Game Twos

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