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03-15-2007, 05:20 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-16-2007, 06:29 PM by SpazBear.)
Not all Canucks, because some Canucks, such as DeeBye, are among the most interesting & engaging persons I've ever met. Just a few Canucks, specifically the Vancouver Canucks, which makes the Wild's OT victory last nite oh so sweeeeeet.
To you rabid hockey fans who in the past carped and complained about the Wild's boring style of play (like DeeBye), please herewith and henceforth shut your yap. With the addition of Demitra and Johnnson, the Wild now are one of the most potent offenses in the NHL. It is the Vancouver Canucks that are now the most stolid, boring and unimaginative team to take the ice in the NHL. The acquisition of Luongo has allowed them to parlay that dull trap offense into a division title (although, it ain't over yet...).
PS Backstrom would get my vote for the Hart trophy. Without him the Wild aren't in the playoffs, let alone contending for the Northwest Division.
EDIT: typos....
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I say it every year....
Go Sharks!
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Unfortunately, I can't say much about the Western Conference. Living on the East Coast, I don't get much of a chance to see televised the Western Conference teams play unless they are over on a visit to the Eastern Conference. Moreover, unless they are playing the bruins, I have no shot at seeing them in person. I read the NHL feeds on ESPN, and the paper articles, but it's too far in between to make any comparison.
*Grumbles about the new NHL schedule*
With that aside, I'll make a few perfunctory remarks now and leave my opinions on the playoffs till a bit later. Afterall, it's rare I get to spend a few minutes on my NHL thoughts. So please humor me for a bit;)
I'm pleased to see the Pen's finally hammer out a deal with the city, especially after a few weeks ago when Mario said negotiations were dead in the water. Although I always grew up in the New England Area, I didn't grow up a bruins fan. As a little kid nothing enthralled me more than watching the Pens/Flyers rivalry. On that same note, I'm quite disappointed that the Flyers offered their GM Holmgren a two year extension on his contract - wasn't this year enough suffering already? Do they really think Holmgren can turn the team around? Ugh. In other Eastern Conference news, I'm glad to see Chris Drury recovering from that incredible fight fest a few weeks back. Moreover, It's good to hear Rick DiPietro only has some lingering neck pain from this weeks game - did I mention I care because they're both Boston University Alums? :P
As I said, I'll return a bit later to give my playoff predictions/hopes. But for now I'm pumped to have Pens/Bruins tickets in my hand for March 29th. Moreover, that Boston University is on the road to defending its Hockey East Title this week. With a BC/BU game Friday, and a probable BU/UNH final on Saturday, oh man, does hockey get any better than this time of year?
Cheers,
Munk
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Quote:oh man, does hockey get any better than this time of year?
Hockey is great no matter what time of year it is B)
As much as I would like the Maple Leafs to have a solid hold on a playoff spot, fighting it out for the 8th and final berth does make for some intense games. Right now I'm watching the Devils-Hurricanes game and desperately hoping Jersey prevents Carolina from getting any points. I don't think I'd have more than a passing interest in that matchup in any other circumstance.
Oh hey, Parise just scored and it's 3-1 for Jersey :D
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As a native Vancouverite and avid Canucks fan, I take exception. The Canucks are among the top-five teams in the West in goals scored since Christmas with an average well above 3. They have four lines who can score, a pair of the most exciting playmakers in the game in the Sedin twins, and a number of defensemen who love to join the rush. There is more talent on this team than there ever was on any of the previous "trapping" Wild teams. Plus, more often than not, the Canucks employ a pressure forecheck.
Realistically, their style is more reminiscent of last year's Calgary Flames than of the Wild and Devils of years past. They certainly aren't "sitting back" and waiting for the play to come to them. They regularly employ an aggressive forecheck, and are among the best dump-and-chasers in the league (especially the Sedins). They're hard-working, and you know that the same team will show up night in and night out. I appreciate that.
The Canucks were among the most exciting teams to watch in the league for years under Crawford. It got them nowhere. This Canucks team is more consistent and better prepared for the playoffs than any other team in the Naslund/Bertuzzi era.
Minnesota has a good team. We'll see how thing hash out come the playoffs.;)
Quote:Not all Canucks, because some Canucks, such as DeeBye, are among the most interesting & engaging persons I've ever met. Just a few Canucks, specifically the Vancouver Canucks, which makes the Wild's OT victory last nite oh so sweeeeeet.
To you rabid hockey fans who in the past carped and complained about the Wild's boring style of play (like DeeBye), please herewith and henceforth shut your yap. With the addition of Demitra and Johnnson, the Wild now are one of the most potent offenses in the NHL. It is the Vancouver Canucks that are now the most stolid, boring and unimaginative team to take the ice in the NHL. The acquisition of Luongo has allowed them to parlay that dull trap offense into a division title (although, it ain't over yet...).
PS Backstrom would get my vote for the Hart trophy. Without him the Wild aren't in the playoffs, let alone contending for the Northwest Division.
EDIT: typos....
But whate'er I be,
Nor I, nor any man that is,
With nothing shall be pleased till he be eased
With being nothing.
William Shakespeare - Richard II
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Quote:~snip~
Minnesota has a good team. We'll see how thing hash out come the playoffs.;)
Yes, let's.....
The Wild finally exorcise some demons and win on the road in southern Alberta. If they're not going to win the division, however, I don't want them winning anymore. If they do, they're going to end up with a 4/5 seed, and the other seed is likely going to be the San Jose Sharks, which is a bad matchup for the Wild.
PS Munk, how did Hockey East get five bids?? The WCHA got screwed . I'd take Denver or Wisconsin (with the way its playing now...) over Maine in a heartbeat.
PPS Notre Dame is a fraud, along with the entire CCHA, and will be exposed as such shortly.
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Quote:PS Munk, how did Hockey East get five bids?? The WCHA got screwed . I'd take Denver or Wisconsin (with the way its playing now...) over Maine in a heartbeat.
Truthfully? An ugly bias of tradition. Pardon if I'm treading some water you already know, but during the last ten years or so it's been BU, BC, Maine, and UNH invited to the NCAA national tourney. There's a few interlopers every so often, but Hockey East has leveled out since its birth from the ECAC, and all four teams are pretty well cemented as the top dogs. The drafting classes tend towards them, and only players seeking a Cinderella story go elsewhere. The result is when a Cinderella team does come along, like UMass Amherst, they don't like to bounce any of the top 4.
In all honesty, I question whether either of them (Maine or UMass) should be in the tourney at all. I've watched both of them play at least twice first hand, and I gotta say the level of hockey out in UMass isn't anything to write home about. It's true that their sophomore goalie, Quick, is a legitimate player. But other than him, it's a pretty big land of mediocre out on the ice. They ended up with a good record, and a good showing, in large part due to a very inconsistent year in Hockey East.
Maine is a decent team, but they are suffering from the same inconsistency problem. UNH, Maine and BU won their tough games, and proceeded to get beat badly by some absolutely terrible teams. And not once, multiple times, and to the worst teams. It's been a really up and down year, even for college hockey.
Ultimately, I'm only comfortable saying UNH, BU, and BC deserve the bids without question.
Quote:PPS Notre Dame is a fraud, along with the entire CCHA, and will be exposed as such shortly.
Agreed. Notre Dame really surprised me by their #1 ranking early in the season, which I thought would deflate over time. But it didn't. I gave a call out to a buddy of mine who goes to Notre Dame and played some good hockey in high school, he even admitted they are overrated. Unfortunately, I haven't seen any games so I'm going off second hand information about their actual gamestyle.
If BU can pull off a win against Michigan State, it'll be an interesting one against Notre Dame. What makes me incredibly angry is the Alabama Hunstville team? Are you effing serious? A 13-19-3 team from Alabama in the national Tourney? Granted I don't know much about them, but could you pat Notre Dame on the ass anymore than serving them up that? Minnesota has to face Air Force, who at the very least has a winning record and knows how to skate around a rink and put the puck in the net.
In general, the bracket this year feels lopsided. It's unfair to group so many good teams in the Midwest and West side of the bracket, vs. the comparatively weak East and Northeast. Not knocking teams like Clarkson, but UMass, UMaine, Alabama-Hunstville? I don't know much about St. Cloud State or Michigan State this year, but they don't appear to be top teams.
As a BU fan, all I can hope for is a little consistency on our part, and a lucky break in the East (a UMass/Maine upset against Clarkson). If BU comes to play - which they have on the road all season - it'll be a good Northeast bracket.
As a UNH fan (I know, I know, but I did grow up in NH and started my college hockey fandom in the Whit center rooting for the Wildcats), it's going to be a wild time in Manchester. I'm going to have to scrounge up some cash for those games. I am praying for BC to go down. Both Boyle and Gerbe are the two dirtiest players in Hockey East (Gerbe had 4 penalties in one game against us), and unfortunately also some of the best shooters.
Cheers,
Munk
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Quote:In general, the bracket this year feels lopsided. It's unfair to group so many good teams in the Midwest and West side of the bracket, vs. the comparatively weak East and Northeast.
Not only did the NCAA short-shrift the WCHA, they put the two best teams in one region. At the risk of being a complete 'homer', the WCHA has the best teams -- we're only two years removed from the all-WCHA Frozen Four of 2005. You'd like the brackets set up so those kind of events can occur. I know the brackets followed the Pairwise almost to a 'T', but there was some regionalism manipulating going on. If Minnesota's the overall #1, they deserve to play the worst team (Alabama-Huntsville), but since the NCAA shut out both Denver and Colorado College, they left Air Force 'at home' to play sacraficial lamb to the Gophers in Denver at the West Regional. Trouble is, the Falcons are a competent team.
The West is the Bracket of Death. The teams out there have a combined 24 NCAA titles. Minnesota is #1. Nobody wants to play North Dakota right now. Michigan is always tough, although the last few years they've been average by Michigan standards.
St. Cloud played great all year, making a big run for the regular-season WCHA title at the end, but the Gophers had built to large a lead to be overtaken. SCSU then went in the tank in the playoffs, needing 3 games and a combined 5OTs to put away UM-Duluth in the opening round. They then didn't win a game at the WCHA Final Five, which cost them a #1 region seed. They have a Hobey Baker candidate in goal, Bobby Goepfert -- but they're not playing well right now, and I don't see them advancing. I would have thought Wisconsin beating SCSU in the third-place game would have gotten the Badgers into the tourney, since they beat Denver at home to advance to the Final Five and were the defending NCAA champs, but what the hell do I know?
Both Minnesota and North Dakota have issues in goal, so this contest is wide open.
OK -- 24 hours is enough time for whining. Let's sit back and enjoy what unfolds.
PS Next year there will be none of this Alabama-Huntsville-type nonsense. Bemidji State, a competent team team, usually comes out of that conference. The CHA is down to 5 teams, though, which means next year their automatic bid into the NCAA is gone. BSU is lobbying hard to get into the WCHA, but there's a lack of desire to expand, for reasons I can't fathom.
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Quote:OK -- 24 hours is enough time for whining. Let's sit back and enjoy what unfolds.
Agreed.
To make a few comments on the WCHA and college hockey 'out west' in general, even as a ECAC/Hockey East fan out on the East Coast I have a lot of respect for the West teams. The talent out there really is something incredible. Hockey East ends up with a lot of solid, even sometimes great, players who come out East because they'll get a starting position freshmen year here where they wouldn't out West. The most recent example I can think of is Northeastern University's program. They have an absolutely horrid history to their hockey program, going last year with only three wins. Three. One at home.
I'm unfamiliar with the goalies for North Dakota, but a freshman named Brad Theissen almost went to North Dakota before jumping ship to Northeastern for the shot at being a starter. They ended up this year 13-18-5. Even the head coach openly admits the difference was Theissen in goal.
But more important than whose between the pipes, the skaters in the West conferences are absurd. I got to watch Bemidji State two years ago (2004-5) in the first round of the national tourney, and to watch Denver and Colorado College last year at home here at BU. It blew my mind. If I recall correctly the Denver game went into OT, and we barely eaked out a win. But every time, Hockey East teams were outskated and outskilled. It wasn't necessarily that they were putting in more goals, but the speed and passing discipline of those teams created incredible opportunities we couldn't duplicate.
I'm glad that BU's goalie, John Curry, is a top 10 finalist for the Hobey Baker award. This year he has a .192 GAA and a .931% and a team record 7 shutouts. He was a walk on his freshman year and became the full time starter by his sophomore year, despite BU pulling in some big name prospective goalies. He's an absolute machine, and will be sorely missed next year. And as I was saying about 'out west', he comes from Shorewood Minnesota.
Cheers,
Munk
Ps. A funny thing I noticed on the hobeybaker.com website. The only NHL team to support the award is Minnesota's Wild. Weird.
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I'm watching the North Dakota/Michigan game right now on tape delay. Start of the second period, it was 4-4. Now it's 7-5, UND in front with 5 PP goals. Michigan better stay out of the box, but they just took another penalty to give UND a 5-on-3.....
If you don't care about defense, it's a great game.
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Quote:I'm watching the North Dakota/Michigan game right now on tape delay. Start of the second period, it was 4-4. Now it's 7-5, UND in front with 5 PP goals. Michigan better stay out of the box, but they just took another penalty to give UND a 5-on-3.....
If you don't care about defense, it's a great game.
That was a great game. I needed it after the results of all the other games. Ugh.
Notre Dame having to go to double OT to beat Alabama. BU playing great for 10 minutes, then forgetting how to play defense altogether for the last 50 minutes, while racking up 42 penalty minutes. BU losing 5-1 to Michigan State. Maine winning. UMass winning. Maine beating UMass. UNH losing. BC winning.
Ugh. Let's just say its not turning out the way I had hoped. My hope lies in the winner of Minnesota/North Dakota. I'm already pumped to watch that game tonight.
Cheers,
Munk
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Quote:~snip~
......Minnesota has a good team. We'll see how thing hash out come the playoffs.;)
I enjoyed the 24 hours that the Wild resided atop the division:P
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Quote:That was a great game. .....
It was more suited for Arena Football than hockey. Exciting to see a lot of scoring...but wincing at the poor defensive plays. I'm sorry I missed the first period. The third was a let-down after watching the second. I seriously was expecting a 13-10 finish.
I was disappointed in some of the eastern bracket games. BU didn't come to play. (Their coach kinda went off the deep end at the end of Hockey East tourney and probably took the team with him...) SCSU didn't come to play (for the third week in a row). St. Lawrence didn't come to play. Miami/BC was a very good game, tho the scoreboard (4-nil) wouldn't tell you that.
The UND/BC semi-final is going to be a great game. I think BC is better defensively, but the Sioux are relentless forecheckers, and they may just grind the Eagles down like they did the Gophers. I didn't see Michigan State play (I have the games on tape, lack of time to watch...). Maine looked like a complete, confident team, so off-hand I'd look to them to advance to play the UND/BC winner.
I just hate the two-week wait between the regionals and the Frozen Four....
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