The Real Marek Svatos has been around for a few games now and, in the one redeemable event in the past few days, is developing some chemistry with Tyler Arnason."
When it rains, it pours, and right now there's a goddamn storm. All I've done for the past few entries is complain, but that's because there haven't been many redeemable events, and when there have been, they've gotten groin injuries. After a while it's kind of funny in a way.

Talking to Paula, I noted that the Bruins, though sucking, were still only 8 points behind the Canadiens with 4 games in hand. We play each other on Saturday, and with us playing Philadelphia before then and them playing Buffalo, it wasn't far-fetched to think that we could rise to 4 points behind with 4 in hand by the end of the weekend. I convinced myself that this would happen, despite my Bruin senses telling me otherwise. Tonight the only reason the Bruins lost in overtime to the Flyers was because Tim Thomas stopped 48 of 51 shots in regulation. You know a game is ugly when the Flyers get a shorthanded goal and immediately get another quality 2-on-1 chance on the same penalty kill, Savard sucks while Chara scores the game-tying goal, and I fleetingly wonder if we traded Brad Boyes for the Ontarian MAB. In games like these it doesn't make me happy that Tim Thomas plays incredibly- it makes me sad. Why should he stand on his head if his teammates can't stop or score on the Flyers? With the recent trades, the Bruins should at least be able to do the former. They added to their pretty solid core of Chara, Ference, and Alberts with Wideman and Ward. How does a group like that let in 55 shots in one game? If anything it's a little comforting that they did so terribly. That's probably as bad as they can do, and I imagine they'll improve soon. And if Montreal loses...ugh. This team is impossible.

I caught some of the Islanders game against St. Louis. There was an awkward moment when the Islanders announcers kept saying that Smytty was coming onto the ice, but each time another string of people would come out with no Smytty in sight. It was really funny until he finally did come out. I was shocked at how disturbing it was to see him in another uniform and how sad it made me to see him celebrating after Sillinger's goal with people on another team. Still, Smytty made a wonderful play to get Sillinger the goal, and the crowd cheered him wildly when he did something good or even sometimes when he was just on the ice. At least they're excited to have him. I switched away from the game when MAB scored, because it was a little too much to handle. With Brad Boyes playing on the St. Louis side, the whole thing just freaked me out.

Even when they're not winning, the Avs are kind of comforting to watch. I think it's because they score a lot of goals, and a goal under any circumstances is a reason to celebrate. Even if they let in goals just as much as they score them, there have still been 214 reasons to celebrate this season. They're just not a stressful team to watch, at least in relation to the other two. They don't ever give me the feeling that they're one really long, well-timed hot streak away from making the playoffs, but they also don't play so badly that it's painful. When they went down 1-0 tonight and then announced that Marek Svatos was hurt, I considered turning off the TV and pretending that my teams weren't crumbling to pieces (which is big, because usually I force myself to watch games unless I have a legitimate excuse). But they kept playing, drew me back in, and ended up winning 6-1 with a feel-good list of goal scorers. Seasons like this aren't comforting if they come in strings of four or five years, but every so often it's good to have something go a little right when I expected it to crash and burn.

Quick notes

Jeff Woywitka has been a part of a lot of dark moments in Oiler history. They got him for Mike Comrie, gave him up for Chris Pronger, and tonight he played for the Blues in Smytty's first game as an Islander. It's either a really weird coincidence or he's the spawn of Satan. Either way we might want to kill him.
I was happy to see Smid back, so naturally he got run at by Derek Boogaard all night long.
At the end of the Avs game, the announcers were sympathizing with Ian Laperriere, who had an empty net but couldn't settle the puck down. This led to one of them joking, "If he had a gun he would have shot the puck- put it out of its misery right then. 'You're going to stay down!'" Maybe the weirdest thing I've heard someone say during a hockey broadcast.

Smytty

2007-02-27T21:43:00.000-05:00

It's been a tough couple of days, almost to the point where this trade doesn't faze me. It does. I just don't think it really hit me until a second ago. Ryan Smyth was one of the reasons that the Oilers drew me in. He's my favorite player, not just on the Oilers but out of all my teams. For me, one of the worst parts about this trade is that he was partly to blame. With the situation between him and the Oilers the way it was, there wasn't much else to do. I don't know. I hate it. Actually I'm pretty upset now. I just feel bad for people on the team, like a Shawn Horcoff or something, who are going to miss him. I guess this stuff happens a lot but I still feel bad. I'm trying to stay rational. The last trade I blindly hated was Nomar.

The Bruins traded Brad Boyes for Dennis Wideman, and Paul Mara for Aaron Ward. I like the second trade and don't know enough about Wideman to tell on the first one. With two losses in a row they needed something. I was at the game last night with Liz and Paula. We moved down to seats directly next to the Bruins' bench, three rows from the glass. When they fell apart in the third period, Andrew Ference had a look on his face that I'm all too familiar with. He looked like he wanted to single-handedly carry his team to a win and that, if he had anything to say about it, there was no way they were going to lose. He's just one player, though, and no matter what he did they still lost. I appreciated the effort and he's on his way to making me like that trade. At least he's trying.

The Avs traded Brad May for a goaltending prospect. I'm pretty sure May is useless so this is fine. The Real Marek Svatos has been around for a few games now and, in the one redeemable event in the past few days, is developing some chemistry with Tyler Arnason. I'm still legitimately terrified that because I've talked about him he's going to get hurt. You can call it paranoia, but I see the Bruins sucking, Smid getting hurt, and Smytty being sent away as evidence that I really am a death curse.

That English teacher, Skinder, has spent the first couple days of this week trying to make me miserable for no reason. He's an ass to everyone, but he's been targeting me so much lately that even other teachers are wondering what the hell he's doing. At first I didn't know what to do, because I've never had someone treat me like this before, but now I know that I just have to deal. I only have to deal with him for a few more months, then I'm free to get the hell out of that school. He's stuck here. Like it tends to do, hockey reflects life. The Bruins have a shot at making the playoffs, but it's not anywhere near guaranteed. The Avs only have a very dim chance, if any, and the Oilers are officially rebuilding. This isn't a great time, but it's not going to be like this forever. Things are going to pick up for all of my teams- maybe not this year, but at some point. To enjoy those times I have to suck it up and get through these. We're all going to miss Smytty, but just remember that someday things will be better.

The Tooth Fairy

2007-02-25T13:18:00.000-05:00

My god do I have awful luck. You'd think I'd be smart about it now, but of course I'm not. Over the past 10 days or so, my outlook on the Bruins has morphed from resigned and depressed to hopeful and optimistic. They've gone from winning to losing. Let's look at the evidence.
February 16: "Things with the Bruins have gotten so bad that I don't even know what they're attempting to do anymore." Next game: 4-3 win over Buffalo
February 19: "Of course the reason that they looked like a legitimate team is because they were playing the Forsberg-less Flyers." Next game: 3-0 win over Toronto
February 20: "I have no idea what they're trying to do to me but I don't like it." Next game: 6-2 win over Tampa Bay
February 24: "Things are looking up for the B's right now. Montreal should drop, the Bruins should get some wins in the next few games, and by the time the two meet on March 3, there could be some shaking up happening in the standings." Next game: 7-2 loss to Florida
It's like fate waited patiently for me to have faith in the Bruins again just so it could crush my heart. Yes, I'm overreacting to one loss. But if you think this isn't the start of a free-fall right out of the playoff race, you clearly don't know the Bruins.

This despondent mood might have something to do with my movie night. There is definitely such a thing as watching too many Ed Norton movies in a row. The guy is intense. Last night Eliza and I watched The Illusionist, 25th Hour, and Red Dragon. We slept for a bit and when we woke up we watched Primal Fear. Sometime soon we're going to finish this and watch Death to Smoochy, Rounders, Keeping the Faith, and American History X. I'm completely burnt out from the experience and probably scarred for life. Also I'm pretty sure I had dreams about Ralph Fiennes after seeing Red Dragon, and what's worse is that I don't think they were nightmares.

Eliza somehow brought up the topic of accents, and that somehow got me thinking about the adorable interview Ladislav Smid gave after he scored his first goal. I showed it to her and she fell in love with him, so I told her about Paula's interaction with him and that I'm becoming a fan of the boy. Less than 24 hours later, he's out of the game with a leg injury. After the fit I had when I found out Marek Svatos scored again last night, I'm surprised a frickin' piano hasn't dropped on his head. I swear to god the next horror movie to come out will be Final Destination 4: Katie Likes You.

Atlanta went on a shopping spree and picked up Alexei Zhitnik and Keith Tkachuk. It seems like Glen Metropolit, a first rounder, second rounder, third rounder, and possibly another first rounder is a serious overpay for Tkachuk. Unfortunately whether they overpaid or not, the Bruins have to face the Thrashers on Monday. Maybe I'll make Rick DiPietro my new favorite player and hope the B's can catch the Islanders while he's hurt.

Afternoon Thoughts

2007-02-24T16:04:00.000-05:00

NHL fines Sabres coach Lindy Ruff for sending out tough guys in brawl
I'm always looking for ways to bring down the Sabres, but I never expected this from the NHL. It's legitimate, but is it even something you can penalize? I guess after the investigations and Ruff admitting that he told them to "Go out and run 'em" it seems pretty obvious, but I still can't imagine explaining this to someone who knows nothing about hockey. You could show them something like the Ovechkin hit on Briere (blown out of proportion, in my opinion) and they'd immediately understand why it's bad, but this is too strategically specific for them to get without an explanation. That being said, I'm impressed that the NHL took action on something that's more of an unwritten law. I also have a newfound respect for Ray Emery, as he seems like a complete psychopath and I appreciate that in a player, and especially in a goalie.

In other news, the Bruins re-signed Marco Sturm to a "multi-year contract extension". As Marco's been hot lately (7 goals in the last 7 games), this should please Bruins fans. I like Marco, and when he's put with good players he can really score. I just hope they didn't overspend on him.

In the five games that Patrice Bergeron has been out...
The Bruins lost one game and won the next four.
They've scored 20 goals.
Marc Savard has 10 points.
Tim Thomas has let in 11 goals on 165 shots for a .933 SV%.

The playoff picture in the Eastern Conference is making me extremely nervous. There's 7 teams within 8 points of each other. Including this afternoon's game in which the Islanders beat the Canadiens, this is how it looks:
6) Atlanta- 63 GP, 72 PTS
7) Islanders- 62 GP, 70 PTS
8) Montreal- 64 GP, 70 PTS
9) Carolina- 63 GP, 69 PTS
10) Toronto- 61 GP, 67 PTS
11) Boston- 60 GP, 64 PTS
12) Rangers- 61 GP, 64 PTS
The problem with the Bruins' situation right now is that, as well as they're playing, they have to overcome a lot of teams to get that last playoff spot. Carolina has a pretty tough schedule over the next few games, playing Atlanta and Ottawa twice and Pittsburgh once, so the Bruins can probably pass them. But the Islanders get to play Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Washington before they play the Rangers. The Bruins have a slightly easier schedule than Montreal and Toronto, but maybe not easy enough to move into a playoff spot in the next few games. Even still, things are looking up for the B's right now. Montreal should drop, the Bruins should get some wins in the next few games, and by the time the two meet on March 6, there could be some shaking up happening in the standings. If Toronto and the Rangers have trouble, then with the games in hand that they have, the Bruins just might be able to sneak into a playoff spot. I'm going to the game against the Thrashers on Monday with Liz, Paula, and Liz's friend, who is on the Berklee hockey team (coached by Pie McKenzie) and being interviewed by Versus. He's from Atlanta and is, according to Liz, the only other person she's met who's as obsessed with hockey as I am. I warned her that right now that's not a good combination, as this playoff push is very nerve-racking, and when I get nervous about things like this I look up statistics. At the moment I know way too much about the Bruins situation for anyone's good. But whatever. Since I also have front-row tickets to the game against the Avs (right next to the benches, too), I'll be at both remaining Bruins games that were going to be on Versus, successfully avoiding having to watch them. I got the Avs tickets for Christmas, despite asking only for a Ryan Smyth jersey. But who am I to complain about a gift like that?
Now that I've said good things about the Bruins, they're going to fall off a cliff again. So for good measure:
Bruins, you suck. Go to hell.
It was for their own good.

The Ed Norton Movie Marathon got pushed back to tonight, so off I go.

Doyle's Law

2007-02-23T14:11:00.000-05:00

I was going to devote this entire post to bitching about the Columbus announcers, but luckily slept on the idea and decided against it. In my defense, they made it nearly impossible to enjoy a good Oilers' win. They spent the entire game repeating that the Vyborny goal should have counted (even on their replays you could see his stick was high), that people have been taking liberties with Rick Nash all season and he's had enough (even though Thoreson barely touched him), that they couldn't believe Hainsey got an extra minor for defending Nash (though they didn't have a problem with Roy's misconduct defending Gilbert), that these teams were battling for not only points but for pride (?), that Stortini had been headhunting all night long and Shelley was just fed up with him (Zach had one clean hit, while Shelley got a misconduct for his unnecessary stupidity), that players could get hurt by some of the hits the Oilers were dishing (again no mention of Gilbert), and that in addition to Ethan Moreau and Fernando Pisani, Jarret Staal is also out for the Oilers. I was pretty much ready to kill them. They were overdramatic, insanely biased, and the only time they mentioned anything about Gilbert was to tell us he had a concussion. They called him "Matthew".

They couldn't entirely kill my happiness, despite their best efforts. I'll always be happy watching a game where Horc and Smytty get three points each, Raffi shows some dangling skills, Joffrey actually tries, and my lover Laddy Smid scores. Most impressive was the way that Raffi and Lupul owned the ice together. I mistook both of them for Ales at different times because they were destroying the Jackets de so handily (Lupul especially at one point, where he ruined the defenders, drove to the net, and passed it away). Even if Pouliot didn't have his best game, I like him on that line. In some weird way, it seems like he helped those two get going. A few games ago Pouliot was busting his ass, playing very physically and energetically, and Raffi was gliding. Since then Raffi's picked up the pace, and now Lupul was really working last night. Energy is contagious. I get the feeling that this is a major reason why Tyler Arnason started flying. Playing with Brett McLean and especially Lappy will put a jump in your step. Also, he's the most skilled player on the line, so they know enough to get the puck to him when they can. I noticed this last night when they switched the lines up. Arnason was on a line with McLean and Ben Guite. They were all in pretty close quarters around the net, but McLean made a desperate effort to push the puck to Arnason, even though Guite may have been closer. I don't hate this.

I did hate that the Avs switched things up so much with the forwards, though they came close enough to winning to justify it. They had 7 de and 11 forwards, apparently because they would mostly be running 3 lines at this point in the season (according to my Altitude buddies). What ended up happening was that they sent out a completely random assortment of 11 forwards in a pretty steady stream. While this was maybe even more confusing for the players than it was for me, what it did do was keep the forwards fresh, enabling them to attempt a 3rd period comeback despite going in down 3-0. With the Avs 3rd period play this year being so questionable, I never expected them to come as close as they did, even after Ken Klee got the first goal. They didn't draw me back in until Brad Richardson scored and they completely took over the game. Even when Finger broke his stick and the Wild came down and scored I wasn't out of it, and rightly so. The next goal* confirmed that they weren't done, and made the end of the game all the more heartbreaking, with the Avs losing 4-3. The game was heartbreaking in every way that the 2004 ALCS vs the Yankees wasn't. When the Sox went down 3-0 in the series, much like when the Avs went down 3-0 in the game, I convinced myself not to get my hopes up. After Game 4 (the Klee goal) I was still cautious. Game 5 (the Richardson goal) made me a complete emotional wreck. I broke down and cried at least 3 different times during Game 5, once because Curtis Leskanic was warming up in the bullpen and, as he had been used a lot lately, the announcers said his arm was "hanging on by a thread". I don't know who he is anymore, but at the time he was clearly very tragic. That's where the comparison ends. After Game 5, I knew the Sox were going to win and wasn't worried or crazy anymore. The Avs spent the rest of the game in Game 5 limbo, not near enough to a win to be certain but not near enough to a loss to be hopeless. Luckily, I didn't have an emotional breakdown during this one, but the loss was still painful.
*MAREK SVATOS MIGHT ACTUALLY BE BACK. I'm not getting my hopes up too much (lie), but that goal last night was not only his second in two games but a Marek Svatos goal. He got it and buried it, despite not having much to shoot at. That was him last year, and the reason why I'm so enthusiastic right now. I really do miss having the Real Marek Svatos around. Despite having an awful year, he's still one of my favorite players and I still have faith that he can come back. I've got Paula hooked on him now. She kept insisting that everyone from Slovakia, including the women, looks like Zdeno Chara and Milan Jurcina ("very tall and dark haired with large noses and awkward facial expressions"). I used Marek as proof against her, and upon looking up pictures of him she agreed that he's very sexy but "definitely has a Slovakian adam's apple...they all stick out their necks and have adam's apples". I don't really know what to do with her.

If I want to remember something when I'm watching a game, I'll jot it down somewhere. This morning I realized that I wrote down some weird things. I'm blaming this on the fact that we were getting some carpets put down and the fumes started to get to me. Some from the Oilers game:
-put Ales through electroshock therapy to make him shoot
-announcers just went 5 minutes without a verb
-RAFFI FUCK YEAH
-even stupid Columbus announcers figured out powerplay
-oil finally getting physical, killing bitches
-Ales just "bitch pleased" someone
From the Avs game:
-23-26 on pk together, wedding next week
-Marek on powerplay MAREK ON POWERPLAY
-Marek w/a hit, love it when he plays rough
-40 w/19-15 HE DID HIS FOOT THING I'm happy
-Marek doing something I'm in pain from the excitement, actually
Almost everything I wrote was either about Marek Svatos or hurting the Blue Jackets and their announcers. Anger at Columbus+obsession with Marek Svatos+carpet fumes=some really strange and discomforting notes.

Quick notes

I'm extremely upset to see Gilbert go down. Is there any timetable on his return? He was playing well and this time is pretty valuable to his development. Also, now we have to dress Matt Green again. This isn't awful, I guess, but I'd really, really, really rather have Gilbert there, if not just to get a better idea of what he can do.
Does Zach Stortini have a catchy nickname yet? It doesn't feel right to just call him "Zach", but his last name is hard to get anything good from ("Storts", for instance, sounds like an STD).
There are't any people on the Avs as random as Paul Mara, and I credit Altitude with this. They're starting to freak me out with how much they're in tune with what I'm thinking. For example, this past game they specifically explained what Brad May brought to the Stastny-Hejduk line (toughness, giving them room) and noted the success those two have had since he joined the line. In addition to toughness, I noticed that he's usually the one to go deep in the defensive zone and feed them the puck. So yes, he's the third wheel, but an effective one.
J-M Liles is up to 17 minutes of ice time, which is still low but definitely comforting.
There was a hilarious moment when Smytty lost his stick and the ice-level Columbus announcer tried to jokingly give him one they had there. Smytty was thoroughly not amused by this, making me love him even more.
Carolina just acquired Anson Carter for a 5th round draft pick. If he plays well, this could really hurt the Bruins, who are trying to catch the Hurricanes for that last playoff spot. They're now 7 points out with 4 games in hand. If Carolina should pick things up, hopefully Montreal (8 points up of the Bruins, who have 4 in hand) will drop off again.
Tonight I'm having an Ed Norton marathon with my friend Eliza. We're watching The Illusionist, 25th Hour, Primal Fear, and American History X. The only one I haven't seen is The Illusionist- any reviews? I trust anything with Ed Norton in it but I want to make sure it's worthy. We're taking this very seriously and only allowing two other people (at most) to join us. We might even interview them for a spot. I'm not kidding.

Edit

2007-02-21T12:41:00.000-05:00

The other colors were a bit too much and kind of hurting my eyes, so I changed things around. It's nothing too fancy, mostly because I haven't figured out how to do anything fancy yet. Oh well. Enjoy.

I Still Hate the Bruins

2007-02-20T22:38:00.000-05:00

Quick one here. I missed most of tonight's action because I was out. When I got home, I realized that I was locked out of the house and called my parents, who were about 15 minutes away. While I waited I went on my phone to check the scores and saw that the Oilers were in OT. Panicking, I did the only thing I could do- climb through a window in my backyard. I was just in time to see them lose in a shootout. Thank god.

The Bruins beat the Leafs 3-0. I don't know how, but now they're 5 points back of 8th place Carolina, still with 3 games in hand. Tim Thomas forced the Bruins to win, kicking and screaming, with a 44-save shutout. Though apparently the defense is on vacation, they've gotten a good amount of scoring recently despite injuries. Even though Patrice and now Muzz are out, the B's have gotten 13 goals in their last 3 games, winning all three. I have no idea what they're trying to do to me but I don't like it.

The only game I caught in regulation was the Avs game against Calgary, which they won thanks to a breakaway goal from Marek Svatos. Even though he scored, he still isn't himself. Earlier in the game, he was going in on a defender and tried to slip the puck through him, but was stopped. My buddies at Altitude noted that the same move worked for him a million times last year, and it basically did. The difference is that last year, his feet were moving. He came down on the defender at full speed, flicked his heels and toes in completely unnatural ways, then slipped the puck through him and went by. Tonight he was gliding, almost as if he were uncertain of what to do. I don't know if beating Kiprusoff to the glove side will improve his confidence any, but for his sake I sure hope it does. He's Marek fucking Svatos- when he plays to his potential like last year, he's breathtakingly good.
Edit: Last night I had a dream that I accidentally went to bed too early and missed the end of the Avs game, in which Marek scored more goals and basically proved everything in this last paragraph wrong. Can this happen in real life?

Working again for the Avs tonight were Hejduk (goal) and Stastny (two goals and an assist). They're basically in love on the ice, which makes me wonder where that leaves Brad May. He's been on their line for a few games now, and their line has done well. In the last five games, Hejduk has 8 points and Stastny has 7. May has 1. I haven't watched closely enough to tell whether he plays an important role on the line that has little to do with scoring or if he's just the third wheel, but either way he's not hurting their production and they might as well not mess up a good thing. Unless "messing up" involves putting Marek there, of course. Nothing will boost his confidence (and point production) like being put on a line with those two lovers.

I Hate the Bruins

2007-02-19T23:55:00.000-05:00

This year doesn't make any sense for the Bruins. They had everything. The forwards are young and talented. The most sought-after de at the trade deadline was our #2 guy on a good defensive corps. Tim Thomas is criticized sometimes, but he's kept us afloat and stands on his head when we need it. There was a time earlier in the year when everyone was labelling them as the surprise in the playoffs, should they make it, which it looked like they were going to do.

Now? The Bruins are 6 points out of a playoff spot with a game in hand on Toronto (and a game against them tonight). They're also only 7 points behind Carolina with 3 games in hand. Overall they've got 7 head-to-head matchups against teams they can catch or have to pass to make the playoffs, including 4 against the floundering Canadiens. It's possible that, if the stars align and the Bruins stop sucking, they can sneak in. But I still don't see the Bruins making the playoffs over the Avs or the Oilers. The Oilers are 8 points out of a spot with a game in hand, and Colorado is a point behind them. Their opponents are about equal- Boston and Edmonton's remaining opponents should get an average of 92 points this season, while Colorado's should get about 93. The Oilers also have seven head-to-head games against teams they can catch or have to pass. The Avs have nine, but that's including games against the Oilers that I counted for them but not Edmonton, as they're the ones that have to do the passing. Basically, all three teams are in similar situations, with the Bruins having a slight mathematical advantage in the standings but more teams to get by. There's no reason why I should be dismissing the B's more than the other two, but I'm still doing it. It's just that they've always managed to disappoint me and I don't trust them anymore. For example, the year before the lockout, they were up in the first round 3-1 against Montreal. The Canadiens came back to force a Game 7, which fell on my birthday. We had people over for a small family party to eat cake and watch the Bruins. They lost.

Of course the only reason I'm even putting the words "Bruins" and "playoffs" in the same sentence is because they looked like a legitimate team last night, and of course the reason that they looked like a legitimate team is because they were playing the Forsberg-less Flyers. Ignoring that little fact, I was impressed by the Bruins' effort. Pretty much every player was hustling, led again by Marc Savard, whom I'm starting to have a serious friend crush on. I was talking about this with Paula at the Carolina game a while ago. She was raving about how adorable he is and I agreed, saying that he's the type to cuddle with and tell your problems to. She looked at me like I was diseased and said, "I definitely don't just want to be friends with him, Tizzle." Whatever you want from him, he was working his ass off last night, and for the first time this season looked very frustrated. It was almost a relief to see him shove someone and swear to himself after the whistle- he has so many reasons to be fed up with this team that it was starting to freak me out that he wasn't. Instead of letting his frustration get to him, he channeled it and got himself a 3-point night. PJ Axelsson's goal was entirely Savard's doing. He skated hard into the offensive zone, forced a turnover out of the de, then spun and made a seemingly blind, tape-to-tape pass to PJ in the slot. That goal, coupled with the fact that Marco Sturm called him "Savvy" when interviewed after the first period, made me a happy, happy girl. By the way, is there a person who looks angrier than Marco Sturm? During his interview he seemed like a complete sweetheart but he's got the second meanest-looking face I've ever seen (no one beats Raffi- NO ONE).

The Bruins forwards also benefitted tonight from having more concrete lines (Savard-Muzz-Axelsson, Boyes-Tenkrat-Chistov, Kessel-Sturm-Bochenski, Mowers-Donovan-Reich). In the beginning, there was a lot of miscommunication, but as the game went on there was some chemistry working up. Savard's line has been good together all year, but the other two lines were also working it. I liked the chemistry between Boyes and his wingers and Kessel was good with whoever he was out with. I feel like Phil is one of those people who's meant to be a center. On my team, the girls that we always put at center were the girls who were a liability in any other spot. Since it wasn't very common to find people on the team who actually watched hockey, it was very common to find people who didn't really understand the game. Some girls ("wicked ADHD" as my dad would say) couldn't seem to grasp the positional aspect of the game. They were drawn to the puck and were unable to stand still. So we put them at center, where it was basically their job to fly around the ice, following the puck. I'm not saying that Phil is "wicked ADHD", but if you watch him, he flies around the ice, following the puck, and also seems to love it. Something tells me he'd be a very restless winger. That's not to say he's dumb on the ice, of course. He made a really nice pass to Savvy on the powerplay, which turned into a goal for Sturm. The Bruins have a strangely successful powerplay, sitting at 7th in the league. It hinges on Savvy, who was born to quarterback a powerplay. If there is an open player, he will find a way to get the puck to them. The Bruins coaching staff is smart enough to know this, and have probably told all of their players to get him the puck and get open. Kessel's pass, for instance, was a beautiful pass because it had to go through a lot of traffic. If they're not necessarily forcing it to him, they're definitely intent on getting it there. Why not? Savvy then made a wonderful pass that Sturm just had to tip in. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

This doesn't apply to the Oilers powerplay because their bread-and-butter play is much more fixed than the Bruins'. Savvy is hard to defend because he creates options. If you give him a passing lane, he'll get the pass there, and if you give him enough space he'll shoot it himself. The only way to defend against him is to keep him from getting the puck and double-teaming him if he does. The Oilers' play has no options- if the other team takes away the shooting lane from the point, they've got the entire powerplay covered.

So how will the Oilers' 27th-ranked powerplay will do against Ottawa tonight? Let's just hope they don't draw too many penalties.

Quick notes

Paul Mara is possibly the randomest person on the Bruins. I have no idea whether he's good or not. Last night was the first time I noticed him all year, and only because he got in a fight with Mike Richards. Also because Versus told me his hometown is somewhere in New Jersey, while the Bruins keep telling us he's from Belmont, Massachusetts. He is from New Jersey. He's even more random than before.
I kind of like Mike Richards. He reminds me of Jarret Stoll. The fight confused my feelings about him, though. I love a 5-11 guy that'll get in a fight, but since Mara is so random I don't know whether or not I like him yet. If he fought Andrew Alberts or something, I definitely would.
Speaking of Alberts, he loves playing with Andrew Ference. Ference is working insanely hard all over the ice, and Alberts looks pretty content letting him do that. There were a couple of plays where Alberts backed down because he knew Ference would take over. I would break this pairing up if I were Dave Lewis. It would benefit both of them.
Joni Pitkanen is a very good defenseman, but I couldn't tell if he was putting effort into the game or not. He could just be like Joe Thornton, who got criticized because he never looked like he was working hard, or he could be mailing it in because he's playing for the Forsberg-less Flyers. Even if it is the latter, on a legitimate team he'd be a treat.
Tim Thomas owned the third period, recovering well from letting in a shaky goal earlier.
On the goal-cam view of that shaky goal, we got a hilarious view of Chara flailing his arms wildly, trying to keep the puck out of the net. Every cloud has a silver lining.

Lappy the Graceful

2007-02-19T00:14:00.000-05:00

I played my last hockey game Saturday night. We lost by a good amount to Woburn and now our season's over. This means I'm done playing hockey, at least on a team of any sort. I'm not as hysterically upset about it as I assumed I'd be. Life goes on, eh?

I missed all the games last night because of my game, but I didn't miss much. The Bruins won in a shooutout but both the Avs and Oilers lost. The one bright spot is that the Oilers finally made a move and traded MAB to the Islanders for Russian defenseman Denis Grebeshkov. A lot has already been said on the topic, so I'll just say that I'm pretty excited about it. It's not only because MAB has been struggling lately. It mostly is, but not entirely. I'm just happy to see any sort of movement from Lowe- for it to be a good trade is just a bonus. From what I've heard, Grebeshkov is a good prospect who, with the right upbringing, will turn into a nice defenseman. For MAB, that sounds like a fair trade.
[Edit: This article has a few interesting MAB quotes.]

I have nothing insightful to say about the Avs loss tonight. I missed part of it because I was at the beach (no explanation for that) and the other part because my friend is staying over and distracted me. I tried to watch the game with her, but it ended up being too painful for both of us. After Lappy scored his goal and I scared her with my cheers of joy, I started chattering away about him and his gorgeously broken nose. She replied, "I think my dad broke his nose once playing baseball...or maybe it was softball." It was around then that I knew our situation wasn't going to work out, and I let the game fade into background noise for the sake of being a good host. After that the only discussions we had related to hockey was when she cut me off midsentence to say, "This probably isn't going to sound funny to you, but they look so graceful. The hockey players, I mean." No, no...it's pretty funny to me.

Anyway, that's my excuse. I'll put effort into this tomorrow.

(I think he's pretty.)

The Middle Child

2007-02-16T00:03:00.001-05:00

Out of my three teams, lately the Avs have become the forgotten middle child, with the Bruins being the delinquent oldest and the Oilers being the youngest in need of constant supervision. The Avs have played neither well enough nor poorly enough to get my attention, and their games have been at times when I'm more likely to miss them. That being said, there's no way I'm going to forget about them. I sympathize with them, being in the middle of two completely psychotic sisters myself. Tonight, I made sure that I gave them my undivided attention. It helped that their game started later than the Oilers (7:00) and Bruins (7:30), who had to fight for time, but with a 7-5 win over Calgary, it wasn't a game to be missed anyway.
For the convenience of browsers, I've sectioned off the games a bit.

The Avs
The Avs proved me wrong throughout the entire game, in good and annoying ways. For instance, before the game I noted that the Avs were the most consistent in the set of forwards they used every night. Just then the Altitude announcers informed me that Marek Svatos was a healthy scratch for the second night in a row, not only proving me wrong but also breaking my heart. I miss the real Marek Svatos. Later, I tried again and remarked that the Avs had the most stable line combinations (Sakic-Brunette-Wolski, Stastny-Hejduk-who cares, Arnason-McLean-Laperierre, the fourth). Brunette then scored a goal while Brad Richardson took Wojtek Wolski's place on their line. After that I realized that I had no idea what was going on in the game and should stop trying before I hurt myself. Peter Budaj was pulled for Jose Theodore after he let in four Calgary goals that weren't really his fault, but weren't completely impossible to save. The Avs had my luck working against them. As was pointed out during the game, Calgary scored most of their goals when the momentum was on Colorado's side, making them even more back-breaking. It was one of those extremely tiring games that's devastating to lose and exhilirating to win, and therefore really hard to talk about afterwards. I will say that the Avs forwards are an impressive bunch when they play to their potential. The Sakic-Brunette-Wolski tandem is consistently good, though Sakic would be consistently good if his linemates were PJ Stock and our pet rabbit Snickers. Though they're not nearly as prolific, I'm also a big fan of the third line, mostly because it hinges on Tyler Arnason. Lappy and McLean always do the best they can, meaning the line is only as good as Arnason is that night. Recently, it's been pretty good, because when he's working hard Arnason is really fun to watch.

The best foward of the night, however, was Milan Hejduk, who has played better than his numbers this year show. Milan owned this game, and not just because he had a hat trick. If you watch any one of his goals, you can see that he was a step ahead of the game all night long. It was clearest on his second goal, where he banked the shot in off of Kiprusoff from behind the goal line. It appeared to be a lucky bounce, but when they replayed the goal in slow motion, I saw Milan pick up his head, see where Kiprusoff was, and shoot it at exactly the angle to bounce in. They played it again at regular speed and, like before, it just seemed lucky. Milan was seeing the game in slow motion, which is why he was able to score on 3 of his team-high 9 shots. He's frequented the Avs' penalty killing squad, too, which in the beginning of the year weirded me out, but makes perfect sense after last night. Milan may be known for his fine-tuned offensive skills, but he's a very smart player who understands hockey well. How can it possibly be harder to notice the opposing de cheating for a one-timer than it is to notice Kiprusoff cheating off the post? That being said, the Avs have the 22nd best penalty kill in the league, making it hard to praise too much.
Strange dream from a few weeks ago that's vaguely relevant: I was at a party at my friend's house, and hooked up with this kid I know. Then Milan Hejduk showed up. I've never found him very attractive before, but all of a sudden I did. So I hooked up with him, too. I woke up and thought, "Wow, this is great! I finally find Milan Hejduk attractive! Wait...no. No, I still don't. Dang."

The Bruins
My three teams each had a different outcome, and of course the Bruins were the losers. Not having Patrice Bergeron in the lineup due to a typical late-season "lower-body injury" hurt the B's more than most people realized. Confident and surprisingly strong, Patrice is one of the better puck posession forwards that the Bruins have, and without him the rest of the team was throwing the puck around with no real plan. Savard did his best to step up his already stellar game, assisting on Murray's lone Bruins goal, but he doesn't play the same sort of game that Patrice does. With a little bit of space and a target (whether it be pass or shot), Savard is deadly, but he doesn't create space for himself as well as Patrice. He also could have been thrown off by the "line combinations", which ended up just being Boyes and him at center, with Bochenski, Murray, Axelsson, Kessel, Sturm, Tenkrat, and Chistov cycling on the wings. There were minor variations (occasionally Kessel at center, sometimes Donovan and Mowers would appear) but for the most part it was a steady stream of chaos. Things with the Bruins have gotten so bad that I don't even know what they're attempting to do anymore. Take the Sillinger goal, for instance, when he walked right in without a Bruin near him. He was actually so open that I couldn't tell which Bruin should have been responsible for him. Murray was in no man's land and appeared to be closest, but Mara was standing in front of Tim Thomas like the motionless pillar of ineptitude that he is and Chara was somewhere by the other faceoff dot, contemplating his escape route back to Slovakia. I give up.

The Oilers
For the Oilers to get only one point out of the Buffalo game sucked, but I can't argue too strongly that they definitely deserved another. They outplayed Buffalo for the most part, and especially early on, but the amount of legitimately good scoring chances had to be about equal. The Oilers would control play for a decent amount of time, then Buffalo would come down and get a point-blank chance, mostly denied by a very sharp Roli. After a few runs through this cycle I realized that Buffalo (mainly the Afinogenov-Vanek-Roy line) was having its way with both the fourth line and the scary de pairing of MAB and Greene. All night long the Sabres were busting through those two, eventually leading to the goal scored by Afinogenov (who, despite his awesome name, I'm starting to hate). The rest of the de, minus a few Hejda blunders, played surprisingly well, mostly because they were very agressive. They held the line, closed the gap in the neutral zone, and skated the puck deep on the few occasions when they could. One could argue that while the Sabres were flat to start out with, they were also held at bay early on by pretty good defense. Jason Smith in particular showed his worth in a game like this. He's not the best player by many measures, but to me there are no sweeter words than, "OUCH. Daniel Briere just got hammered by Smith! His pale, sickly-looking ass isn't getting up off the ice any time soon!" Maybe no announcer has said that exactly, but after that OT goal I have to keep hope. With most of the de doing their job, the Sabres were forced to score their only goals first on MAB/Greene, then on Toby Petersen. That's one potent Buffalo offense!

Then again, I'm just speaking out of bitter hatred. Like the Sabres, the Oilers only had one line really going for them- though they were REALLY going. Horc, Smytty, and Hemsky were so powerful that, save for the occasional "this line can be dangerous" muttering, they silenced the Buffalo announcers when they were on the ice. Considering the announcers, though, this might not be that great of a feat. These are the same guys who suggested that Edmonton really misses the veteran leadership of Sergei Samsonov. They kept making mistakes without any attempts at correcting themselves, almost as if they knew that no one in their audience would notice. A surefire giveaway that announcers are useless is if they pronounce names wrong. Very good announcers know how to pronounce most players' names out of familiarity, and I suspect that if they don't know then they make an effort to find out. Pronouncing Smid's name as it's spelled rather than "Schmeed" is understandable, as is (to a lesser extent) calling Pouliot "Poulio", but both could have been avoided with any sort of effort. In addition to a minor mispronounciation of the vowell-happy Staios, somehow Horc's name turned into "Horcrot". To give them credit, they moved closer to his actual name as the game went on (Horcrot, then Horcroft, then Horcroff), and if the game had only gone into a shootout, they just might've gotten there. This is a pointless rant, but an extreme pet peeve. For some reason, the most annoying thing an announcer can do is mispronounce names and call Jarret Stoll "Jarret Staal" for the whole game.

I guess one good thing about watching the opposition's station is that it's easier to analyze the game without bias. Jack Edwards and Andy Brickley, the Bruins' guys, are constantly worrying about placating the insane Boston fans. For the past two games they've done nothing but rabidly praise Ference out of fear that B's fans will tear his newly-added hide to pieces. If they were objective, they'd tell us that he hasn't played badly, but is a little nervous in his new city, which you can't fault him on. For the first few games he's rushed passes and looked a tiny bit twitchy. Wouldn't it be better to just acknowledge this and move on, rather than repeatedly pointing out what a beautiful skating stride he has? Better than either of the other options, the Avs' Altitude manages to capture how I'm feeling perfectly, mostly because the announcers seem to be what I am- in love with the team. They're ecstatic when the Avs score, despondent when they're scored on, and in awe of Joe Sakic. They understand the significance of certain players scoring or playing well. In some strange way, it's like watching the game with friends. This is the something like the newfound familiarity I feel with Ladislav Smid, but not nearly as creepy.

Quick notes

Zach Stortini looks like a dirty hobo that you'd be afraid to walk by on the street for fear of contracting diseases, but somehow his proud, toothless grin after the fight was adorably endearing. Somehow.
Raffi played a terrible game. He wasn't skating at all. Even the Buffalo announcers picked up on it when he made a beautiful breakout pass to Daniel Briere. You could see MacT complimenting it on the bench. I think the Oilers need to hire someone to follow Raffi around and piss him off so he plays with a little more anger. His linemates, Pouliot and Thoreson, would agree, though it would end up being costly for Edmonton as these "Raffi Provokers" would need pretty frequent replacement (and medical benefits).
Despite this fact not being mentioned by my buddies at Altitude, J-M Liles had one shift in the third period and just over eight minutes of ice time overall. Why do I keep looking these things up?
After way too much thought, I've figured out that the NHL equivalent of me is Brett Clark. This is pretty objective and fair, seeing as I've pegged other teammates of mine as J-M Liles, Rob Blake, and Peter Forsberg. And yes, my entire team has played for the Avs at one point in their career. It's great. We even have a Dan Hinote.
Looking back, I'm not sure I really would have murdered my English teacher. Then again, I'm not sure that I wouldn't have. But I took the last post down anyway. Summary (factually altered for length): I skipped a class. Instead of giving me a cut card, my English teacher tried to keep me from playing in the last game of the season, but failed. Before he failed I swore I would kill him, and was serious. For the record, even though I skipped half a day of school and got myself in a ton of trouble, my parents are completely on my side and my dad also swore to kill Skinder.
"Kill Skinder" would make a great movie title, especially if that movie were a documentary.
I'm pretty sure I don't come off this bitter in person.

Snow Day

2007-02-14T11:11:00.000-05:00

I finally saw the Bruins play well in person...against the Oilers. I could see this coming from a mile away, seeing as I've got the worst luck in the world for hockey teams. One playoffs a few years ago, out of every team I wanted to win, in every series from the first to the last, my teams won twice. I had picked a team in just about every series, too. It was bad, so this isn't very surprising. My dad remarked after the game that the Oilers looked flat. I'm not sure if a team can be completely flat if the opposing goalie got 32 shots and a first star selection, but they weren't really on top of their game. After Raffi got a good scoring chance from Horc in the second period, I remember thinking that it was the first chance they got that made the Bruins fans really cheer for Tim Thomas. There were shots and chances, but the Bruins simply got more. Patrice and his line played well and took advantage of the Oilers' de throughout the whole game, getting themselves two goals, an empty netter, and a goal that was called back because of an interference call on Bochenski. Bochenski has been awesome since he came to the Bruins, though I've really only noticed him when he's scoring. I've heard that the reason he was never successful was because he's horrible defensively. That issue hasn't come up yet, but give it enough time and I'm sure it will.

Looking back, the Oilers' game was far from perfect. Horc alone had a few puzzling defensive zone turnovers that turned into scoring chances, and though I don't remember if he caused any of the goals, he was out there for all of them. In his defense, one was a 5-on-3 and the other was a powerplay (and the other was an empty net), but still, he needed to move the puck faster. Both teams had clearly studied the other's power play, because the Oilers had someone shadowing Marc Savard and the Bruins took away the points. While the Bruins adjusted to this, the Oilers kept forcing the puck to the points and ended up giving it away way too many times. This would have been a little more understandable if it were Jarret Stoll they were forcing it to, but it wasn't. It was Toby Petersen. I know the guy works hard and has earned the minutes he's gotten (with help from injury), but he's not the type to be forcing the puck to. They made the B's mediocre penalty kill look amazing. Some of the best chances the Oilers have gotten recently have come from Horc and Smytty battling low for the puck- why not cycle it to them instead of forcing it back? The Oilers were winning the puck in the corners all night long, inciting Bruins fans around me to scream at our de, "Use your body! Come on! Get the puck! Jesus!" Working it down low would also pull the opposing forwards down lower, making the point shot a better option. All night Petersen and Sykora were way too high to get off an effective shot, and they were only getting forced out higher as the Bruins figured out that they were the entire basis of the power play. And if Simpson still isn't convinced, then he can at least concede that it's harder for the other team to clear the puck from the corner than it is from 10 feet inside the blue line, where they were intercepting passes all night long.

Was there any reason why the line of Pouliot- Torres- Throreson got broken up? They were the only physical presence on the ice in the first period. On one shift, all three of them took down a Bruin to get the puck deep in the offensive zone. They also got themselves some chances. With all the talk about his most recent call-up, I decided to watch Pouliot, and he was playing well, I thought. If they wanted to do something with the lines, they shouldn't have demoted him to the fourth line. Couldn't they have had him center Torres and Lupul instead of Nedved? This would have made vastly more sense. Even when Pouliot was on the fourth line, playing minutes late in the third, he was creating chances and working hard.
[One thing about Nedved- when warming up for the second period, he was skating up and down the boards next to the bench, in what was the Bruins zone that period. Savard skated by him and gave him a look, causing him to retreat closer to the Oilers' bench. Once Savard left, he skated down again and pretended he was taking a shot on Thomas from the half-boards. It reminded me of a little kid pretending he's an airplane or something. Did Nedved even have any shots?]

Before the third period started, Liz was texting her friend Kyle, who asked her if I was there to see my hero, Ryan Smyth. He was sitting right near the Oilers' bench and said that there were seats nearby, so Paula and I moved over. The seats were maybe ten rows back from the glass, but right next to the runway, so we were only a couple of feet away from the Oilers as they walked onto the ice. Paula, Kyle, and his girlfriend McKenzie all laughed at me after Smytty passed, as instead of breathing I let out little squeaks. It was a pretty depressing period for the Oilers, but absolutely hilarious for me. Paula was freaking out more than I was and kept asking me about all of the players. When she saw MAB, she squealed, "Oh my god! They have a Bergeron, too?" Kyle told us that they were cousins (true?) and Paula yelled to him, "Hey, Bergeron! OUR BERGERON IS BETTER!" He turned slightly and she said, "They definitely are related! Look at the nose! That's a Bergeron Nose! He's got a schnozz and a half!" Even funnier than that was her interaction with Ladislav Smid. She thought his name was funny and started yelling, "Smid! Smid!" (pronounced like it's spelled). I corrected her and told her that it was pronounced "Schmeed", but he went on the ice before she could yell again. Just as he came off, however, there was a quiet moment and she shouted, "SCHMEEEEED!" as loud as she could. He looked right up a her with the most priceless face I've ever seen. It was a perplexed death-stare, as if he were saying "Why are you talking to me and what drugs are you on?" She quieted down, and even Kyle and McKenzie, who had been nervous with all the yelling, were amused. I now have no doubts that he'll be an amazing defenseman one day, and I might be in love.

Quick notes

I have the same stick as Marty Reasoner- good or bad?
On the topic of sticks, I saw Smytty's sticks up close. For a second I thought they were righty shots. Weirdly enough, the most curved stick I saw was Zach Stortini's. I assume that I missed something.
When the Bruins put Chara in front of the net on the power play, I saw Jason Smith bounce off of him. Staios and him had no idea how to deal with big Z. If he didn't have such a good point shot, I'd say that they should put him there all the time.
The Avs had a good win over Anaheim, though I didn't get to see much. From looking at the shift chart, it looks like they had a line of Paul Stastny, Milan Hejduk, and Brad May. I like Hejduk and Stastny together (so do they, with a goal apiece) but Brad May? I guess whatever works.
The announcers mentioned that J-M Liles barely played in the third, and not at all in the second. I'm pretending they never said anything and that he's perfectly fine.
Marek Svatos has gone missing again. He needs good linemates to play well. I'd love to see him on the other side of Stastny and Hejduk's line. How could that not work? (Besides, you know, Marek not playing very well.)
During the Colorado game they brought up the Rycroft-Smid fight again. After seeing him in person, that fight makes both more and less sense to me. Again, I'll just pretend the announcers never said a word.
As the Oilers went into the dressing room, I felt stupid putting my hand out, so I just said, "Good game, Smytty" as he passed. After that, Raffi passed by, and I was too frightened to say another word. He looks as mean in person as he does on TV (in the best way possible). He probably scares the crap out of his opponents.
Sturm's first goal was pretty indicative of how the game went. It was a great goal, but Hejda never should have left his feet on the play and Horc got outmuscled in front of the net. All in all, the Bruins played well, but got help from some Oiler mistakes.

We have a snow day, and my friends are currently drunk, high, and watching "The Backyardigans", meaning I'm done posting.

My Future Son

2007-02-12T12:08:00.000-05:00

Whoever saw the Oilers game last night also saw what I can safely say is the cutest little boy I have ever seen. This is vastly more important than the actual game, which I'll get to in a moment. They interviewed the boy during the feature where they have little kids play in Rexall Place. Here's a rough script of his cuteness.
Interviewer: So how do you think your team played?
Boy: (with wide-eyed terror) Good.
Interviewer: So, how did the other team play?
Boy: ...yeah.
Interviewer. Who is your favorite Edmonton Oiler?
Boy: Wyan Smyth.
You have no idea what kind of reaction this got out of me. I absolutely melted, frightening my little sister Mary a bit. If I ever have a son, he will be exactly like this little boy. (A warning to this kid's parents- I might actually try to steal him. Watch out for that.)

Beyond the kid, it was a good game for the Oil with a 5-1 win over the somehow 4th seeded Atlanta Thrashers. The Thrashers went ahead 1-0 then proceeded to get dominated. Despite having a 4-goal lead and a pretty assured win, I was still nervous at the end of the game. I don't know if it's been just the Oilers or if the Bruins have contributed to this as well, but I have absolutely no trust in leads anymore. It's not that I expected the Oilers to lose, but I didn't have any confidence that they could hold the Thrashers to one goal. Thinking about it now, it probably does have a lot to do with the Bruins. Seeing the 2-minute meltdown of the Carolina game in person was a scarring event, though it was really just the cherry on top of the last two seasons. The Bruins didn't start out badly, if anyone remembers. At the beginning of this season I was confident in them. I was talking to my friend back then about the difference between this year and last. What I said was that last year, if we for some reason lost a lead, we were emotionally broken and unable to take it back. But at the beginning of this year, you got the feeling that they could recover and get themselves back into any game. After that they completely fell off a cliff. They might be worse than last year.

I always end up going to the worst Bruins games possible. Whitney's hat trick was painful (even more so after a Carolina fan near me threw his hat on the ice mockingly). Last year I went to two games: a 6-0 loss to the LA Kings and a 5-2 loss against Ottawa that made me realize, for the first time, that we didn't have a very good team. This year I've seen one win (against Washington) and losses to Buffalo and Carolina. I really haven't ever seen them play well. The opposite is true of the Red Sox. Not only did I have great seats for Orlando Cabrera's return and seats 8 rows back of the Sox dugout for a Big Papi walkoff, but I went to the July 24, 2004 game against the Yankees that Bill Mueller won with a walkoff against Mariano Rivera. People say that it changed their season, and that that game was the point where they made their run for the World Series. I've never seen the Bruins go near that. I hope one of these days the B's can play a great game in front of me, though not tomorrow. Tomorrow goes to the Oilers.

I missed the Avs game because I had practice, but I don't think I'd enjoy a 5-7 loss to Dallas anyway. I hate those guys. It seems like the more teams I like, the more teams I hate. I legitimately hate Dallas, Montreal, Calgary, Detroit, Vancouver, and Buffalo. Actually, when I evaluate the whole league, I find that I like 7 teams and dislike 15, to varying degrees (the other 8 I just don't care about). When we first got the CenterIce package last year I could watch any game that was on- I would just pick a side and enjoy. Now I flip through the games and find myself saying stuff like, "Oh, Ottawa vs. Atlanta, that should be a good game...except that I really don't like either team." The longer I follow teams, the more animosity springs up, and I have a hard time letting stuff go (i.e. my undying, ferocious, almost irrational hatred for Daniel Briere because of one game).

When my teams are playing well I hate for them to face each other, because one of them has to lose. Right now, though, I'm excited for the B's facing the Oilers. At least someone will win! Ugh, I hate to be pessimistic and everything but no one is showing any consistency. I miss Jarret Stoll.

Stuart and Primeau Are Flames

2007-02-11T13:30:00.000-05:00

Dang. I didn't see this one coming.

I was hoping for an Oilers/Bruins trade for selfish reasons- I like all the players involved and wanted to keep rooting for them. Now that's over and done with. I can no longer love Brad Stuart, and my sister Liz has lost her favorite player, Wayne "Vince Vaughn" Primeau (and yes, that is why she loves him). In addition to that, this was another pretty bad trade for the Bruins. It wasn't horrible, but they could have done a lot better. People are saying that Andrew Ference will replace Brad Stuart, and at the same time saying that Calgary has improved its defense. Stuart is better than Ference. While Ference is signed for a while (the most redeemable part of this trade), he is not equal to Stuart, and this fact causes the trade to make less sense. To equalize things, Chuck Kobasew would have to be a large upgrade over Vince Primeau. There are a few reasons why I don't think that's the case. The first is that Vince is more valuable than people realize. He kills penalties and is excellent defensively, but the Bruins have also occasionally had him out on the power play, standing in front of the net. And you know what? He was good there. He had success on the power play. Vince has shown flashes of being able to do more offensively than he has, which leads me to believe that, to help his defensive game, he curtails his offense. I'm not saying he could lead the league in scoring "if only", but he isn't just a spare part.

Another reason is that Kobasew is an underachiever. He has the ability to be much better than Primeau and to make the Bruins look a little smarter about this trade, but I don't know if I see that happening. The Bruins are not the New England Patriots. They do not spin gold from straw (or leading receivers from non-starters). If anything, the Bruins are the opposite of the Patriots. Even more than sudden All-Star Brian Rolston, you can look at Joe Thornton, who has been brought up a lot with this trade. While that was a unanimously terrible trade, what people are forgetting is that the Joe Thornton we're seeing now is not the Joe Thornton we saw for years here in Boston. He was always good for us (three times an All-Star) but he was never Hart good. And if you ask anyone in Boston, they'll tell you that he never would have been. Whether the environment was too stifling or if he just needed a kick in the ass, no Bostonian believes that he would have ever gotten to this point on the Bruins. The Bruins breed mediocrity, and Kobasew will not be exempt from that. (By the way, this makes Marc Savard even more surprising. A career underacheiver who had one good season with great linemates? We were all waiting for him to suck. Touche, Marc.)

People will disagree that Vince is more valuable than Kobasew, but have you heard any Flames fans upset about losing him? I haven't heard one fan say, "Oh man, we lost Kobasew! Damn, I really liked that guy." What I've heard them say is, basically, "Fine, take him. Let's see if he scores with you." But people in Boston are upset to lose Vince. He came out every night with hits and energy. He was constantly trying to give some life to his anemic team and chronically disappointed fans. While we acknowledged his limitations, we appreciated the spark he tried to bring. I know I'm going to miss his presence on the ice. So really, who's more valuable?

Of course I haven't mentioned that Primeau is a UFA and Kobasew is signed through next year, but that fact can be cancelled out by the conditional draft pick that the Bruins threw in. I don't know what the conditions are for it, and I don't care. That was stupid. There's also the difference in salaries (the Bruins save $1.6 million), but to the fans here who had to endure Harry Sinden this is only a sign that the Bruins haven't changed. I overheard my mother talking to my uncle on the phone about the trade. She said, "So they're below the cap, and they're still cheating? *sigh* Oh god."

One last thing about the trade- I actually like Andrew Ference coming to the B's. He's a good defenseman and I don't get the feeling that he's going to suck. I just wish that Chiarelli could have done a better job with this.

To stop bashing the B's for a bit, they actually won last night. I missed the game because I was out, but my parents were there and said it was awesome. The shootout went into nine rounds, with Chara eventually winning it. My parents called me and told me while I was trying on this shirt. I freaked out, because just the other night I had wondered wistfully if the Bruins would ever go far enough into a shootout to have to use Andrew Alberts. Unfortunately, this wasn't the night, but it must have come damn close. Anyway, glad to see them win, though they haven't won in regulation since January 6th against the Flyers, and haven't won in regulation against a decent team since they beat Montreal on December 23rd. This is too depressing.

I have tickets to the B's/Oilers game on Tuesday. I have openly admitted this- I'm rooting for the Oil. I'm not going to be upset if the B's win, but I'm very quickly losing all hope in the Bruins' season, while the Oilers, with a little bit of shaking up, can still salvage something. This is too depressing.

Yesterday we lost to Wakefield. We need a tie to make the tournament and only have one game left, against Woburn (better than Wakefield). We were tied 1-1 going into the 3rd period, but due to horrible officiating and shaky goaltending we ended up losing 3-1. Our freshman Lauren, whose nickname should really be "Target" at this point, got hit hard. Upset, she got up and hit the girl back, not as hard and after going for the puck as well. She got called and they got a power play goal to go ahead. I have an intense, bitter hatred for all refs, stemming back to a bad experience I had at age 10. At one point I got cross-checked in the neck and they didn't call it. The girl wouldn't have gotten a penalty at all if she didn't also decide to slap me across the face with her stick. I got my ass kicked a lot. A girl helped me into our net, ribs first. Later, I was down during a scramble in our crease and someone landed on my leg, and now my ankle really hurts. If we don't win our next game, I at least hope I break something or get knocked unconscious, just to add injury to insult. This is too depressing.

Today's games: 3:30 PM-- Avs vs. Stars
8:30 PM-- Oilers vs. Thrashers

Call the Police- Game11 Is Trying to Kill Me

2007-02-08T22:22:00.000-05:00

Andrew Alberts: The Face of Boston
I just got home from a very depressing Bruins game with Liz and Paula, who were drunk. I was thirsty at one point and asked for a sip of their soda, which of course ended up being an extremely unpleasant mistake. We again moved down to closer seats, and again were surrounded by sketchy people. There was a large group of what appeared to be coworkers in front of us, who are probably going to have a very awkward morning tomorrow. There was a younger kid two rows back from me who wanted to heckle Cam Ward, but didn't know whether or not he was Canadian and was discussing it with some guys across the aisle. I turned around and told them that he was, and that he was from Calgary. After looking him up, I see that he's not. Apparently he was born in Saskatchewan and grew up in Sherwood Park (which is closer to Edmonton). Am I crazy, or did he used to be from Calgary? Is someone lying to me about either his hometown or the location of this "Sherwood Park" he speaks of? Anyway, they heckled him and all, but I got the unwanted attention of the drunk guy behind us. Eventually Liz yelled at him, "Leave her alone! She's only 17! She's 17! She's not even legal to hit on!" He told her that he was only 23 and Paula asked him what year he was born. He stuttered and couldn't tell her. Then the Hurricanes scored 3 goals. All in all, the game left me with a weird feeling.

Now the Avs are losing 5-1 to Atlanta, and I'm not watching it because it's on fucking Game11 again. According to the official CenterIce website, the Colorado game isn't scheduled to broadcast. According to the Comcast website, Game11 doesn't exist. But according to the on-TV schedule, the Colorado game is on Game11. I don't know what's going on but I'm starting to think violent thoughts and I've developed a bad twitch. If for whatever reason I encounter this "channel" again, instead of one of my games, I'm going to drive to the CenterIce headquarters and burn it to the ground.

We won our game against Belmont despite poor officiating. All the refs in our league are awful because no one really cares. Saturday we play Wakefield. A week from that we play our last regular season game against Woburn. We need to get one point in the last two games, which is pretty possible, but will be easier against Wakefield. Let's hope we can pull it off and delay the end of my hockey for a little longer.

There Is No "Game11"

2007-02-06T23:38:00.000-05:00

Tonight the Oilers game was supposed to be on CenterIce channel "Game11". At least on my network, the channels range from 621 (Game1) to 630 (Game10). There is no "Game11", and sure enough, there was also no Oilers game. I would be fine with no Oilers broadcast if all the other channels were occupied or if no broadcast was available (as has happened during PPV games before), but this was clearly the CenterIce people taking too much acid. The game is apparently still going on, and the Oilers are apparently losing. I hate TV.

Luckily, though, both the Bruins and Avs games were amazing. I missed most of the Bruins game because the quick nap I took at around 5:30 ended up being four hours long. I caught the end of the game, the overtime, and the shootout, though I was a little distracted by the Game11 dilemma. I keep expecting Phil Kessel's shootout luck to run out, but after that last goal I've realized that it's not luck. He just owns.

I caught most of the Avs game. When I came in they were losing 2-1, then went down 3-1. Tyler Arnason then took over. He went through a stretch earlier in the year where he was playing wonderfully, but has tapered off lately. He had a really incredible game, besides his beautiful goal. After he scored it, I said to my parents, "Oh! He can do that. He did it before but he hasn't lately, and it'll be so good if he starts to again!" Since they don't know what I'm talking about anyway, I've stopped even trying to make sense. Despite the wording, I meant what I said- if he can keep playing like this, it's going to seriously help the Avs down the stretch. To quote Joe Sakic, "Arny was flying out there tonight." We need him to keep flying.
A few late-night thoughts:

John-Michael Liles, one of my favorite players, is back from a broken foot. Even though he wasn't as spectacular tonight as he can be, he's always valuable because of the way he moves the puck. I bet it turns the Oiler forwards on just to think about his passes.
Patrice Bergeron has played really well lately. I don't know if it's because he's stuck on a bad team, or because he's being overshahowed by Marc Savard, but Patrice has sort of faded into the background this season. Of course he's played well, but he hasn't been wowing us. On the other hand, Patrice is something of a quietly great player. He was picked 45th overall in 2003, the year that Eric Staal was #1. Since then, Patrice has played 203 games, amassing 160 points (.79 PPG), while Staal has played 218 games, getting 178 points (.82 PPG). Yet Eric Staal was an All-Star, while Patrice barely got considered? Even this year Patrice has more points. I know he hasn't had a 100-point season like Staal, but he's one of the most gifted young players around. He's smart, works hard, and not only plays the PP but also the PK. I can't believe that Patrice still isn't fully appreciated.
The one good side effect of the Oilers game not being broadcast is that I was forced to watch the Avs game without switching back and forth. It was a game that shouldn't have been switched from, and while I'd of course have loved to watch the Oil, it was nice to focus on one game.
We play Belmont tomorrow, and we should beat them. Nothing's guaranteed, though.

Reliving the Crazy

2007-02-05T22:29:00.000-05:00

I have an essay due tomorrow. I've been putting it off forever, but I finally have to write it. To inspire me to work, I was looking through journal entries from the spring, when the Oilers' playoff run helped me get through my final exams. There were only one or two from that week, as I was too busy attempting work, but the craziest one was from Thursday night, June 15. It's a little necessary to post parts up here. Keep in mind that this was written while I was still in a compromised state.

"It's two in the morning now. In the past 68 hours or so, I've gotten about eight hours of sleep. The cause is my English final. We were assigned an essay on Monday. It's due in 7 1/2 hours. In 7 1/2 hours I have to write another essay. We were given eight possible topics for our in-class part of the exam, meaning we have to plan eight possible essays, meaning eight outlines- eight thesis statements and 24 topic sentences. In 7 1/2 hours. I haven't prepared any yet. I also haven't studied for my math final outside of class. I have that in 5 hours and 45 minutes. I have to start getting ready for school in 4 1/2 hours."

"I'm saying this as objectively as I possibly can. There is scientific basis to it. I think I'm losing my mind. Sleep deprivation does that."

"I went down to the kitchen to make and retrieve more coffee. While making it, a mosquito landed on the cabinet above the coffee pot. I was deliberate and cautious in my planning of its death, but too much so. I moved the coffee pot out of the way and the mosquito suddenly took off and disappeared somewhere over the sink. It scared the crap out of me. I started seeing bugs everywhere in the kitchen. I think four things caused this. One, I always see bugs out of the corner of my eyes because I'm paranoid. Two, I'm losing my mind. Three, the fan above the light was casting crazy ass moving shadows that reflected off of everything. Four, there actually were a fair amount of bugs in the kitchen. I affirmed this. While waiting for the coffee to be done brewing I pulled a chair up to the counter and slumped over. I listened to the coffee being made and felt somewhat intrigued self-despair to keep awake. While I was objectively despairing, I said in my head, 'Thank god for the Edmonton Oilers'. After a few times I snapped back to reality. What would the Edmonton Oilers do? I had to do the work, no matter how crazy I was going. I was sane enough to know that."

"When I had finished my cereal I stood basically in the middle of the kitchen to drink the coffee. The lights were being shadowed. It was then that I probably saw the most bugs. I saw a lot of things, little wisps of steam coming out of the sink after I looked at my coffee and such. I smiled and joked to myself that I might as well be useful and hallucinate that Ryan Smyth was there. I actually tried but it didn't work. I saw the fuzzy outline of my reflection on some surface and wondered if I could hallucinate him at least there next to me. There was some shape next to me, maybe the door, but it looked a little like it was moving closer and it was creepy so I stopped doing that." [By the way, it wasn't just the reflection that was creepy there. What the hell was I doing? If I were Smytty I'd get a restraining order or something against me.]

"I think it was sometime around then that I started to hear the hockey game. My dad, asleep, had the TV on to some show possibly on Comedy Central. I swear, all the voices sounded like the OLN announcer. I heard him say "Pronger carries the puck by his man, shoots, scores" almost calmly. I scampered out to the hallway to see if they were replaying the game or something. Nope, just the random show. I smiled. It had sounded very real. Then the game sounds got more persistent. I heard the name Peca a few times, Hemsky maybe twice, as well as Andrew Ladd. In the beginning I was humoring it and stared at the stove absent-mindedly, trying to picture the game the announcer was describing. There was no real flow. It said the name Ryan Smyth and I perked up instinctively. That started to worry me. The sounds then got too bad. The announcer kept talking, but it was all gibberish. He said, "Game one, game two, game four". I heard a puck ring off the post. It was entertaining at first, but it didn't stop once I knew it wasn't real like the peripheral vision bugs."

I don't want to be too self-indulgent with all of that. At the time I was just trying to write down what was going on so I'd remember, but once I re-read it I just wanted to share it.
Now, after this MASSIVE distraction, I have to write my essay. Damnit.

Thank God for the...Bruins?

2007-02-04T10:03:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon's game didn't go too well. We lost 7-0 and played one of our worst games of the season. It was an extremely frustrating game. While some of our forwards have played really well, in general they've been weak. Yesterday the wings couldn't handle a breakout pass to save their lives. It's not like these were horrible, Oilers-de "passes" where we rim it around the boards and hope for the best. Of course occasionally we were forced to do that, because Lexington is a good forechecking team, but for the most part the passes were tape to tape (then off the tape and onto the tape of the Lexington de that was pinching down).

As far as my wrecking of that girl goes- yes, I hit her, and yes, I got a penalty for it. She actually got a cross-checking penalty for whatever small retaliation she mustered up. I didn't hit her hard enough, though. I wanted this girl to have to be carried off the ice, half-conscious. Instead what did I do? I got in one weak little hit, no more. With 32 seconds left in the game, their second dirtiest player (#32, actually) went hard into the boards with the same freshman that had been hurt the last time we played them, Lauren. She was worse off this time, I think. I was on the ice and I would have started something with the girl except that she was on her knees and getting up slowly. Instead of hitting her (a cheapshot from where she was), I just screamed at her, "What the fuck is wrong with you?!" to which she replied, "I fell." Sure kid, whatever you say. She was just lucky that she got to sit in the penalty box for the last 32 seconds, because Lauren's older sister Meg was hitting everything that moved. Meg, along with everyone else on the team, kept asking around to see what the girl's number was. I promptly informed them. I've been scuffling with this girl, too, since the end of last year.

When the game ended, #11 came charging off their bench, bumped shoulders with me, and yelled, "Game's over!" or something along those lines. I screamed back, at the top of my lungs, "What the fuck did you just say to me?!" I think I scared people on my team, as one person had to hold me back and our coach actually made a comment about it in the locker room, amusedly saying that he'd never seen me like that before. I was too frustrated. A freshman on our team used to live in Lexington and told me that the girl was a bitch and she knew where she lived. I appreciated the offer of egging her house, but didn't want to get arrested.

I got home and saw that the Oilers beat the Avs. I would have liked an overtime win so both teams could benefit. Since my game and this game overlapped, I didn't see any of their game and have nothing to write. Oh, one thing- did Mark Rycroft and Ladislav Smid actually get into a fight, or did they just write that on the scoresheet to see if anyone would notice?

I went out with my friends for a couple of hours once I was showered. After listening to them rant for 45 minutes about the hot boy they liked and the amazing weed they smoked, I said, "I kind of flipped out in my game today." My cousin Molly asked why. I started, "Well we lost like 6-0." That was all I got out before she turned to my other friend to rave about their weed again. Honestly- I listen to them for that long, and they can't listen to me for 30 seconds? I spent the rest of the night looking up pictures of hockey players on my new phone.

When I got home, the Bruins were down 2-1 to Carolina in the 2nd period. It seemed to be a pretty good game, with the B's coming out stronger in the 2nd to pull within a goal. Then Marc Savard, who has to be fed up with being the only consistently good thing on an underachieving team, made a beautiful, heads-up pass to Brad Boyes, coming out of the penalty box, who then himself had an amazing shot to tie it up. And while the Bruins did blow the lead they got in the 3rd, they ended up getting the two points. That game wasn't anything like the Bruins. Hopefully they'll keep up this strange new thing called "mental toughness". Honestly, though, did anyone think they were going to suck this much? Boston is diseased. I think we caught it from New York.
Today's games: none
Tomorrow's games: none (ouch)
Tuesday's games: 7:00 PM--Bruins vs. Capitals
9:00 PM--Avs vs. Panthers
9:00 PM--Oilers vs. Canucks

Pregaming the Pregame: If I Were an NHL-er

2007-02-03T13:18:00.000-05:00

I'm leaving for my game in about 20 minutes, but I saw a "chain post" and decided to quickly jump on it.

Team: start my career with the Oilers, end with the B’s
Uniform Number: 9, and I don’t care if it’s retired
Position: de
Nickname: O’D, Tizzle, Slut, Pinchers, Kateski, The Littlest Defenseman (to the media)
Dream Linemates: J-M Liles or Brad Stuart
Rounding out the PP: Joe Sakic, Ales Hemsky, and Ryan Smyth
Job: taking up ice time, supporting my partner when he decides to create offense, being there and not fucking up
Signature Move: pinching at the blue line, ramming my guy into the boards until I bounce off of him, falling when no one’s near me, checking my own teammates out of reflex
Strengths: passing, skating, not making MAB-esque errors
Weaknessess: shooting, scoring, fighting, doing anything worth taking notice of
Injury Problems? I’ll eventually lose so many brain cells from getting my head thrown into the boards that I’ll be a babbling idiot, but other than that I’ll be fine
Equipment: as little as humanly possible (most made out of tape 15 minutes before game time)
Nemesis: Mike Ribeiro (I’d give him a REAL reason to act hurt…or try), Alex Ovechkin (for no real reason)
Who I'd face in the Stanley Cup Finals: the heavily favored Buffalo Sabres, and I would succeed (for once) in wrecking Briere
What I'd do with the Stanley Cup after our victory: take naked pictures with it, Brad Stuart, and J-M Liles
Scandal Involvement: pictures leaked onto internet by insanely jealous Ales Hemsky
Would the media love me or hate me? They would have no idea who I was until the pictures got leaked, then claim on air that it's shocking and inappropriate. But that's not how they'd really feel.

There you have it- my future. My immediate future involves our game against Lexington and the girl I have to wreck. Wish me luck!
[And yes, that is a real picture of me. I'm number nine, of course- the one not fucking anything up but not doing anything particularly exciting.]

Ignorance is Bliss

2007-02-02T11:38:00.000-05:00

Last night was a depressing night for my hockey life. All three teams lost. I was at the Bruins game with my older sister Liz and her friend Paula (who is unhealthily and hilariously obsessed with Patrice Bergeron). Despite the B's playing a game against a good divisional team (Buffalo), the place was far from packed. We moved down to seats in the corner, three rows back from the glass. The older, drunk couple behind us warned us that they were sniffing out seat-grubbers, but we managed to blend in well enough to stay there for the whole game. The woman asked us if we moved down to see the hot players more closely, and of course Paula confirmed that and started ranting about Patrice. Liz and I tried to convince them that we actually liked hockey and played ourselves, but just then Andrew Alberts skated by with an enormous black eye. They had to get a mop to clean up my drool, and my dignity. Am I the only one that finds hockey players that much more attractive when they look like they were hit with a crowbar? Pretty boys with twinkly eyes and pouty lips do nothing for me, but when I see a guy with missing teeth, black eyes, and blood trickling down his face, my heart skips a beat. Is this normal, or am I secretly sadistic? Whatever, it's amazing, whether it's weird or not.

With like a minute left in the second period, four people showed up with front-row tickets in front of us and kicked out this guy and his two sons, who were celebrating a birthday. These people clearly weren't hockey fans (the women were there to be watched, not to watch). The drunk woman behind us started a mini-fight with them while her drunker husband tried to get her to sit down. While the people disgusted me, they did have tickets. She was just drunk and belligerent. On that note, I have yet to go to a Boston sporting event without being surrounded by drunken, belligerent people. We really are the Athens of America, aren't we?

The Avs' game started at nine, so I caught the last two periods of it once I got home. It was one of those games where I kept thinking we were winning. They dominated so completely in the third period that I still find it strange that they lost. God damn Minnesota strangled them with defense. There was one good thing about the game (other than the fact that I keep thinking they won)- Marek Svatos scored! I love him, so this would be good news any time, but it's especially good news now. Anyone who watches the Avs has to be puzzled with Marek this year. Last year he awed me pretty much every game. He was the most dynamic player I've seen in a while. When he was on the ice, I couldn't help but watch him. That crazy thing he does with his feet was so adorable that I started doing it on the ice in practice when I got bored. But this year, he's not the same Marek Svatos. If he got the puck in the slot last year, he was money, no matter how many people were covering him. This year he's failed to bury point-blank chances. He just hasn't been himself. Part of me wonders if it has anything to do with his shoulder problems, but it seems unlikely that it's anything physical. Anyway, last weekend, I had a dream that he had an awesome game and was the Marek we know and love. He blew by people (mostly on his heels) and drilled home a puck in the slot. When I woke up I thought, "I'm so glad that Marek finally had a good game. He did everything he needed to do." Then reality set in. Last night was my dream- I swear. His goal was the goal from my dream and his game was the game from my dream. I could have cried. But damnit, they still lost.

The Oilers game confused me a little. There were times when they seemed dominant, and the one-goal deficit was miniscule, but there were even more times when I was shocked that we were only down by one and had little hope for a win. The end of the game was too emotionally exhausting to write about. It probably didn't help that CenterIce chose to broadcast the Vancouver station. It can really ruin a hockey game when you have to listen to the opposing announcers whine the whole time. I've had to mute the San Jose announcers more than once. Luckily, CenterIce favors Canadian stations and shows almost all of the Avs games on Altitude, which is my favorite broadcast after HNIC. Altitude does everything right. They show interviews in between every period, the announcers are likeable, and they don't try to get too fancy. In general, they make it easy to love the Avs, like a network should.

It depresses me when all three of my teams lose. A few weeks ago, my real-life team suffered a tough afternoon loss on a Saturday. I told my friends that I needed to stay in and watch hockey to unwind, or else I wouldn't sleep well (this is why they hate hockey). That night, not only did all three teams lose, but all three teams embarrassed themselves with awful losses. At least last night none of them openly sucked.

Tomorrow we're playing Lexington, who has been the dirtiest team around since youth hockey. They have one girl, #11, who's been wrecking people for that whole time, and last game she took down one of our freshmen. After the game I promised that I would devote our next meeting to hurting her. Being the Littlest Defenseman, this isn't as easy as it sounds. I'm normally a very calm person who avoids confrontations, but during games I get completely psychotic. I've tried to hit people before out of raging fury, and it doesn't work. This girl, though, deserves it more than anyone else. We'll see if I can pull it off.

Tonight's Games: none
Tomorrow's Games: 3:00 PM--Winchester vs. Lexington
3:00 PM--Avs vs. Oilers
8:30 PM--B's vs. Hurricanes

First is the Worst

2007-02-02T11:30:00.001-05:00

I have no idea what I'm up to. This is the first post of my first blog, so I guess I should explain myself...in Q&A format.

Why is your blog called "The Littlest Defenseman"?
I'm 5' 2", and in addition to watching more hockey than I really should, I also play hockey. I've played for eight years and been a de the whole time. My dad, who thinks he's really funny and has coached me forever, was teasing me in front of my sister and said, "Yep, we call her 'The Littlest Defenseman'. She's just like the other defensemen...but littler." If you know him (which you don't...) then you'll know that it was actually pretty funny, that my sister thought it was way funnier than it was, and that he hasn't stopped calling me that since.

Why do you love hockey?
I haven't the slightest idea.
I come from a hockey family. My dad has played since he was a little kid, and my mom always watched hockey. She skipped school waaay back in the 70's when the Bruins won the Cup to go see the parade in town. I'm captain of my high school team now, but won't be playing after this. In fact, I have at most a month of playing hockey left. This isn't the best time to start a blog, then, because in a month I'll be writing emo posts about how I cut my wrists with my skates to make the pain go away. I give everyone permission to A) call me out on it, and B) find it really funny. I'd do the same to you.
To rant on for too long, I also love to watch hockey, and follow three teams rabidly- the Bruins, the Avs, and the Oilers.

How can you possibly root for three hockey teams and live with yourself?
This is the only time I'm going to apologize for my three-timing. It's awful. It's terrible. I'm a really bad person for it and I'm not being completely sarcastic when I say that. I hate myself for it more than anyone else can. But I can't do anything about it. It's too late.
I've always been a Bruins fan (born and raised). The year before the lockout, I started following hockey a little more closely. That was the year that Paul Kariya (then my favorite player) decided to go to the Avs for a year. Even though there was no CenterIce package or anything, I decided to follow the Avs. That was the most openly terrible part of this, because it was so conscious, but in my defense I was hardly out of middle school and it was my first year on my own as a fan.

The Oilers were much more accidental, but also terrible in their own way. During last year's playoffs (I could barely write that for the blatant bandwagon-ry that it implied), I was rooting for San Jose over the Oilers in their series. Since the Avs played the Oilers a lot, I had never liked them much, and I had liked San Jose even before Joe got sent there. The thing is, I didn't like them enough to see a sweep. I wanted a good series. So when the Sharks went up two games to none, I told myself that, for the sake of the series, I wanted the Oilers to win game three. My spirits were still with San Jose, though, until I let the Oilers in a little. Slowly they began to win me over. I'd catch myself and remind me that I wasn't really rooting for them, but I was slipping. When Ryan Smyth got hit in the face with a puck, I fell. I remember thinking to myself, "Oh shit...now I'm rooting for the Oilers, aren't I? Fuck." The triple overtime win sealed the deal.

I've rooted for teams to win the Cup before, then dropped them once the playoffs ended. Everyone does. I wanted Anaheim to win against New Jersey, I wanted Calgary to beat Tampa Bay, and of course I wanted the Avs to win with Bourque before I was a fan of them. The reason that I still follow the Oilers (I figure I can't call myself an "Oilers' fan" for a while) is because of the Finals against Carolina. That week, I had my final exams for school, and only slept 10 hours combined. By Thursday night I was hallucinating and actually heard a hockey game (Edmonton vs. Carolina, of course) going on in my kitchen. It was rough, and the only reason I got through it and got everything done was because of the Oilers and how they battled back to get to Game 7 of that series. I mean, I was so emotionally connected to them because of that week that I cried when they lost.

I guess what I should have said, in MANY less words, is that through some events colliding over the past few years, I'm hooked on three teams. And once I'm hooked, I'm hooked. To dump any of these teams now wouldn't make me more of a fan of the others. I'll write about all three.

Do you have a life outside of hockey?
No, not really. During the winter I go into "hockey hibernation", where all I want to do is play or watch hockey. It drives my friends nuts. For three seasons of the year I see them every day, then all of a sudden I disappear. Because of this, they all hate hockey.

I do see them sometimes, though, so I might occasionally mention them. I'm a movie whore, so I might mention movies sometimes as well. During the summer I'm an intense Red Sox fan, so during the summer I'll write about them.

I'm in the college application process. My top school is the University of Alberta, because I want to study paleontology and be in a place where my friends won't hate hockey. If I get in, I'll be sure to write an annoyingly overjoyed post about it, so get ready!

Thanks for reading, if you did. As you can see, it's physically impossible for me to write a short post. I'm sure I'll chill out sooner or later, right?