Everything Else

Stanley Cup Final Game 3 Recap – A Game I Definitely Watched And Was Not Drunkenly Passed Out For

By Sam Fels 1501 0

That’s absolutely true. I was not snoring and drooling on my couch for the first 30 minutes of this contest in a European Champions stupor only to discover the game was over when I came to. Definitely saw the whole thing. It was that important to me. I thought it mattered that much, and wouldn’t find the missing of any of it actual sweet relief to my psyche. Nope, no siree bob.

When I awo…I mean I watched the Blues take seven penalties, including three in the first, which is very Blues. I definitely saw that Jordan Binnington further proved that he’s pretty much just been “a dude” since like March 1st. He’s at .909 for the playoffs now, which is hardly remarkable. And by the time St. Louis could launch any sort of response they were done and Tuukka Rask could yawn his way through the last 40. Definitely witnessed it all.

-As I guessed, or maybe just hoping, the “rust” issue was a problem for the Bruins in Game 2 and not Game 1. The overwhelming adrenaline of the Final beginning got them through, and they skated away from the Blues forecheck pretty much every time. They looked leggy in Game 2 and couldn’t get away from that Blues pressure, and you got what you got. They only had to do it for the first period last night, but the Bruins had their d-men take a half-step up, force the Blues to dump the puck in a touch quicker, which gives them more space to retrieve the puck and move their feet or move their puck quickly. Even with Grzelcyk they were able to do this. Or at least Krug and Carlo were able to, which was enough.

-Noted New Genius Craig Berube chose not to keep sending his top line of Schenn-Schwartz-Tarasenko as the completely outpaced Chara, and though the O’Reilly line was able to turn Chara’s head into something resembling an anvil most of the night, that caused his top line to do most of the chasing of Krug. And the Blues need that top line to be in the offensive end and score, because they’re not going to get the goals consistently from the likes of TO BLAIS WHICH MEANS TO BLUFF and Perron and Maroon and the other clowns that comprise their bottom six. Considering the way the Blues top line tossed around Chara and McAvoy in Boston you’d think you’d stick with it. But Berube is a genius now, as we’ve stated, so what do I know?

-Speaking of genius, Bergeron’s line had as much time as Coyle’s and Nordstrom’s line, which is definitely a plan for success. Yes, Bergeron is not healthy but come on, man. David Pastrnak had more ice time than only two other forwards on the Bruins. There’s taking your foot off the gas and then there’s whatever this is.

-The Blues led in hits so that means they really won, right?

-This is Binnington’s biggest reverse since taking over the starter’s job, and should be interesting to see how he responds. He had only given up more than three goals three times all season, but the Blues will need a rebound effort from him. But again, since March 1st his SV% is .910. Which is fine. It’s not great. It’s barely good or average. It’s not going to get it done here.

Everything Else

Stanley Cup Final Game 2 Recap – Oh For F–k’s Sake

By Sam Fels 1817 0

I suppose on a day when yet another professional sports team gets in bed with BarfStool it’s only right they get their dicks kicked in at home, which is essentially what the Bruins did despite the game going to overtime. This series is certainly make everyone taste their own bile, with the Bruins off the ice and the Blues on it, but here we are and now the Blues have won a Final game for the first time and nothing feels right and pretty much everything sucks. They should just cancel this thing tomorrow and the overwhelming majority of people would be happy.

I guess I have to clean it up.

-The Bruins aren’t going to win many games, if any, when their top line is getting turned over by the other team’s top line. Which is exactly what happened last night, as Schenn-Swartz-Tarasenko turned that trick. Not helping the cause at all, and the one thing we pointed out the Bruins had to do from Game 1 to 2, was sending out Zdeno Chara behind Bergeron to deal with that threat, because he isn’t up for it. Check out Tarasenko’s goal for further proof if you need, where he looked like your elderly neighbor trying to get a weed out of the yard. It’s trickier after Grzelcyk got hurt and the Bs were down to five D and still only gave Clifton 16 minutes, but you know you’ve got a matchup wrong when the other team is going to go running for it when they get the home ice on Saturday. And you can bet your ass St. Louis will. If Chara ever starts a shift anywhere but the offensive zone, fire Bruce Cassidy into the nearest landfill, which in St. Louis is always right down the block.

-Torey Krug is the only blue-liner to come out with any credit and in the black possession-wise for Boston, and that’s mostly because he’s already driven the Blues into frothing madness and they spend his entire shift trying to hunt him down like it was a fox hunt. This will only get worse in front of the braying rabble and their truck nuts, and the Bruins will score off a rush through that space at least once.

-To pin it all on Chara and the Bs ineptness isn’t fair. I thought the Blues would have to step back and basically trap, and they did so at times. They also were able to turn up the volume on their forecheck, which you can do once or twice but not convinced for a whole series. If anything, the rust everyone was worried about looked like it was more present in Game 2 as adrenaline got the Bruins through Game 1. They definitely looked too relaxed at points and it was no match for the fury of the other group.

-David Krejci showing up at some point would be nice.

-Schwartz threw up a 78% Corsi and an 81% xGF% going out there against Chara, if you’d like to know the scope of the problem here.

-Tuukka Rask made some of his own messes last night, as his rebound control was less than stellar. It prolongated too many Blues possessions and the overtime winner, though on a delayed call, was an example of something that could have been smothered earlier.

-Curious to see what Anointed Genius Berube does Saturday, as Pietrangelo was used exclusively in the offensive zone last night. If they’re going to choose to send Parayko and Edmundson at Bergeron every shift in St. Louis, I think that will go well for those of us who want this to be over quickly.

-Oskar Sundqvist’s hit was bad, I don’t know if it’s suspension bad but then again if you’re trying to eliminate this thing from hockey it has to be. There was never a point where he didn’t see Grzelcyk’s numbers, it was also late and useless, and the NHL is going to have to start erring on the side of harsh instead of lenient if it ever truly wants change. Which it probably doesn’t.

-Sammy Blais doesn’t do anything but run around like an idiot and get knocked on his ass. What a perfect representation of everything it is to be a Blue. He’s Tom Wilson without any of the whimsy.

Let’s just hope that was a one game belch.

Everything Else

Stanley Cup Final Game 1 Recap: Well That’s Reassuring

By Sam Fels 1421 0

As it’s the Final, we’ll give you actual recaps instead of the smartass quips we’ve specialized in the past couple months. They’ll just take a while because we have to stop throwing up first. 

If you’re watching this series while holding your nose and just hoping that it will end quickly, then last night is what you wanted. Yes, the Bruins were a bit rusty…for about 10 minutes. After that, everything we’ve thought about the Blues-their defense isn’t that good, Binnington has been fine but hardly spectacular, and the Bruins depth and star power is better–came to fruition. One game doesn’t a narrative make, but there is a lot more the Blues have to solve while the Bruins have just been doing what they have been and will only need to continue to do so. This was a complete ass-kicking for at least two-thirds of the game.

Let’s do some bullets.

The Two Obs

-You should never take anything Barry Melrose says seriously, and the biggest clue that ESPN doesn’t care about hockey is that he remains in their employ even though I don’t think he’s watched a game since 2001 (including his coaching stint), but he wasn’t the only one who was championing this series as something of a “return.” That’s only based on what the Blues only kind of are and the reputation the Bruins have even though they haven’t been that for years. But there was this idea both teams are big and bad and the idea of a lot of fast and nippy wingers with skill aren’t the way forward and that this was TRUE HOCKEY. Horseshit.

The Blues simply couldn’t handle the Bruins forecheck, because their defense is so goddamn slow. Their only d-man who can move is Vinnie Bag Of Donuts Dunn, and he’s hurt. There were turnovers galore early, which then had the Blues defense backing up at their line when the Bruins were carrying in trying to cheat to win the races down low later. Which only gave the speed the Bruins have at forward more space to the outside to carry the puck in and create, which led to the Blues never having the puck and having tire treads to remove from their chests this morning.

But the real differences in these teams, and one we’ll get to later today that the Hawks should be paying particular attention to, is the mobility of the Bruins defense. Chara was awful, the rest were very much not. McAvoy, Krug, Grzelcyk (especially), and Clifton are all at least mobile enough to open up a passing lane for themselves to evade the Blues forecheck, which has been pretty furious at times this spring. Or they just outright get away from them, and even when the Bruins are attacking the St. Lous line three-on-three or four-on-three, the Blues defense is backing up. You want to know why the Bruins dominate possession all season even beyond the Bergeron line? There you go.

-I saw a good portion of Blues Twitter saying, “We’ll be all right when we stop taking penalties.’ Because that’s a thing that’s happened the past 30 years.

–Jordan Binnington made over 30 saves, only the third time he’s had to do so this playoff run. But if the Bruins are going to toss 35 shots at him a night, this is what the Blues are going to get. 34 out of 37 saves is good. It’s not great, and that’s mostly what Binnington has done. It’ll have to be better than what the Bruins will get on the other side.

-The only unit for the Blues that wasn’t covered in their own piss by the end of the night was their top line of Schwartz-Schenn-Tarasenko, which got their two goals as well. The adjustment I would expect the Bruins to make is to get Chara out of that matchup, though it’s a risk to try it with Brandon Carlo and Torey Krug, given the latter’s defensive balloon-handedness. But Chara simply isn’t up to it and that much was clear, and you don’t want to be jumbling your pairs at this point.

For the Blues, playing this way of trying to trade forechecks is going to get them this. Their defense will get snowed in, the Bruins will get away from theirs, and they’ll spend the night chasing. It would seem their only option for Game 2 is to go Trotz and trap this up and make McAvoy and Krug weave through it. That would allow their slow d-men to back up at their line while still being protected and not leaving acres to the outside. Then they might have a chance of retrieving pucks and moving it along without getting clobbered. The more the Blues try to speed this up the more they’re going to get exposed.

Let’s hope for that, so we don’t have to be here long.

Everything Else

You Were So In With The Out Crowd – Stanley Cup Final Preview: Barf Barf Barf

By Sam Fels 1455 0

vs.

SCHEDULE

Game 1 in Boston Monday, 7pm

Game 2 in Boston Wednesday, 7pm

Game 3 in St. Louis Saturday, June 1st, 7pm

Game 4 in St. Louis Monday, June 3rd, 7pm

Let’s get through this together. It’s the Layoff vs. The Momentum, and it’s going to be utter torture for pretty much everyone outside the two cities involved. Still, I’m of the opinion it won’t last very long, but I haven’t been very good at this all spring so you’re going to blame me when this goes balls-up anyway.

Goalies: The big question here is if the 11 days off for Tuukka Rask is going to cost him any sharpness in what has been one of the best springs a goalie has put up in a long while. The Knights last year won the West Final in five games, had a fair amount of time off, and then Fleury was the biggest reason they got pantsed in the Final (and he’ll be the biggest reason they never get back there. Good times). Rask comes into this one with a .942, which if he were to carry out would be even better that Tim Thomas‘s Tour-de-Stupid of 2011. It’s the best mark of any goalie to get to the conference final at least since Quick’s .946 in 2012. The only marks recently that have been better for a conference final appearance or better have been Giguere’s Conn Smythe campaign in ’03, Smith’s 2012 (get fucked), and Hiller in ’09. Strangely, only Quick’s won the Cup, but here we are. If Rask remains at this level, then you don’t have to worry. He looked so in control in Carolina when the Bruins needed him, so it’s not like he’s been hanging on an edge to do this.

Jordan Binnington has been fine. Really, that’s it. He didn’t have to do much once the Sharks basically disintegrated. He was very good in Game 4, which is about the last time the Blues needed him to be. He faced only 21 shots in Game 5 and 26 in Game 6, and one would think the Bruins will require him to do more than that. Binnington has only made over 30 saves twice in 19 playoff games, but the Blues haven’t really required it. They will require a goalie win or two in this series, but it’s still not a sure thing that Binnington will provide it.

Defense: As they pile us off to the rubber room in the next week or two, they’ll do so while we’re muttering if not screaming about how neither of these blue lines is any good. So let’s narrow the focus. The Blues have to figure out who takes the Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak assignment, and I still don’t believe they have anyone to do it. But I didn’t think they had anyone to take the Sharks top line either. Still, this is the best line in hockey, and the Canes couldn’t do much about it and they have twice the defense. I assume the Blues will do everything they can to get Pietrangelo out there, but he doesn’t have the mobility to deal with this. I don’t know how teams haven’t been able to harvest the organs of Parayko and Edmundson, but the Bruins aren’t really all that deep either. Krejci is good, and DeBrusk has played well, but they’ve rotated left-wingers. Still, the Bruins didn’t get this far without depth scoring, and that shouldn’t stop against the murder of idiots the Blues are trotting out there.

The Bruins aren’t an impressive group either. Chara and McAvoy take the hard shifts, and metrically they’ve come up in the red. Goals-wise though, which is how they still measure the damn thing, they’re both over 65%. Krug and Carlo have been much better metrically, and they’ll have the easier time against Sundqvist’s or Bozak’s crew here. Grzelcyk has actually been sneaky good, and not getting sheltered starts to be so, but he’s the one d-man whom the Bruins can’t buy a goal when he’s on the ice. They could use a market correction here.

Forwards: The Blues have gotten incredible work from ROR, Tarasenko, and Perron, even when Tarasenko couldn’t throw a grape in the ocean at even-strength. Schenn-Schwartz-Sundqvist certainly matched or exceeded them against the Sharks, and Schenn came close to sending Pierre McGuire into a coma. Bozak, Thomas, and Maroon have chipped in with a couple big goals, and if the Blues have any advantage in this series it’s here as the Bruins don’t really go three lines deep.

We’ve already been over the best line in hockey, and given the usual IQ of the Blues they’ll get looks on the power play where they’ve been death pretty much throughout. That with Rask alone is probably enough. Coyle and Johansson have chipped in here or there, but mostly the Bruins have ridden what they get from the top unit and a little more from Krejci’s line. If the Blues find a way to stop the top line, or even keep them somewhat contained, the Bruins could be in a quandary. Good thing they won’t.

Prediction: I’m not even going to pretend to be unbiased here, so I’m going to say only what I will allow myself to say. The Blues are too stupid to not put the Bruins on the power play a good number of times. Binnington is not up to turning away repeated looks for Bergeron, Pasta, and Da Noid on the man-advantage. Rask might not be able to maintain this .942 after this break, but he probably doesn’t have to. Even .930 almost certainly gets it done.

Yeah, Binnington could go off. We don’t know enough about him to say he won’t. Tarasenko could get hot. The Blues slightly better depth at forward could matter here if the Bruins top line doesn’t keep causing gas explosions everywhere. The 11 days might matter more than we think.

But I don’t see it. Get it over with. Bruins in five.

 

Everything Else

The Bruins Have Saved You Before

By Sam Fels 2356 0

I know it’s dark. I know you woke up this morning not quite believing what you were in for, what you had seen. I know you’re desperately trying to awake from what seems a nightmare. It can’t be real. Not even the most vengeful of gods would subject you to this. But alas, sports are not here for a constant feel-good state. They’re meant to swing y0u from one pole to the other, so that each moment is just a little more vivid than if you didn’t know the other side. I won’t tell you to embrace this, because it’s not possible. But you will remember this when things swing the other way, whenever that might be.

Only Sophie can empathize. Yet another Boston championship…or true death.

Still, we’ve been here before. It was eight years ago. Sure, there were two less Red Sox World Series rings then, and three less Patriots’ Super Bowls (good god), and perhaps the combination of those five parades down the cursed and ill-designed Boylston St. have pushed you past the edge of understanding or acceptance. I get it. It’s a lot to battle against.

Still, there was a fate worse that awaited us in June of 2011. Do you remember how vile those Canucks were? Do you remember how they’d sat and waited until the cap ruined the Hawks and they could arise simply by watching us fall away? Wouldn’t have a Canucks victory, matching the only one we had at the moment, be worse than this? You may say no, but you’re forgetting that Burrows winner after taking an overtime penalty that could have capped a glorious comeback. Or the beginning of the Keith-Sedin Holy War.

Remember how unstoppable it all looked? Ryan Kesler beat the Predators by himself. The Sharks meekly lifted their heads just high and just long enough to have them violently chopped off. They were never in that series. Did you forget the opening games of that Final were won on goals by Burrows and Raffi Torres? You probably did, and on purpose. After Burrows should have been ejected for trying to gnaw off Patrice Bergeron’s finger, no less.

But then the Bruins saved you. Saved us all. They demolished the Canucks in Boston for two games, and though they dropped Game 5, they’d set down a marker that there was no way Vancouver was going to win in Boston. Which set the stage for one of the best nights you’ve had as a Hawks fan. Don’t tell me about soaking in schadenfreude. What is it you think we do here?

Kesler’s tears? Luongo’s 1000 yard stare? The Sedins hauling off to the dressing room as quickly as possible. They’ve done this before.

You may dread the next two weeks, and you should. You can’t believe your luck that these are your choices. And you can’t remain neutral. Neutrality in sports is for assholes. It’s hardly the point.

You don’t get to choose, at least sometimes, who you turn to for salvation. Sometimes there’s only one choice. It may feel wrong, but you know that when it’s over you’ll be glad you did. The relief will be palpable. And you’ve done it before. The muscle memory should be of some comfort. No one said it had to be pleasant. Just that it was necessary.

I’m trying here. I really am.

Everything Else

You Get What Anyone Gets – Saying Goodbye To The ’18-’19 San Jose Sharks

By Sam Fels 1515 0

You had one job to do.

Let it be known forth that the San Jose Sharks are the only Bay Area organization that can only wield its location and power to fuck itself. Whereas everyone else stationed there slowly (or not) takes over the world and is influencing their various spheres and others, the only sphere the Sharks can influence is the inside of their thigh with a warm, yellow, and constant stream. And now it’s well and truly over for them. This generation of this team, one that promised so much, is done. Charred. Finished. Fertig. Verfallen. Verlumpt. Verblunget. Verkackt. Whatever hope they might have had for beyond went out the window with Joe Pavelski’s sense of direction.

This is probably their most spectacular crash yet. They got the best defenseman on the planet for nothing. A song. They added him to a team that already had three scoring lines, one of the best d-men around (Vlasic, not Burns). And it seemed that despite their best efforts, it would work. They had a goalie doing the lindy hop in net all season. Didn’t really matter. Their coach was insistent on continually lighting a fuse of playing Brenden Dillon more than Joakim Ryan. The Sharks kept putting it out. Joe Thornton could barely move. Fine. Hertl moves to center and no one cares. Perhaps they picked the lock.

They had miracles on their side. They trashed everyone’s favorite overhyped darling in the first round. They benefitted from Gabriel LaxativeLog’s lazy ass in the second. They had perhaps the only team that’s a bigger collection of failures and stomach-acid-pukes than them waiting. They got more bounces. They had an entire city on the verge of meltdown (to be fair, that’s St. Louis’s natural state, thanks to the dangerous levels of methane that surrounds the place emitted from every resident every four minutes).

Cue faceplant.

And now it’s all ash. Peter DeBoer proved that any idiot can get a team to a Final, even twice. Hell, he just got beat by one. How did icing Michael Haley in the playoffs instead of…oh I don’t know, any kindergartner with two legs work out? Speaking of which, Dillon spent most of the playoffs looking like said kindergartner sprinting for the Sesame Street phone at playtime, and yet he played more than Ryan. Hey, did getting Karlsson back for those five games in February feel worth it? You were given the best toy in the whole league and you broke it. Fine work all around there.

This was a team that had a whole division basically fall in front of it, and still let Calgary’s line and a half plus a d-man waltz by it for the title. It was the first to contain two Norris winners in a decade, and then Brent Burns spent a month proving why his Norris should be melted down and poured over his head, if only to rid us of his hideous beard. If Burns came from Omsk instead of Canada Don Cherry would have beaten him with a 2×4 by now and they would have made that the Canadian flag.

Much like the Raiders, the Sharks probably need to be thrown out of the Bay Area now. Everyone else gets it. The Warriors are the best team in their league’s history. The Giants, inexplicably, created a dynasty out of hilljacks and sex fiends. Though the A’s trophy cabinet may be empty, they still stand for all that is progressive and cool about their sport despite drawing only parole board hearings to their games and playing in a literal sewer. The Raiders didn’t do shit, and have been sent off to where rejects go…off the strip in Vegas. Sadly, that’s not an option for the Sharks. Maybe Reno would work better.

They’ve left us with this curse of a Final. Just like they left us with Vancouver and Boston once upon a time. The Sharks have launched a bunch of plagues upon the hockey world through their incompetence. The Hawks dynasty started by running them over. The Canucks in ’11. We could have been rid of the Ducks sooner if the Sharks didn’t blow a #1 seed by trying to out-belch them. The narrative that Sidney Crosby would never get it done again was solved by a week with the Sharks. A Kings affirmation could have easily been snuffed out at the first possible hurdle. The Sharks turned it down four times.

The Sharks are everything bad about Silicon Valley, leaving the rest of society to clean up their mess without any of the benefits. They are the bubble-burst without the bubble. Somehow, they still leave the sticky residue all around without ever having put anything together. And “Sharks” is one syllable, you illiterate fucks.

Heretofore, the Sharks will be symbolized by both Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton, their two greatest ever players who will never win a Cup, even when they flee trying to do so. You know what your problem is, Toronto? You’ve got San Jose running through you. They will soon be joined by Joe Pavelski, who definitely should have been playing and will definitely be able to identify his family in five years, and Logan Couture. Maybe Brent Burns, assuming he’s not facing the wrong way the rest of his life, which he most certainly will be.

It’s best if you just break it all up now. The happiest you will be is everyone forgets you for a few years while Hertl and Meier thrash about trying to constitute a first line. Thornton retires, Pavelski and Karlsson walk, maybe try and cash in on Vlasic and save him from the fate that awaits him. It’s not in you, Sharks. That much is clear. Like everyone else out there, you thought you had big ideas and could change things. But all you did was annoy the piss out of people and give way to something much worse. Oblivion is your only salvation.

Thanks for nothing, fucksticks. Now we have to deal with this.

 

 

Everything Else

So This Is Fun

By Sam Fels 1433 0

Full disclosure at the top: Everyone here, whether you’re writing this stupid blog or reading it, finds the happenings last night in St. Louis utterly hilarious and maybe even life-affirming. I cannot wait until the Blues meltdown the next two games and lose this in five games, maybe to the tune of a combined score of like 11-2. I will almost certainly think of these days during the next bout of mediocre sex. Good, now that’s out of the way.

So right, there’s going to be a lot of teeth-gnashing about what to expand replay review to and what not. It seems simple to add this instance to the list of things that can be reviewed, but it isn’t. And it’s a prime example of why you don’t react to things in the moment or try to correct one mistake, no matter how egregious.

Because what will be the standards for reviewing a hand-pass? Right now it’s if it goes straight into the net. The easy answer is to amend it to “directly leads to a goal” but what is that? Say Binnington makes the save on Karlsson but Meier or Nyquist pots the rebound? Can you go back that far? What if the puck circles back out to the blue line and the goal is scored 20 seconds later? It’s still a hand pass, and because of it the play kept going, but did it lead directly? What’s the definition there?

Would you restrict it to if it’s the primary or secondary assist, as Meier ended up being? That could take place out in the neutral zone. And the answer you’ll find is that there is no answer, at least not until some officiating AI is created that can see everything and instantly call everything.

Unless you’re in a blind rage from last night (and we’re laughing at you if you are because it’s what we do), it’s pretty easy to see how that got missed. The ref closest to it was moving from around the net, had at least Robert Thomas and possibly Nyquist in his way. It was an instant, and there’s every reason to believe he was blocked off. The other ref would have had multiple bodies in his way, and the only linesman who would have been looking might have had the same problem. And that deep in the zone, it’s not really his call. This is just where the challenge of how fast hockey moves is insurmountable right now.

This is where the challenge system is stupid, and it seems pretty fair to say just have a replay official who can call down when something screwy happens and tell the refs what went down. But again, how far back does that go? Common sense tells you what leads directly to a goal and what doesn’t, and we went through this with offsides reviews, but you try telling some coach or team that gets a bad call in a playoff game about common sense. Everyone is going to want a hard line or two, and I don’t know if they’re possible.

Hockey’s greatest fear, and I wrote about this with soccer too, is that every goal will be met with a “Did it count?” feeling. You get it in football now, where after every catch we wonder if it actually happened or not. And because hockey is a goal-sport, the one thing the NHL doesn’t want to do is erode the explosion and excitement of a goal being scored. That’s why we’re all here after all, what all of our enjoyments is predicated on. Losing that and really what is your fan experience? Certainly greatly diminished.

But like I said in that earlier post, this is just the unfortunate part of being in the middle of the process. One day, there will be an instant check on offsides and other calls, and we won’t need to take a pause to find out. I don’t know how that comes about, but it probably will. Same for other infractions leading to goals. But in the meantime, how do we help the refs get more of these calls right?

One idea the NHL explored a while ago, and then never went anywhere with, was moving a ref off the ice. They sort of had this platform above the penalty boxes. It sounded ridiculous, it looked a little silly, but the more I think about it the more sense it makes. If you ever watch the refs during a game, it’s a little startling how much time they have to spend moving around players and also avoid getting a puck in the teeth. They do a remarkable job of it, but there is a lot of time when the ref isn’t watching the play but maneuvering himself out of the way of play (Hilda…I have invented a maneuver!). The two-ref system was supposed to solve this, but the other reft is outside the zone and that might not help all that much when the puck is in the corners.

So why not move the refs out of the field of play? NBA refs stand out of bounds. Four of the seven football refs do, and the other three are way off where they aren’t really affected by play. Hockey is unique in that there is no out of bounds, but would the ref have seen that hand pass if he didn’t have to worry about moving himself out of the way of the action while still officiating the action? All he’d have to worry about is watching the play.

It never got past their developmental camp, and perhaps owners and the like would be worried about some of their highest priced tickets having a referee platform in the way. It doesn’t have to be above the glass, but raised enough above to see everything. It would also have the added benefit of opening up some more space in the offensive zone. The trouble there is that no one would be able to get around to the net for scrambles there to see if the puck went in or not. It’s whack-a-mole.

It’s not going to happen, and because of this we might just have to live with this in-between world. I think soccer is on the right track, with a separate official watching the game on TV can calling down if he thinks something was missed or gotten wrong. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s probably better than the one we have.

But there are no definite answers. Just as there were no definitive answers without replay at all. These are the same debates we had then with just different elements. Those aren’t going away.

Everything Else

You Were So In With The Out Crowd – Western Conference Final Preview: Blues vs. Sharks

By Sam Fels 1571 0

vs.

SCHEDULE

Game 1 in San Jose, Saturday 7pm

Game 2 in San Jose, Monday 8pm

Game 3 in St. Louis, Wednesday 7pm

Game 4 in St. Louis, Friday 7pm

 

We’ve been here before. It was only three years ago. The Sharks roster is pretty much the same, though Erik Karlsson is a big change and younger players on that team have matured into stars now. The Blues roster is much different from that one. So I guess there’s no point in talking about it. Whoops. But past iterations of the Blues always matter. Because they’re the Blues. Hopefully we get the same ending. Will we?

Goalies: It would seem callous to say the shine has come off Jordan Binnington just a tad when he gave up all of two goals over seven periods-plus in the last two games against the Stars. But the Stars were terrified to cross their blue line until overtime of Game 7, so he wasn’t asked to do all that much. In Games 2-4, where Binnington saw more than 30 shots in regulation, he gave up 10 goals. So really, the expectation here is if the Blues expect Binnington to win this series by himself, he’s not going to. But he’s not going to lose it by himself either. Still, this is not a Jets team actively quitting or a Stars team that’s afraid of its own shadow offensively. He’s going to see more than 30 shots in regulation pretty much every game, or so you’d think. We’re in un-chartable territory for him. He’s going to be asked to do more, let’s say.

There was a handsome and charming blogger who predicted that Martin Jones would be this year’s Braden Holtby, and cast aside a woeful regular season to come good in the playoffs. I wish I could remember who that was. Since the start of Game 6 against the Knights, Jones has been at .921, and that includes a couple heaves against the Avs. He hasn’t been the problem all of San Jose was praying to Yahweh to fix. He’s still capable of a clanger, but while the Blues have done it through a collection, they don’t have any force like MacKinnon or Rantanen or even some of the Knights. And they’re more conservative. The Blues have only managed more than 35 shots in regulation twice in any game yet this spring.

It wouldn’t have seemed like it before the playoffs started, but this is a pretty even matchup now.

Defense: We have our blindspots here. The Bruins depth, Freddie Andersen in general, the supreme being that is Teuvo. And another thing you’ll never get us to believe is that the Blues’ defense isn’t complete shit. It’s slow and dumb and not all that skilled. And yet it was enough to repel the Jets, whatever their focus level, which should be one of the bigger arsenals in the league. It barely survived the one-line attack of the Stars, but it survived. Pietrangelo has carried the play, whether paired with Vinnie Bag Of Donuts Dunn or Carl Gunnarsson or whoever. And the rest were able to remain competent against the Stars. But I don’t buy it. When the Jets bothered, Mark Scheifele tore Colton Parayko and Joel “This Tastes Funny” Edmundson to shreds, they just didn’t try all that hard to get matchups. The Sharks are rolling with three lines scoring at the moment and I find it hard to believe that Parayko and Edmundson and Gunnarsson are going to be able to hide for a whole series. Call me crazy.

This should be a big advantage for the Sharks, but it hasn’t played that way. Brent Burns has been exposed as a complete jabbering nincompoop in his own zone this playoff run, and Erik Karlsson (however healthy he is) hasn’t been much better. The metrics suggest both are getting kind of domed. Marc-Edouard Vlasic has been marvelous, but his coach keeps saddling him with Brenden Dillon who is an onion in the sun for two weeks. Joakim Ryan is good and can’t seem to find the ice, except in Game 7 overtime against Vegas which sends all kinds of mixed messages. The Sharks haven’t had any time to rest to heal up Karlsson, and Burns is Burns, so this is at-best a white-knuckle ride that breaks even for them.

Forwards: I’ll do my best to fight my biases and say the Blues are getting help across the board. I even noticed Robert Thomas for once in Game 7, even after all Blues fans kept assuring me he’s the second coming of Muhammad I’m Hard Bruce Lee instead of another word for Nick Schmaltz. Tarasenko was pretty much irrelevant against Dallas, but with the more open space San Jose will provide he probably will show up at various points. Jaden Schwartz is on a heater before something falls off of him again. Ryan O’Reilly hasn’t really been all that good in these playoffs either. You can count on continue playoff production from David Perron and Tyler Bozak if you want, I’ll just be over here pissing on my shoes.

The Sharks have the greater star power, but they’ve also been getting the same depth of scoring. Logan Couture went supernova from Game 7 in the first round on, and provides the kind of scoring-from-nothing that the Blues don’t have if Tarasenko can’t be bothered. Hertl has been just as good, and Meier, Labanc, Nyquist have all pitched in. Pavelski is back, though if he in fact knows where he is is another question entirely. Thornton’s line has been getting punched in the groin possession-wise, but they’ve managed to produce to balance that out. You just worry about the collective age here, though more at the back.

Prediction: If there was ever something about the Blues that made you thought this was the team to punch through, now is probably the time. Here’s the other thing about the Blues: they’re the Blues. There’s nowhere I can point to and say they’re definitely better than the Sharks right now. What they do have going for them is they’re younger, so the lack of rest for either probably affects them less. But still, while the San Jose power play hasn’t caught fire yet other than that one time, you know they’re going to get plenty of chances with this collection of unbathed nitwits and fuckwads running around. Parayko, Edmundson, and Perron are probably good for one killer penalty each this series. I don’t really believe much in Pete DeBoer, and he needs to stop pairing Karlsson and Burns together except late in the 3rd when the Sharks are behind. So maybe the Blues have an edge there? You’ll have to go a long way to convince me that Craig Berube is General Cornwallace during a game, though. And if Karlsson or Burns or both can actually start turning things up the ice, those are weapons the Blues just don’t have.

You can’t run from your nature. Sharks in six. 

Everything Else

You Were So In, With The Out Crowd – Round 2 Previews: Stars vs. Blues

By Sam Fels 1557 0

vs.

SCHEDULE

Game 1 in St. Louis – Tonight, 8:30

Game 2 in St. Louis – Saturday, 2pm

Game 3 in Dallas – Monday, 7pm

Game 4 in Dallas – Wednesday, 8:30

I said it on the podcast, but I’ll say it again. If you have literally anything else to do, do not watch this series. The Stars are boring as fuck, and on purpose because it’s how they hang, and the Blues don’t have the speed the Predators do and that series was its own energy vampire. I’ll be shocked if any team gets to four goals in any game this series. Cue the 5-4 series opener tonight, of course. Let’s do this together.

Goalies: Perhaps the biggest reason this is going to be a tough watch. Ben Bishop threw a .945 at the Preds and sent them home, including a couple 40+ save outings. He’s a Vezina finalist for multiple times for a reason, and carries a career .930 in the playoffs. He also has the added spice of being from West East St. Louis, and playing against a team that gave up on him long ago (I watched Viktor Stalberg light him up in a Presidents’ Day matinee live in St. Louis, once, and believe me everyone hated him there).

On the other side, Jordan Binnington wasn’t that great against the Jets. It was enough, but a .908 probably isn’t going to get it done against the complete opposite of Winnipeg, a team that’s only interested in playing defense. He was kind of all over the map, with three really good games, two bad ones, and a meh one that didn’t matter because the Jets had already quit. He’s unlikely to see a ton of shots here because that’s just not what the Stars do, but there will come a game or two where he’s probably going to have to make a lot of saves and rob the likes of Benn and Seguin on big chances. Let’s call us skeptical still that he’s ready to do that. Edge here for the Stars.

Defense: On the sheets, the Stars are better off here. Somehow a child shall lead them, as it was Miro Heiskanen that led them in ice-time against the Predators. Klingberg and Lindell were actually marvelous against Nashville’s top line, and that’s at least equivalent to O’Reilly-Schenn-Tarasenko. No matter how many draws ROR wins and the broadcast won’t shut up about. Still, Roman Polak is here and playing significant minutes and when that happens calamity is never too far under the surface. Same goes for Ben Lovejoy. Still, with Heiskanen and Klingberg, that’s two better puck-movers than anything the Jets could boast, including the very disinterested and bloated Dustin Byfuglien.

We’ll never buy into the Blues blue line. Alex Pietrangelo is overrated. Colton Parayko was turned into sawdust and vomit by Mark Scheifele. Jabe O’Meester is a zombie that isn’t particularly interested in eating brains. Vinnie Dunn might be something one day, but not yet. Still, they turned back a deeper crop of forwards than the Stars can dream of. The task will be awfully different here, as the Stars are going to dare them to carry or pass their way through a barbed-wire filled neutral zone, and there’s no one on the Blues who can do that. And if they force it and turn the puck over more, that’s what the Stars are feeding on right now.

Forwards: Same drill as with a lot of teams now. The Stars are one line. It’s a hell of a line, but that’s it. There were flickers of light of a second line between Hobbit Zuccarello, Roope Hintz, and Jason Dickinson, and if that can continue they’re on to something. But the top line has to score and it has to score a lot. Good thing the Blues don’t really have a shutdown pairing.

The Blues will tell you they have depth. And they do if Jaden Schwartz builds off his series-clinching hat-trick. We’ve already talked about the top line, they seem to believe pretty heavily in Oskar Sundqvist (whatever), and they have foot soldiers like Maroon and Thomas and Perron who might chip in a big goal or two. Overall, the Blues do have a deeper set here. They just don’t have the top.

Prediction: Again, this will be cruel and unusual. But the Blues simply are not built to bust through a trap consistently. And even if they do, it’s a much better goalie waiting playing better. And the Stars have just more of a top end. Because of how awful this will be to watch, you know it’s going the route. Which screams a Bishop shutout on the road.

Stars in 7. 

Everything Else

Don’t Bore Us Get To The Chorus – Night 1

By Sam Fels 1436 0

Last year, we attempted to sum up every playoff night with like, real analysis. But let’s be real, you can’t watch five games at once. It’s hard enough to watch three games in a night. So this year, we’re just going to give you the quickest possible thoughts on the previous night’s happenings. 

Blue Jackets vs. Lightning Game 1: What the fuck?

Penguins vs. Islanders Game 1: What the fuck ever.

Blues vs. Jets Game 1: Fuck, but also fuck the Jets.

Dallas vs. Nashville Game 1: Fuckin’ Stars!

Knights vs. Sharks Game 1: Fuckin’ Sharks!

That’s all.