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We Like To Watch – May 16th: The Good Fortune Of Mistakes Not Made

By 1363

If you haven’t read Ryan Lambert’s What We Learned on Puck Daddy today, you should. It’s pretty instructive on not just how luck plays a huge part in playoff success on the ice, but also off the ice. And considering how most NHL teams are run, the moves you don’t make–or more to the point the ones you aren’t allowed to– can shape an organization’s future and present. It also kind of lets you know just how backward a lot of teams still are.

And that also applies here. While everyone still rushed to praise Stan Bowman and his staff, even though they might be the most born-on-third front office in the history of the game, there are slices of good fortune in moves they weren’t allowed to complete that played a huge role for them.

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We Like To Watch – May 12th: Scary In Its Predictability

By 1161

Stars-Blues Game 7:

We said it in September. I remember tweeting that old hockey adage, “If you think you have two goalies, you probably don’t have one.” Everyone knew where this was going with Dallas, and it never veered off that course. Everyone knew that at some point in the spring their goaltending would eventually be their downfall. They occasionally flashed that they might be the one team since the ’10 Hawks to overcome bad goaltending to win it all (same goalie too. That’s weird), and some of us bought into it at times. But it always came back to this.

The Stars were even with the Blues in the 1st period last night. They had the same quality chances. There’s didn’t go in. The Blues’ did. And that’s it. It doesn’t really need any more analysis than that.

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We Like To Watch – May 10th: Go The Distance

By 1201

We’re getting two Game 7s, and the gut feels like we may get rewarded with a third after tonight, based on nothing but where I feel the tides are at the moment. Let’s run through it.

Stars-Blues Game 6:

You should read Down Goes Brown’s column yesterday on Vice, because it’s something I’ve thought a lot about this past season. It does start to seem like we’re just watching for bounces and luck and hope that they all go our team’s way. Sure, there are things you can do to get yourself more chances of a puck hitting some skate and landing somewhere advantageous, like create more attempts and lessen the ones against you obviously. But in a year where so many were complaining that there were too many teams doing what they could to get more chances in the draft lottery, it feels more and more that the playoff teams are just doing what they can to get more chances in a different kind of lottery.

I couldn’t escape that feeling when watching this game last night. I’m not sure the dichotomy changed all that much. The Stars’ defense still had massive problems breaking out of their own zone. The Blues still got tons of chances. And yet for one night, the goalies reversed. I’m not even sure Brian Elliot was all that bad, he just wasn’t good. Kari Lehtonen certainly was, as most NHL goalies can at least be excellent for a game here or there. So is that the fault of either team? Did the Stars “solve” Elliot? Or were they just fortuitous in that he had an off-night timed to keep their season alive? Did the Blues not do enough to beat Lehtonen? Or were they just unlucky in that he had his best game of the playoffs, maybe season, maybe career, at the most opportune time? You can lose your mind with this stuff.

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We Like To Watch – May 9th: The Business End Of Round 2

By 1326

Getting down to it now. Let’s go through it:

Lightning v. Islanders – This series… is… OVAHHHHH!

Well we didn’t get this one right. Both Feather and I thought the absence of Stamkos and the presence of Tavares would tell the tale on this one. We kind of forgot about nuclear Victor Hedman, which we shouldn’t have given what we saw last spring. Hedman carried a 56.0 CF% for the series, without his normal partner, and essentially left the Isles scorched and limbless in his path. We saw this last year but the Hawks had Duncan Keith to counter. The Islanders don’t… have one of these, do they Jack? Hamonic is a fine player but he’s not in that class and neither are Thomas Hickey or Nick Leddy. The Isles have basically a bunch of second pairing guys.

Throw in some brilliance from Ben Bishop and the Lightning getting goals up and down the lineup, and that’s how you have something that goes this quickly. Whoops.

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We Like To Watch – May 5th

By 1485

Last night: Penguins 3 – 2 Capitals (OT)

It’s never a good sign when your goalie is bus-tossing the rest of the team, but there was Braden Holtby doing just that. I’m not sure how you don’t run over a team without Letang and Maatta at least in terms of possession, especially when the replacements are Justin Schultz and Derrick Pouliot. Trevor Daley had to skate big minutes and yet the Pens were not buried. That’s… that’s not good. I’m not sure the Caps are doing that much wrong but they’re certainly not doing enough right. They have one goal from the bottom six this series, and this was a team that spread out the scoring all year. It can’t buy a power play goal. Holtby’s been good, but he’s getting outplayed by Matt Murray who wasn’t in the league until two months ago. And it was the fill-in for Brooks Orpik who Brooks Orpik’d the Pens the winner last night, with a sweet set up from Mike Weber for Patric Hornqvist. Now we’ll see what they’re made of and if Barry Trotz can overcome his usual conservativeness and unleash the hounds. They’ve played scared of the Penguins on the counter attack, but they should be able to score enough being aggressive to overcome that. We shall see.

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We Like To Watch – May 4th

By 1328

Let’s do it again:

Lightning 5 – 4 Islanders (OT)

While there are some crusty old guys who love the fact that officials become a personification of a urine puddle late in playoff games and overtime, I’ve always thought it was dumb and contradictory to the sport. As I’ve said many times, “Letting the players decide” is a phrase that makes no sense. When one commits a penalty to stop another, the players have decided. They’ve decided that one got beat so badly or made a mistake that the other should be rewarded with a power play for his team. While the refs may say they don’t want to decide games, they are deciding them with inaction. They’re just coming out way worse on the other side.

Brian Boyle’s hit on Thomas Hickey was late and it was to the head. The ref was about as close to it as I am to my coffee table right now which I have my feet up on at the moment (thug life). And he couldn’t locate his spine to make the right call. The Bolts get a 2-on-1 because one of the Isles’ defenders who would be defending was trying to pop his nose back out of his brain. Boyle scores from the exact spot Hickey would have prevented him from getting to. Sure, you could argue it’s karma from what the Isles got away with in Game 6 against the Panthers. But I doubt that went through anyone’s head at the time.

Anyway, this game was awesome and it sucks it was decided on this. The Isles seem to be discovering that you need more than a top line and a good 4th line to win.

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Playoff Weekend Wrap And May 2nd Preview: It’s Shaping Up

By 1294

As we will do through the rest of the playoffs, just wrapping up the other action and previewing what comes tonight.

Islanders 1 – 1 Lightning

The East’s stepchild series, as no one seems to be paying any attention. And yet it has the potential to be as good as the other one. Game 2 was seemingly the only one that John Tavares didn’t simply grab in his hand and wield it however he saw fit. That’s been the most exciting thing about the Isles’ run so far, obvious as it is. There’s something about watching a player simply transcend all those around him, and Tavares has done that through his team’s first eight games.

There’s also something pretty satisfying about watching a coach have to eat it over previous treatment of a player, like Jon Cooper and Jonathan Drouin. The latter has been crushing it when finally given a scorer’s role, which you might think would come pretty naturally to a #3 overall pick. But in a league that looks to stifle creativity it took this long. But don’t worry, Cooper is still a genius who will get all the plaudits for making Drouin “earn it.” Though considering Tyler Johnson was broken last year and Stamkos misfiring, might Drouin made a bigger difference last spring?

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The “Irreplaceable Shaw,” Pens-Caps, Boudreau, And Other Argle Bargle

By 1695

Lotta strands floating in Ol’ Duder’s head today. Let’s see if we can’t get through it all.

-So it took me a day or two to get around to commenting on Joel Quenneville’s assertion that Andrew Shaw is “irreplaceable.” We know that Q has a loose grip on what a salary cap actually is, considering the way he spent the first month or two of the season in a strop (not Pedro, #HatToTheLeft) that Brandon Saad wasn’t around even though there was no way the Hawks could sign him for what he got. That’s unfortunate, given how much sway we’re pretty sure Q gets over personnel decisions. Or maybe he doesn’t get enough say and that’s why he shits on the ones Stan makes. But that’s not why you called.

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Now That The Dust Has Settled

By 1565

There is something slightly futile about trying to project playoff matchups and outcomes even in January and the beginning of February, because sometimes rosters look nothing like what they do when March begins. Or are altered in some way at least. Just look at the Hawks. A week ago they didn’t really have a bottom six, even when Kruger returns, and had a huge, gaping hole dripping gravy on the blue line (might still have that one). Now they might have the deepest forward group in the West.

Now that we know pretty much what everyone is going to look like when the playoffs begin, we can get a much better idea of the path the Hawks have to (and likely will) walk. I’ve written all season that even though the Hawks were not the team they were last year, there really hadn’t been a team that stepped into the gap that I thought for sure were a major threat. The Stars are fun but totally flawed, the Blues have remained the Blues, the Kings had some questions, and the Ducks couldn’t get out of their own way. Has any of that changed now?

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There’s February: Sharks 2 – Hawks 0

By 1265

Box Score

Event Summary

War On Ice

Perhaps it took the home schedule in this month to kick in the winter doldrums we’ve come accustomed to. One game of course does not signal anything. The Sharks, as cloudy and weird as their identity might be in a lot of places, were suffocating in their own zone. While the Hawks mustered up an acceptable number of shots, San Jose cordoned off any prime scoring areas for all 60 minutes. Their backchecking was ferocious. The Hawks love to beat a man to the outside and then hit the late man, but couldn’t do it at all tonight with the retreating Sharks’ forwards blanketing that option. Anything from the outside the pretty sizable Martin Jones is going to stop. Tonight’s shot chart tells something of a story. Hawks didn’t get much below the circles.

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