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.]
Showing posts with label san jose. Show all posts
Showing posts with label san jose. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Saturday, April 14, 2007
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
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
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