A journey of a thousand miles begins with a really stupid idea.
Welcome to the third annual SNN Predicts series of articles (fourth overall, if you count the 2004 version done on the forums, lost to the mists of time but notable for the fact that I went 0-4 in series involving the Flames), in which we act like we know what we’re talking about and make our (mostly) blindingly obvious predictions, with a shocking amount of success, considering some mainstream reporters usually wind up under .500 by the time the Stanley Cup is finally awarded somewhere around Canada Day. Round One in the East seems like a cake walk, which is why someone is going to pull off the shocking upset, and Round One in the West seems much more open, which is why every team you’d expect to win will. It’s the way of the world. Countdown to the first article pronouncing Vancouver “Canada’s team,” and urging Canadians to root them to our first Stanley Cup since 1993? Let’s say T minus ten days.
Matt and Gerard were comically late getting their entries to me, so this goes up mere minutes before the start of the playoffs. But it’s on time! Improvement from last year! After the jump, let’s see some predictions…
Not really much to say about tonight’s game that hasn’t been said already. The Caps’ stars left their gameplan in a bin, and all tried to do it all themselves. The Habs block a million shots, Halak stops the other million, and it’s 2-1 for the bleu, blanc, et rouge over the red, white, and blue.
Conference semis start tomorrow. We’re on the clock, gentlemen.
A look back at the great goaltending debate of 2009
The Oilers had a lot of things go wrong this year and as much as people like to bring up the cap I’m not convinced that it limited them this year and given that they’re planning to rebuild I’m not sure it limits them next year. However, at the beginning of the season a list was published of the best goalies of the last 3 seasons who were free agents, and what they were signed at. Let’s take a look again.
Martin Biron: 77 wins, .914 SV% (10th) – 1 year, 1.4 million per season
Ty Conklin: 46 wins, .911 SV% (18th) – 2 years, 1.3 million per season
Nikolai Khabibulin: 73 wins, .909 SV% (23rd) – 4 years, 3.75 million per season
Dwayne Roloson: 70 wins, .909 SV% (25th) – 2 years, 2.5 million per season
Mathieu Garon: 47 wins, .908 SV% (26th) – 2 years, 1.2 million per season
Harry Sinden used to say that there were three certainties in life: death, taxes, and the first penalty at the Forum. I was starting to understand how he felt after watching Games #3 and 4 in the Hat. In Game 3, the first penalty went to Brandon Kozun for hooking. Now, I’m a big Kozun fan, but the kid has a penchant for those penalties, so at first glance, it’s no surprise. Then I watched the replay and saw that his stick actually wasn’t within a foot of the guy’s body; he just took the guy down with a body check. Then again, knowing his reputation, knowing his size (half his hooking penalties probably come because he’s too damned small to body guys off the puck), and seeing it from ice level, instead of a camera high in the crowd, I guess I can kind of see where a ref would get that idea. So okay, fine, bad call, but justifiable.
The first call in Game 4, however, left me livid. Kyle Aschim got double-teamed from behind by, I believe, Kale Kessy and Bretton Cameron. Ref’s right there, no call. Giffen Nyren gets his glove up in one guy’s face (Cameron, I think), and he gets whistled for roughing immediately. The Tigers score on the ensuing power play to take their first true lead of the series (winning a game in OT doesn’t count; the lead lasts for zero seconds). I damned near threw something at the TV. Now, I know that the WHL’s standard of enforcement on checking from behind as slipped dramatically even in the time since I became a season-ticket holder, four years ago. But if you’re not going to call a textbook hit from behind, you might as well let the retaliation go, too. Fortunately, the Hitmen hung in there, got a super-late PPG of their own, then shut the Tigers down the rest of the way, but…ah, I’m still mad just thinking about it. What the fuck kind of idiocy is that? And that’s not even counting giving Del Cowan a goalie interference penalty on a play in which he could’ve gotten a penalty shot for being dumped into Tyler Bunz’s lap!1
Regardless, now we’re in a position to end the series on home ice and watch the Blades and Wheaties duke it out for the right to play us. The Tigers have not been as good in Calgary as they were at home, hanging Tyler Bunz out to dry a bit in the first two games. The Hitmen need to resist the urge to get overconfident, though: as we saw in Game 3, it only takes one flukey bounce to get a team back into a game and a series once they’re down, and as we saw last series, a 3-1 lead is far from insurmountable. Plus, if they put away the Tigers now, that’ll leave time for recuperation, and a few guys have looked like they’re suffering of late, as inevitably happens when you go any length into the playoffs.
A couple of quirky facts going into tonight’s game:
Going into tonight’s games, the home team is 27-32 in these playoffs. Now, obviously, you’re going to see a bunch of series where it’s close to .500 because of four-game sweeps (two at home, two on the road), but five games below .500, most of the way through the second round? I would seriously expect that to be the other way around. Probably not terribly meaningful, given the sample size we’re talking about, but it’s kind of odd, especially since all four road teams won on Wednesday.
The team that scores the first goal is now 2-2 in this series. After Calgary thumped Medicine Hat in the first two games, the Tigers came back from 2-0 down to win Game 3 in OT, while the Hitmen overcame an early PPGA to take a 4-1 victory in Game 4.
What does it all mean? Absolutely nothing, in all likelihood, but dumb stats like this are what make the sports writing world go ’round, and I just got an extra hundred words or so of padding into this sucker without having to give any real analysis. Serious opinion: the Tigers will leave it all out on the ice, but the Hitmen will finally play that tight defence for a full 60 minutes, instead of only 30-40, and emerge 2-1 victors and earn themselves a few days off before facing the Wheaties in the conference finals.
It’s go time, gentlemen.
1 – On the ensuing PK, Matt MacKenzie got away with another bad hit from behind on Mark Isherwood, which left the latter favouring his shoulder on his way to the bench. In the interest of full disclosure.
Celebrate Christ's sacrifice with commercialized sports entertainment!
2007 CF
4-1
The good thing about not holding to a formal religion is that you never have to worry about silly things like religious holidays buggering up your plans to go to the big game. I feel sorry for all the poor sods who are going to be in church tonight and Sunday instead of at Games 1 and 2, but I digress.
While I’m waiting for class to start, a few more things to consider:
While the Hitmen and Warriors split their season series, three of the four games came in the first two months of the season. After two disappointing loses in October, the Hitmen won an OT game in November, then pasted the Warriors 5-0 on January 22.
After going 3-7 from mid-December to mid-January, the Hitmen finished the year 24-3. Their last seven games include three consecutive shutouts by Martin Jones, followed by four games in which they outscored their opponents by a combined 25-5.
According to Sportsnet, the last team to have both the WHL’s best scorer and best goalie were the Memorial Cup Champion 2001 Red Deer Rebels. Okay, so Jones is only first in GAA and Wins and not SVP, too (he’s fourth in that), but he also spent the first six or eight weeks of the season playing hurt and putting up Godawful numbers while doing so. Nitpicking.
Did I mention that the Hitmen have the Bobby Clarke Trophy winner for most points scored with Brandon Kozun (32-75-107)? And that they also won the regular season crown with that same total of 107 points (52-17-3)? While Moose Jaw had just 78 (33-27-12)? Just sayin’.
The Hitmen have the WHL’s best power play (29.0%) and penalty kill (87.5%) this year, after ranking first and second in those categories last year. Moose Jaw ranks 6th (23.4%) and 16th (77.2%) on their respective special teams.
The Hitmen haven’t missed the conference finals since 2006. I’ve been to the third round every year I’ve been a season ticket holder.
I’m not going to be arrogant and say they’ll win in four or anything, but I think they hold the clear advantage in every area, and it would take a monumental failure on their part to be stymied in the first round.
Edit: Because it’s so very relevant, playoff history. Because I can now.
Serious opinion: the Tigers will leave it all out on the ice, but the Hitmen will finally play that tight defence for a full 60 minutes, instead of only 30-40, and emerge 2-1 victors and earn themselves a few days off before facing the Wheaties in the conference finals.
