Everything Else

You Share The Same Fate As The People You Hate – ’18-’19 Team Preview: The Warm Jets

By Sam Fels 1406 0

We wrap up our team previews with perhaps the class of the Central Division. There is no forward group you can love more than the Jets’. They’re big, they’re fast, they’re skilled, and when Paul Maurice finally woke up from his neanderthal nap last season and ceased to have the Jets be the dumbest team in the league and focused on merely skating every team out of their building and into the cold and unyielding Manitoba night, the Jets took off. Didn’t hurt that they finally got some goaltending, as Connor Hellebuyck finally lived up to the billing.

Sadly for the Jets, even though I will argue they were a superior team by some distance than Vegas last year, their seven-game Last Man Standing with the Preds left them softened up for the Knights. They may have outplayed Vegas in four or all five of those games, but Fleury was simply too much. It’s a fate they’ll look to avoid this time around, though it’ll most likely be an even more formidable Sharks team waiting should they escape the torture dungeon of the Central Division.

But they can do it. Let’s do it one last time before we kick this pig for real.

2017-2018: 52-20-10 114 points 277 GF 218 GA  51.5 CF% 52.7 xGF%  8.5 SH% .925 SV%

Goalies: When your goalie last year is 25 and coming off a Vezina-finalist run, there’s little reason to change much. Hellebuyck will look to back up his imperious season of last, and there’s really no reason to think he can’t back it up. His pedigree has always suggested this is what he should be, and the only fear would be fatigue. 67 games isn’ the heaviest load you’ll see, along with 17 playoff starts. He’d made 58 and 56 appearances in the seasons before though, either all in the AHL or splitting time between the bus-league and the plane-league. So it really shouldn’t be too much for him. Obviously, a lot hinges on Hellebuyck, because you can’t go anywhere with bad goaltending. The Jets know, they tried for like five seasons. Still, they’re one of the few teams in the league who can sleep pretty easy about their goaltending.

Laurent Brossoit, which is not a dessert, is going to back him up. Brossoit flashed being a competent goalie at this level in Edmonton two years ago, but with a bit more work last year he was terrible. Then again, being Cam Talbot‘s backup leads to a lot of nights staring at the lights contemplating what existence really means. Clearly, Hellebuyck’s health is paramount.

Defense: If there’s one minor complaint I would have about the Jets, is that their defense just quite isn’t there. It may improve a bit because Jacob Trouba is going to be in fuck-you-someone-will-pay-me mode all year, as he’s in the last year of his deal and previous negotiations with the Jets have been cantankerous. He’ll take on the hard stuff as usual with Josh Morrissey. Which leaves Dustin Byfuglien and Ben Chiarot to get cherry-er starts and opponents, which is a reason why Buff racks up the points he does. And yet you’ll never convince me. I know what the points say. I know what the underlying numbers say. I’ll always think Buff is just dumb and lazy enough to burn you in your own zone, and the only hits he looks for is when someone significantly smaller (which is just about everyone, to be fair) isn’t looking. And he’ll run out of position to get them. Against a fast team in a series this could be a problem, and it was something of one against Vegas but not Nashville.

The third pairing is rounded out by Dimitry Kulikov and Tyler Myers. This is where Myers should always be and Kulikov seems to take more shit than he deserves. Hmmm, wonder why that could be? Certainly not because he’s a good Ontario bo….oh, right.

Clearly, it’s not a bad unit. It’s good, even. Trouba might enter Norris discussion this year, though that would take a leap. It’s just not San Jose’s or Nashville’s. And maybe that’s fine. It was sort of last year.

Forwards: Whatever deficiencies there are are clearly made up by this group. It’s got front-line scoring in Blake Wheeler, Mark Scheifele, Patrik Laine and his bewildered face, and Kyle Connor hinted at being that last year as well. It’s got defensive solidity in Mathieu Perrault, Adam Lowry, Andrew Copp, and Brandon Tanev. Nikolai Ehlers is on the third line for fuck’s sake. Bryan Little has been underrated for so long. Jack Roslovic moves to center full-time. Kristian Vesalainen, their first-round pick last year who tore up the Finnish league at 18, joins the ranks now. It’s the best crop in the league. They’ll get you from everywhere. There’s not much more to say.

Outlook: Cup or bust, it’s that simple. As the game gets faster and teams move more and more away from asking their defensemen to do the pushing of the play, the Jets can get away with not having a blueblooded blue line. Because if they’re just getting the puck to these forwards as quickly as possible, they’re fine. More than fine. Sure, maybe some teams can throw out a top line better than the one the Jets have, though you can count them with Jason Pierre-Paul’s fingers. Maybe there are teams that can somewhat match the top six. But you can’t do that with the third line, much less the fourth. There’s just too much. Unless Hellebuyck backs up, you’ll probably find them in the West Final at worst again, But anything short of a parade on one of the three warm days Winnipeg has will be a failure.

Previous Team Previews

Detroit Red Wings

Buffalo Sabres

Boston Bruins

Florida Panthers

Montreal Canadiens

Ottawa Senators

Tampa Bay Lightning

Toronto Maple Leafs

Carolina Hurricanes

Columbus Blue Jackets

New Jersey Devils

New York Islanders

New York Rangers

Philadelphia Flyers

Pittsburgh Penguins

Washington Capitals

Anaheim Ducks

Arizona Coyotes

Calgary Flames

Edmonton Oilers

L.A. Kings

San Jose Sharks

Vegas Golden Knights

Vancouver Canucks

Colorado Avalanche

Dallas Stars

Minnesota Wild

Nashville Predators

St. Louis Blues

Everything Else

Central Matters

By Sam Fels 2474 0

We took a bit of a tour through the league last week, but of the more local concerns, what have the other Central Division teams been up to this offseason?

Nashville Predators – The reigning champs haven’t really done much of anything other than watch PK Subban have the summer we all dream of having. They have a ton of cap space but have yet to use it, and Ryan Hartman and Juuse Saaros remain unsigned. Perhaps they’re keeping their powder dry for next summer when they sign Ryan Ellis and/or Pekka Rinne to utterly hilarious extensions. This is probably a team that could use more firepower up front, despite what they keep telling you. Maybe they’re spending it on the Eli Toivanen PR machine. Not sure. Still awfully silent on the Austin Watson case, and they’ll almost assuredly welcome him to training camp with open arms because David Poile is the same bag of shit that every other NHL GM is when it comes to that sort of thing, and don’t let Preds fans tell you different.

Winnipeg Jets – The Jets have also been remarkably quiet, but you can do that when you probably were the West’s most complete team last season. There are still extensions waiting for Hellebuyck, Trouba, Tanev, and Lowry, and the first two could be quite expensive. Even Lowry should get more than you’d think as one of the better checking forwards last year. They lost Stastny to Vegas, but this was a borderline great team before he showed up, and going Scheifele-Little-Perreault-Lowry, or moving Copp or Roslovic to the middle should still make for a great team. They still need a backup goalie of some kind because Hellebuyck isn’t going to play 70 games, and I’ll laugh pretty damn hard if they bring Pavelec back to do that. Still, this is a team that needs to keep space reserved for next summer when Wheeler, Copp. Laine, and Connor are all up for new deals. This is still a team you have to figure out why they can’t come out of the West instead of why they can.

Minnesota Wild – Other than scouring the black market for bionic limbs for Zach Parise, this is the same collection of “Oh that guy” it’s been for at least five years now. J.T. Brown or Eric Fehr don’t really move the needle, and they’ll count on kids like Kunin or Greenway to take this rabble any farther than it’s gone, which they can’t do. Matt Dumba remains unsigned, though they have plenty of space to accommodate whatever his number comes in at. Bruch Boudreau “GO GO GO” ways and Devan Dubnyk probably monkey-hump this team to another playoff appearance, the question for everyone is what good will that do? This is a team screaming for a major shakeup that simply can’t produce one.

Colorado Avalanche – This was a team whose main goal was to not fuck up their rebuild too much, though they’ve been whispered to be in on Erik Karlsson. Matt Calvert is an interest signing who didn’t cost much at $2.8 per, and if he’s restricted to middle six minutes would be a boon to their depth. Tyson Barrie is somehow still here even though they’ve been trying to trade him since the first Obama administration and now he kinda sucks. They brought in Phillip Grubauer to replace Semyon Varlamov, which should be an upgrade. Basically, this team is looking at how much Yost, Kerfoot, Girard, Compher, Rantanen, and Kamenev grow for whatever their improvement is going to be, and that’s basically all they should do. It’s not as promising in Denver as some would have you believe, but it’s far from hopeless either.

St. Louis Blues – We went over this last week, but this is how a team should react to missing the playoffs. Bozak and O’Reilly are massive upgrades on what they had, and that includes Stastny. $4M on David Perron is a complete waste of time other than to my sense of mirth, but given what’s here he can pretty much be restricted to third-line duties which is all he’s ever really been. The defense is still slow and overrated, and Jay Gallon is going to piss fire all over whatever they try and do, but at least it’s a team acting with some urgency.

Dallas Stars – They were poised to make the biggest splash by acquiring Karlsson, and then fucked it up by bragging to everyone how badly they were bending over the Senators and hence the Sens pulled out. So now they’re left with the same problematic squad Jim Nill has built over the years. The return of Nichushkin at least raises some eyebrows, because he flashed being a dominant power forward in his first go-around. It was just drowned in a sea of confused faces the rest of the time. Still, this remains a great top line with Jason Spezza trying not to disintegrate behind it and Martin Hanzal gasping for air. And that hasn’t been addressed. They brought in Roman Polak, which I’m basically out of words for, and he’ll kill Julius Honka’s will to live by December 1st. Ditto Marc Methot and Stephen Johns. Also whatever’s left of Ben Bishop is claiming to still play goal, though Khudobin is not a bad insurance policy.

So if you want to feel better, other than the Blues this is a division full of teams that have stood still. Except the Hawks were worse than all of them last year, and right now you can only see them topping Dallas and Colorado with the second being a real stretch. If Dubnyk finally goes off the boil the Wild actually have a chance to be real bad, but Boudreau never has teams that are real bad in the regular season.

So it’s an even bigger shame the Hawks didn’t do anything to try and jump up in the standings, because it was there to be done.

 

Everything Else

You Get What Anyone Gets: Saying Goodbye To The Winnipeg Jets

By Sam Fels 1899 0

The Canadian drought for a Cup goes longer. But the drought for Canadian cities with an airport had died in the first round anyway.

The Winnipeg Jets saved us from yet another flurry of stories and videos about how “NASHVILLE HAS SUCH A UNIQUE” atmosphere from Canadian writers who forgot the place existed from last spring. so we thank them for that. They also punched a variety of holes in the Pekka Rinne myth, and then watched the puck squirt through them for all the goals they would need. So we thank them for that, as well.

But in the end, they couldn’t save us from the new golden children, and we scorn them for that. And now that flurry from last spring will be replaced by a bunch of oh-so-clever headlines from pale-ass Toronto writers like, “Did You Know You Can Have Fun In Vegas?” or “Hey There’s Gambling Here!” or “Steve Simmons Gets His Ass Kicked In By Stripper.” Thank you very fucking much, Jets. We just can’t wait.

In all honesty, this has been a long time coming for the Jets, who should have been at this stage at least two years ago had they not kept trying to foist Ondrej Pavelec on the world in some elaborate prank/gaslighting to convince us all that we don’t exist. What’s that? Ondrej Pavelec? No, he’s totally real. I’m serious. He was their starter for years! Really? Yes, he probably works in a garage somewhere now smoking unfiltered cigarettes before a woman in white pants yells at him for five minutes. Oh, apparently he plays for the Rangers. Same thing.

Anyway, Pavelec or Michael “Hanging In There” Hutchinson always combined to torpedo this uber-talented Jets team year after year. They got some help from Paul Maurice of course, whose philosophy before this season was “MEAT!” The Jets routinely were the dumbest team in the league, and compounding that was they had one of the worst penalty-kills to go along with all those penalties they took as Pavelec looked like being attacked by bees in net while Dustin Byfuglien looked on with an expression on his face that said, “Can you get sick from combining Butterfingers and popcorn?”

Ah yes, Byguflien. Big Buff. DAT BIG BUCK GUY. Once again became the darling of hockey analysts everywhere because he banged in a few goals, pried multiple guys off a scrum who weren’t really doing anything anyway like he was a bouncer at a Harvard bar, and had a few guys try and check him and rebound off the creamy-nougey of his middle. You have to hand it to Buff, he’s excellent at PR because all of those things distract from the three to four times per game he would get caught ahead of the puck before it had even exited the Jets’ zone and he’d have to scramble back. Ha, Buff “scrambling.” There’s a term for you. Right up there with, “Roenick thoughts.”

Anyway, Maurice got away from that this year, as you can’t really ask any coach to take less than four fucking seasons to figure out that he has one of the most talented forward groups in recent vintage and should probably get them to play at evens and the power play as often as possible. It’s a lesson in patience, or dumb luck, as Maurice probably should have been fired two years ago but got to hang around long enough to try this experiment called, “sticking to hockey?” The pinnacle of coaching these days is basically not getting in the way when you have four lines full of skill and Jack Roslovic just waiting around.

And yet it wasn’t quite enough. Maybe it would have been if Patrik Laine’s 1000-yard stare and misplaced beard from the Amish grandmother in Kingpin had been anything more than a passenger for most of the playoffs. Hey Patrik, you’re allowed to do more than wait around for a one-timer. What is it about guys named Patrick? Laine could spend the summer under whatever bridge in Finland he lives going over film of various Knights knocking him off the puck, except there isn’t enough time before training camp.

The Jets might think they’ll be here every year, but the bills are coming due. Trouba, Connor, and Laine are all do extensions in the next year, and Trouba has already tried to escape once. And maybe Blake Wheeler wants to ply his trade somewhere that doesn’t require travel by tauntaun. Paul Stastny says he wants to say and that his family is all for it, proving that either Paul Stastny is drugging his family or literally anywhere is better than St. Louis even when you’re from there.

So this might have been the Jets chance. A first-year team in their way before a chance to play for the Cup. You can’t ask for more…and then Byfuglien skated right by it. Meanwhile, the “loudest building in the league” sounded like a Joni Mitchell soundcheck for the last 40 minutes. You guys want to chip in and maybe inspire? No? Ok cool, go whatever it is you do in Winnipeg for the summer then, which I assume is a whole lot of log-rolling and trying to hit each other with rocks. Oh, and reading Hawks fanfic about trading Toews back there, because that’s something our most unwashed dream about. And in the coming seasons we can get more video packages about the “rivalry” between the Jets and Oilers from the past, where all the old Jets talk about how much they hated the Oilers and Gretzky and Messier respond to questions about it with, “I’m sorry, who?”

It could have been more. It probably should have been. But hey, you’re Canadian. Only so much can be expected. As always, the real cities will take home the real baubles now.

Everything Else

Night Songs – Round 3 Night 7: Maybe There’s Just No Fighting It

By Sam Fels 1751 0

As I sat last night trying to figure out what I’d say about Game 3 between the Jets and Knights, it dawned on me that pretty much all of it doesn’t matter. I could sit here and talk about the ridiculous pace the Knights played that thing at last night. And I would say there’s no way that can be sustainable, but that’s kind of been their thing all season. Or I could talk about how the Jets slower d-men…which is basically all of them, kept insisting on taking more time with the puck than they were ever going to get. When the Knights are the opponents, you either gotta skate like your ass hair has been lit on fire or move the puck as soon as you get to it. It feels like the best way to play the Knights when they’re in this mood is maybe to not even pass in your own zone. Just get the puck and fire it around the boards and past their forwards and basically do what they do to you. You can also try and pick your way out, which is what the Hawks did in their prime, but that takes such a level of intricacy and precision I don’t know that any team is capable of it. Especially with the not-quite-that-fast blue line of the Jets. What I do know is that the Jets didn’t have time to contemplate Proust on every retrieval like they were attempting to take last night.

Or I thought I could write about how the Jets eventually did adjust, and slowly took over the 2nd and especially the 3rd. And maybe the Knights punched themselves out in the first half of the game, and maybe that will be a problem going forward.

And then I realized that almost none of it matters.

In a normal world, in a normal playoff game, the Jets probably score three goals in the 3rd period. Maybe six. Even when adjusted for score, the Jets had 13 scoring chances in the 3rd alone last night, which is a stupid number (according to Natural Stat Trick). But there’s Marc-Andre Fleury, and it just fails to be anything. Nothing matters, because he’s playing at Tim Thomas ’11 levels. What do you do?

Look at this shit.

There’s no logic to this. Sometimes he’s not even in good position and can just fling himself everywhere like he’s John Fucking McClane and it works. On that first highlight Scheifele should have scored twice. When he didn’t they should have just canceled the rest of the game. Maybe series.

I don’t want to claim there’s a fix, because if there is it’s on a cosmic level instead of a league level. Everything goes in for the Knights on some nights (UGH), and Fleury then does that. And then we’re forced to read a bunch of “Does Pittsburgh Regret…?” articles, even though the Penguins have/had a younger, cheaper, better goalie the past two years. You now who predicted Fleury doing this? No. One. He wouldn’t have even told you he could do this. This is Arc Of The Covenant shit.

Where this series is, the Jets should still feel pretty good. They just have to get one win in Nevada, and another effort with the last half of Game 3 probably sees them get one. I mean it normally would. But this isn’t normal.

But hey, we got another highlight of Dustin Byfuglien dragging two guys off a pile, which he assuredly isn’t doing for the attention it generates or anything, and certainly doesn’t distract cretin hockey followers from the fact that every time he was on the ice last night the Knights got an odd-man rush the other way. In just the first period, McClure texted me, “I’ve counted three times he’s been forechecking below the goal line.” When and if the Knights win this series, I assure you Byfuglien will be on the ice for the killer goal.

Which is fine, because Jacob Trouba has been even worse. And that’s the real problem for the Jets, is they don’t have a d-man who can consistently stand up to this pressure. Maurice will have to figure something out.

Everything Else

Night Songs – Conference Final Weekend Wrap: So That Happened

By Sam Fels 1686 0

One in a state of shock, one game went exactly as planned. It’s the NHL on NBC!

Capitals 2-0 Lightning

I guess this is what everyone else felt last year when watching the Preds roll over the Hawks from the outside. But I think that made more sense than this. At least Game 1 of that series was close. The Lightning haven’t even been in the same zip code as the Capitals. And I can’t believe I wrote that sentence.

I suppose if there’s one thing we can point to, it’s that the Lightning’s blue line was overhyped. But it mostly didn’t matter because their forwards were so good, and there was “God Mode” within Victor Hedman to cancel it out even further. You saw in ’15. So you know it’s there. Well, the Caps don’t seem to care, and have greatly exposed Stralman, Girardi, Coburn and even McDonagh–who’s a good defensive guy but has never been a mover and that’s getting wildly demonstrated. Meanwhile Hedman has been tentative and unnoticeable, which is just really weird. The only d-man who seems to be able to survive the Caps’ forecheck is Sergachev, mostly because he’s fearless and not having to see the best the Caps have to offer. Stralman and Girardi look like they just discovered there’s a bear in their breakfast nook.

It hasn’t helped that Cooper has coached this series with both hands around his neck instead of his usual postgame belt in the shower. His team look completely shell-shocked, and they seem to be playing right into the Caps hands by either not bypassing the forecheck as the Penguins did the past two years or having his forwards help out. Then when the Caps set up three at their own line every Bolt seems content to just charge headfirst into it and lose the puck and the whole thing starts over. And then they panic, and their defense goes charging everywhere in the offensive zone and they’re giving up an odd-man rush a minute.

If there’s one team that could surrender this momentum it’s the Caps. But man they would really have to like, shit themselves to a dysentery-like level. Because it’s one thing to disrupt and it’s another to cash in, and right now at Ovechkin and Kuzentsov and Eller and Beagle, they all can’t miss. It’s been astonishing.

Jets 1-0 Knights

This was more to form, though only one game. But in Game 1, the Knights saw what was always going to be their biggest problem. A team that can play their game, is willing to, and can do it with better talent. The thing with the Knights during the season is it’s hard to find a team in February and January that’s going to want to skate back as hard to catch them going forward. It’s easier to inspire players to bust it up the ice during the season than it is to inspire them to bust it back. Think the mid-2ooos Suns. Or why Tom Thibodeau’s teams want to murder him by Valentine’s Day.

Well, inspiration isn’t a problem in the conference final. The Jets smell it. So they can get back and negate the get-it-the-fuck-up-there ways of the Knights by getting the fuck back there. How many passes did they pick off on what Knights players thought were odd-man rushes only to find a backchecking forward closing it off? That’s how the Knights get you, and if they don’t have it they’re proper fucked.

I don’t know what to make of Byfuglien. Everyone knows I’m probably the polar opposite of his fan but he was marvelous in Game 1. Then again the Knights didn’t try and get him off his game which is so easily done and it was so fast it didn’t matter that he was rarely where he needed to be defensively and he was making so much happen at the other end. Maybe you just accept the show. Anyway, if the Jets get Game 2 tonight in any sort of similar fashion as Game 1 you can start penciling them in. I don’t know what Vegas’s Plan B could possibly be.

Everything Else

Watching The Party – FFUD’s Conference Final Preview: Knights vs. Jets or High Speed Dirt

By Sam Fels 1849 0

 vs. 

 

Now that we’ve officially buried the Predators, it’s time to look forward to the West Final. I feel like we’ve gotten to the point, or maybe I just have personally, where it’s time to stop fighting against the Knights. Because if nothing else, this series is going to be in 5th gear or however long it lasts. We didn’t quite get the Fury Road remake we wanted in the previous round, as the Preds could only win when they pumped the brakes on everything. The Knights aren’t capable, and don’t know, any other way than what got them here.

Goalies: That’s the strange thing about this series, is that no matter the speeds it attains, the vapor trails it leaves, or however many chances are created, it could still end up 2-1 for every game. That’s how well these two goalies are playing.

There’s really nothing to say about Marc-Andre Fleury at this point. He’s clearly gotten hold of some eye of newt or something. You can’t even say his defense helped him out, because he made over 30 saves in the first four games of the San Jose series. Granted, two of those were OT games but that’s still work. A .951 is a .951, much like a football in the groin is a football in the groin. He’s .965 at evens.

The one thing you can say is that Fleury hasn’t really seen a team of assassins in the first two rounds. The Kings plan of attack was hoping the Knights would pass out from boredom. The Sharks had two lines or so going, but without Thornton they were certainly limited. There are no such limits to the Jets, and you feel like Fleury is going to have to come up with a handful of 35-40 save performances just to keep the Knights in this.

It’s kind of weird that Connor Hellebuyck has a .940 at evens and he’s not even close to the other goalie in this series. Hellebuyck was marvelous in Game 7 after being pretty wonky in Game 6. He buckled under the pressure of the Predators at times when they were still trying to drag race with the Jets, and the Knights won’t shrink from that at any point. So he’s going to need more of his 36-save performance form from Game 7 than how he was early in the series.

Defense: You’d say this is the Jets’ biggest advantage, but much like the Penguins before them the Knights do the best they can to take their defense out of the equation. They don’t really care how many chances they give up, especially with Fleury playing like this, as long as they can turn the puck up the other way quickly. Still, that feels like death against this Jets team, who simply have more talented scorers and offensive players and I don’t care if William Karlsson shoots 76% this series. This defense is not keeping this Winnipeg hit squad from creating a ton of chances, and that seems like it’s going to be the end of it. McNabb, Engelland, and Theodore are going to smell distinctly of burnt wood by Game 3.

The Jets might have the same problems. With Byfuglien wandering all over the ice and not showing much interested in either being where he’s supposed to be or ignoring players who don’t matter, there’s going to be plenty of space for the Knights, too. Tyler Myers has some of the same issues and Ben Chiarot looks a lot like the Bears’ free safeties of this decade in trying to cover for him. Trouba and Morrison are going to get a lot of work in this series, and Maurice should be playing them the most instead of DAT BIG BUCK GUY. But he won’t, and he’ll pay at some point. Still, the Jets defense contributes more than the Knights’, and is a little more mobile.

Forwards: This is the fun part. The Knights top two lines have been excellent, but their bottom two weren’t as effective in the second round. Still, it’s packed with speed that’s going to have a lot of space to exploit.

The problem for the Knights is that the Jets have the same thing, except every line they have is better than the one Vegas has. Their top line is better, their second line is better, and so on. The Knights have seen this before, but not over seven games and not this big of a difference. If the Jets can go toe-to-toe with the Preds and beat them to a pulp in that style, they can do the same to the Knights. Like we said in the last round, the Jets only have to match or thereabouts the amount of chances their opponents get, because their talent says they’ll bury more of them. Same holds true here.

Prediction: Obviously, the Knights have something unquantifiable going on here. And if they maintain silly shooting-percentages along with Fleury being a an absurdist exhibition, they can win this. But the Knights need the unexplainable. The Jets don’t. They can skate all day with Vegas, and they have the better players to do it. Something strange definitely can happen here, but you don’t bank on that. Fleury himself probably assures this is a long series. I was tempted to say the Jets in five simply because of the disparity in scoring talent up and down the lineup, but beating Fleury four out of five times, without a return to his previous playoff form, is unlikely. So we’ll call it Jets in 6. 

Everything Else

Night Songs – Round 2 Day 12: All Good Things…

By Sam Fels 1577 0

Let’s jump right into it:

Caps 2 – Pens 1  OT (Caps win….wait, what?)

There’s a lot to take out of last night’s seismic shift. I think the one that sticks with me most is that since the Islanders won four in a row, no team that’s going for its third straight Cup has gotten past the second round. Now, that’s a touch of a misnomer. If Steve Smith hadn’t fired the puck into his own net in ’86 the Oilers almost certainly win five straight Cups, and the Flames back then were actually an all-time great team that just kept running up against probably the best team of all-time. When they went for a three-peat the second time, they had the small obstacle of TRADING WAYNE FUCKING GRETZKY before that season started. Speaking of which, what would Twitter have been like then if the Kings traded Gretzky and then lost to him in the playoffs, and then won a Cup without him the next year? You think the treatment of LeBron is bad?

BUT THAT’S NOT WHY YOU CALLED.

What I’m saying is the Penguins looked a spent force last night. The will was there but the legs weren’t. Because of Burakovsky’s and Backstrom’s absence, the Caps had no choice but to gum this one up, which they did very well. The Penguins the past three seasons have always been a high-wire act, and it’s something of a miracle they’ve gotten as far as they have. Much like the Jets–there’s going to be a continuing theme here–this is not a team really built to bust traps. You’d think they would be with Letang and Schultz but both seem to be better joining a rush than starting one. The Penguins have lived by pushing and pushing and if their d-men get caught so what? Murray will bail them out. He couldn’t any more last night or really this series, and now they’re going home early for the first time since the Hawks last won, 103 years ago.

At some point, Malkin (who clearly is not healthy) and Crosby run out of miracles. It’s also official now that Olli Maatta sucks. I highly doubt the Pens won’t be contenders next year, but it also feels like things need to go right for them a lot. Then again, that’s true of any team.

I got a huge kick out of Pierre McGuire coming to their defense with the players they’ve lost from last year: Trevor Daley, Ron Hainsey, Fleury, Nick Bonino, Ian Cole. The three d-men aren’t any damn good, the goalie wouldn’t be playing for them anyway, and I guess Bonino is fine but was replaced by Derick Brassard is basically the same thing.

For the Caps, it’s impossible to prove if everyone kind of ignoring them this year helped or didn’t matter, but they’ll take it. You can’t help but be happy for Ovechkin, who’s had to eat a lot of shit because his coaches were fucking morons or his goalies weren’t up to it or they just ran up against a better team. Sure, this won’t matter all that much when they’re turned into processed waste by the Lightning, but at least he’ll get a glimpse.

Predators 4 – Jets 0 (Tied 3-3)

We all would have asked for a Game 7, but I’m not exactly encouraged that the Caps and Preds got to where they are today by having to turn the game back to 1997. The Preds did exactly what they did in Game 4, admit they can’t run with the Jets and hence trap the shit out of them and wait for their opportunities. And once again, because Paul Maurice hasn’t quite left his moron tendencies behind, has Dustin “Have You Tried The Nacho Fries?” Byfuglien skating five more minutes than any of his other d-men. Buff is not a trap-buster, he’s too stupid and lazy. He’s going to provide the mistakes the Preds can capitalize on, which they did. Trouba, who admittedly didn’t cover himself in glory on Forsberg’s ludicrous second goal, barely played more than Tyler Myers, who’s doing a damn fine Byfuglien impression himself. When the Preds put this on the Winnipeg defense instead of their forwards, they’re a lot better off.

Again, just like Game 5, the question becomes do the Preds have the gumption to do this at home and bore the shit out of their fans? They won’t care as long as they win, but they didn’t in Game 5 and they got smoked. And again, the margins are small when you do this. They’ve gotten away with it twice but a third might be asking too much. What happens if the Jets can manage to score first? What if all the dumb penalties the Preds are taking, and there’s a lot of them, finally puts them behind when they just want to trap?

They don’t really have a choice. Giving any space to the Jets is pretty much death. We’ll see if Maurice has the light hit him and figures out a way for his team to stop panicking with the puck when faced with three guys back. The Jets are big and fast and there’s really no reason they can’t find something if they just have to keep putting pucks behind the Preds’ defense and win it back. They seemed reluctant to do so last night, instead just turning it over at the blue line repeatedly.

It should be a fascinating Game 7. I don’t know that it’ll be entertaining.

Everything Else

Night Songs – Round 2 Weekend 2 Wrap: The Truth Comes Out

By Sam Fels 1576 0

Found out a lot about a lot this weekend. Let’s get to it:

Winnipeg Leads Nashville 3-2

This series has basically been delicious. It confirms everything we thought about the Preds, in that they were more Pekka Rinne than they or any of their sycophants who just want to drink on Broadway again in the spring for free wanted to consider. The Preds got back into the series by trapping and basically playing 90’s Knicks basketball, and they still needed a miracle save from Rinne to make that work. Back at home and in front of a crowd too busy trying to memorize all their chants that are just variants of the word “suck,” they didn’t feel they could do that. They tried to go toe-to-toe with the Jets, and they got stomped. Sure, the shots and attempts charts will tell you this was a more even game. But an even game with the Jets isn’t an even game. They have more firepower than just about anyone in the league at forward. So if you’re getting the same amount and type of chances they are, most likely they’re going to bury more of them.

And Kyle Connor turning Treat Boy into bucket-and-mop material didn’t do my heart any worse either.

So now Laviolette has a choice. He can try and trap and stall his way back home to a Game 7, a method that works but has a very low margin for error. One bad deflection undoes all the work. And if it doesn’t work he’s going to face some tough questions about why he was fucking with his lineup all playoffs long to get guys like Scott Fucking Hartnell in the lineup but not Calle Jarnkrok or Kevin Fiala. It’s especially hilarious because next year is almost assuredly the time on Lavvy’s clock when his players start to regard him as a bellowing meat sack and tune him out. It’s happened everywhere he’s been, and it’s a miracle he’s lasted in Music City this long. A lot rides on tonight.

Knights defeat Sharks 4-2

I had suspected that the Sharks weren’t all that good, but hoped for better. Then again, I don’t know what you do when a goalie is throwing a .965 at you at evens, which is what Marc-Andre Fleury is doing. And that’s really what it comes down to. It’s not that the Knights aren’t deserving winners of this series. But if Fleury were playing at a mere mortal level, even with like a superb .930 or something, this series is headed back to the desert for a Game 7 or it’s already over the other way.

The Sharks will have some decisions to make this summer, as every key player they have is over 30 with the exception of Martin Jones. They’re considered the leaders to get Tavares, which would certainly change the complexion of the next couple of years whether Thornton stays or retires or goes because of it. If they don’t get Tavares though, you wonder how much longer they can keep coming up with decent seasons and playoff runs. Especially if  Calgary and Edmonton were ever to get their act together (don’t need to worry about the latter, thought).

As for the Knights, my suspicion, based on anything normal, is that this all comes to an end against whoever’s next. They can’t outrun the Jets for sure, and though the Preds’ might isn’t what most think they can match Vegas’s forwards and have a fleet defense that won’t be overawed by Vegas’s forecheck. They also wouldn’t insist on playing Paul Martin for a portion of it because they’ve been hit with a brick when they weren’t looking. But that assumes a normal goalie performance, and Fleury is doing anything but that. To bet against him is a fool’s errand.

Also, with Rinne and Fleury having career renaissances at 33 and 34 as they have, that gives you faith that should Corey Crawford ever be healthy he can maintain the level he was setting too.

Capitals lead Pittsburgh 3-2

Oh, Caps. Won’t you ever learn? Don’t you see where this is taking you? Haven’t you walked this road again and again? We know this road. We know exactly where it ends.

As sick as I am of Caps fans everywhere nailing themselves to a cross every four minutes, it’s about time Alex Ovechkin broke through. Sure, they’ll get railroaded by the Lightning in the next round, who are now going to be rested and having played just 10 games to get this far. But do you trust them? Do you trust Holtby to play well enough to keep the Penguins down for two games? Do you trust the Caps to get goals from anywhere else besides their top line? Do you trust Tom Wilson not to completely fuck up Game 7 when he comes back?

It could happen. These things always seems to reverse at some point. Even the Canucks got to a Final once. The Penguins just might be out of gas. Their defense might just be too creaky and the Caps might have sensed they can get behind it whenever they want. Maybe Sid doesn’t have any magic jewels left in his bag.

But which way would you wager?

Lightning Beat Bruins 4-1

We’ll save most of our thoughts for the eulogy, but the Bruins might have been the biggest mirage we’ve seen in a long time. They were one line and a goalie playing well, and because that one line was so other worldly it masked all their other problems. But when that one line couldn’t go for three a night, they got utterly stomped.

The hockey season is long enough that there’s plenty of time to outthink yourself. The Bolts were the best team before the season started, and there really was never a reason to think they were otherwise other than boredom and injuries. They have four lines and three pairings, though someone is going to expose Dan Girardi and Anton Stralman. It won’t be the Caps or Penguins though, at least not the Caps. We should be all in for a Lightning-Jets Final, not only because it would piss NBC off to no end and you’d get many hockey writer tears about not being able to go to Nashville or Vegas on the company dime, but because it would be a Final packing more firepower than any since at least 2013, probably 2010, and maybe even longer than that.

Everything Else

Night Songs – Round 2 Day 8: Once It Cools…

By Sam Fels 1462 0

It felt like we got back to what we’re used to seeing in playoff hockey after the mainlining Special K that the first few games were. And that’s fine, as coaches aren’t here to entertain. Maybe we’ll get back there, maybe we won’t, but we won’t be short on drama at least. But man did I miss the high.

Capitals 1 – Penguins 3 (Tied 2-2)

The theme coming out of this one seemed to be the Capitals thought they missed a chance to really take a hold of this series, Capitals history being littered with excellence after going up 3-1 of course, but I don’t have any idea where that came from. Matt Murray didn’t have to work all that hard to keep them to one goal, as Ovechkin and Oshie–presumably their two biggest scorers–didn’t come up with a shot at even-strength all night. Oshie at least bagged one on the power play, but Ovie and Kuznetsov got Sid and Guentzel in their face on every shift and were left with tire tracks on their intestines. I don’t buy into the Ovechkin as playoff failure narrative that everyone is so eager to trot out (there are dozens of other reasons the Caps have never managed eight playoff wins) but after a fine Game 3 it was pretty damn clear why Sid has the hardware last night, both from his performance and his teammates. Again, I don’t always go for this kind of thing but this heatmap seems pretty telling of the events last night in The Burgh:

That’s a pretty easy night for Murray. Heading back to DC either Trotz is going to have to put Backstrom back with Ovechkin or get Ovie and Kuznetsov out against someone else for the majority of the game.
Caps fans will bitch that the league is out to get them, ignoring the fact that Wilson probably should have been suspended longer for repeated offenses, in a world that made sense Oshie might be looking at one for his Fosbury flop attempt into Kris Letang’s head that was only five seconds late, and they got the Gift Of Parallax (my favorite Jethro Tull song) in Game 2. They’ve been on the margins for both of their wins, and will have to find a gear this organization has never found to get out of this one alive. I’m here for however this goes.
Predators 2 – Jets 1 (Tied 2-2)
Goddamn you, Peter Laviolette.
Realizing that playing at the most ridiculous pace anyone’s seen was not going to benefit his forwards who were outgunned by the Jets, Lavvy went all NHL-coachy last night and man did it work a treat. As McClure discovered yesterday, the first three games of this series were averaging 129 attempts for 60 minutes of even-strength play. For comparison’s sake, the Kings-Hawks tilt-a-whirl of ’14 averaged 114 in Games 5-7 when that one went plaid. So yeah, we might not have seen anything like that before.
Well, the Preds weren’t having it last night. They kept their third forward especially high in the offensive zone, and every time the Jets looked up there were three Preds back, and they were contained between them and two hard-back-checking forwards. This is a problem the Jets have, as the only thing close they have to a trap-buster on defense is Byfuglien and he’d have to care more to really be one. It’s not really Trouba’s game and though Tyler Myers is under the impression it’s his that is most certainly not the case. That leaves the forwards to do it but then there really isn’t anyone to get in on loose pucks chipped into the Preds’ zone and the Preds also have the fleetest defense to win those races anyway.
It was not an especially good night for Paul Maurice. Again, if I squint I can see why Buff by far was the busiest d-man for the Jets, because in theory he’s the only puck-rusher of the bunch. That ignores the fact that when he’s not in the offensive zone he blows. He took the penalty that resulted in the difference on the scoreboard because he’s a dumb and lazy defender, getting completely pantsed by known-magician Matthias Ekholm. Maurice tried to get Buff out against the bottom six of the Preds but even that didn’t work, as he managed a 38% share and was his fat ass was harassed and bothered all night because he didn’t bother to move. Buff is fine if he can outscore all his problems, which he’s mostly done these playoffs. He scored in Games 2 and 3, and that’s enough to ignore that he’s mostly been getting his head stuck in the pencil sharpener for the entirety of the games. When he doesn’t score, it’s impossible to ignore.
Still, this approach from Laviolette made the margins all that smaller, and if it wasn’t for Pekka’s knob (oh lord) then this could have gone sideways on him anyway. The Jets would have had the lead, the building rocking, and it’s a lot harder to stay patient with all that going on. Fascinated to see if they Preds can do this at home in front of their crowd demanding a higher pace. We were also treated to a Ryan Hartman playoff goal, which is going to have the construction worker focus group McD keeps outside his office window in a fine mood.
It also was a shit night for hockey coverage, because scratching Kevin Fiala for Scott Hartnell is a shit decision no matter what your plan is. And Hartnell didn’t do anything all night except yell and smell but because the Preds won, this is hailed as genius. Try it again, Lavvy, I dare you.
Everything Else

Night Songs – Round 2 Opening Weekend: This Is Better

By Sam Fels 1642 0

I think we can all admit without turning in our hockey fan cards that the first round was pretty middling as far as entertainment. And that’s actually fine. When you have a few, clear, really good teams as the NHL does, the first round probably should be underwhelming. The Jets, Preds, and Lightning were always going to bludgeon whoever they saw (which the Preds eventually did). The only long series of intrigue really as the Leafs and Bruins and that was more for the comedy of what we all knew was coming. But this round shaped up to be the true must-see theater, and it really has been.

Jets-Predators goes plaid, and 1-1

It’s with a slight twitch of pain that I say this, because it’s always cool knowing your team played in the best playoff series of the post-lockout era even if it lost it, but this Jets-Preds has every chance of being as good if not eclipsing Hawks-Kings ’14. The pace last night simply was ridiculous, and both of these teams seemingly have accepted they’re going to give up chances to get their own. Last night was an example of how the Jets defense might be the first to crack, as on Arvidsson’s goal Chiarot got caught wandering and the Preds have the forward depth to make that a problem, and then for the winner a clearly still rusty Toby Enstrom got caught on a pinch and Byfuglien played the ensuing 2-on-1 like the dog that he is in his own zone. He was awful from the 3rd period on and it’s a small miracle he didn’t help create the winner for the Preds before that.

Encouragingly for the Jets though, it was the top line that basically had to do everything for Nashville as Winnipeg rolled over the rest. Not encouragingly is that Peter Laviolette was happy to let the top lines go at each other and Scheiele did not come out ahead, but also he kept throwing Byfuglien out behind them. Maybe Paul Maurice thinks his top line is enough protection for Buff and Enstrom, but it most certainly was not last night. Look for Trouba and Morrissey to be the ones getting the assignment in Winnipeg. And for this series only to get faster and more frantic, which is great for all of us.

Sharks and Knights split with 2OT as well

Clearly the Sharks weren’t ready for Vegas in Game 1 and everything that could have gone wrong did. They were hellbent on slowing the game agains the Knights in Game 2 and it mostly worked. You get in trouble with Vegas when you let them get behind you in the neutral zone or hit the line with speed with or without the puck and harass your d-men. The Sharks made sure their d-men backed up at the first sign of trouble, basically put three across their own line so even when the Knights dumped it in they couldn’t come over the hill like starving Scotsmen painted blue on the forecheck. It requires you basically bury a good percentage of your good chances because you won’t get as many as normal, but the Sharks did. Interesting to see if they can do this at home with a more expectant home crowd. Then again, Fleury can’t keep this up, can he?

Pens Caps Is Pens Caps

I’ll admit I basically thought that once the Caps coughed up a two-goal lead in the time it takes to take a shit in Game 1 at home that this series is basically over. And it may still yet prove that way. Of course, this being the NHL, we can’t talk about how it’s been really entertaining and both Ovechkin and Crosby are giving this series the battling star-power the league has been dying for because it’s overshadowed by either the league’s incompetence or stupid shit like Tom Wilson braining Brian Dumoulin.

Do I know it was a goal? No, I don’t but you can’t tell me the call was confirmed when there was no call. The refs just blew the play dead and then high-tailed it for the headphones. And I get that different angles can skew things, but we can pretty much conclude that thing was over the line. As for Wilson, he’s lost any benefit of the doubt and the league would do well to try and cap any future stupidness from him by sitting him again. But they won’t, and it’s not like it would work from a real life Venom anyway.

Bs kneecap Bolts

This was a surprise, but sometimes the team that’s sat around for a while just isn’t as sharp as the one that played two nights ago and this is what that looked like. Also, why is Brayden Point and Anton Stralman your choice to deal with the best line in hockey? If you have any hope of beating the Bruins you have to keep Pastrnak-Bergeron-Marchand on a leash and you’re not doing that with Brayden Fucking Point, whatever his season was. And Stralman might be dead, and if he isn’t he’s definitely on a lot of tubes. The Bolts might have the second best line in hockey so they should be fighting fire with fire and if Victor Hedman is a Norris candidate then he should be out there trying to keep Bergeron’s line in their own end. Ryan McDonagh is fine but he’s a second pairing guy now. Then again, if they’re going to insist on pairing Dan Girardi with Hedman maybe that’s the problem. They’re going to have to figure out something, because letting that line go off or multiple goals is a great way to assure you’re going to enjoy the Florida sunshine full-time right quick. Ha, just kidding, no one enjoys Tampa.