So the Maple Leafs now have one point from six games. Leafs fans are understandably, err, miffed by this. But have heart, Torontonians, things could be a lot worse, if you really think about it.
So to help you through this time of trouble, I’ve composed a list of things that would make the Leafs’ current situation even worse:
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Posted by TLP
Calgary lost 6-5 in overtime. They led 5-0 nine minutes into the game.
There are no words to adequately express my rage.
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Apparently we learned that Adrian Dater is an enormous Avs homer that doesn’t think about the things he writes before he writes them.
Also, we learned that it’s 2002 again because everyone on the planet has known this piece of information for at least that long.
Happy Columbus Day/Thanksgiving you creeps.
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Posted by TLP
Last Friday, the Flames and Oilers played at Rexall Place and the hosts, though they’d spotted the Flames a few leads, fought back every time, including a determined third-period effort that saw them pull level with their hated rivals inside of six minutes to go. But then Nikolai Khabibulin dashed his own team’s hopes of heading to overtime by mishandling a soft dump and allowing a Flames forward to poke the puck into the net inside of a minute to go.
A devastating loss? Maybe. But what the hell, right? It’s early yet and the Flames are a very good team.
So then what are we to make of tonight’s 4-3 shootout loss to those same rivals in the same building, especially since it came about in a very similar way. Tonight, it was the Oil that found themselves up 2-0 and dominant through the first period, and the Flames that scrapped and gritted their way, partly through the energy gained from an inspirational donnybrook between Jarome Iginla and Ethan Moreau, back even. And this time, it was the Oilers that got the late lead off a fortuitous bounce and fancy move from Ales Hemsky.
But once again, the Oilers proved why they’re going absolutely nowhere this season. The Flames pulled the goalie and used their time out with less than a minute to go, and the game looked all but lost with three ticks on the clock. That’s when Dion Phaneuf slid a puck across the blue line to Jay Bouwmeester, who fired out of desperation, and saw his shot get tipped (just under the crossbar, as a review showed) past Khabibulin by Rene Bourque. With 1.6 seconds to go.
In overtime the Flames took an early penalty and tried to give the game to the Oil, but even that wasn’t enough. They went on to lose in the shootout, 2-1, which seemed appropriate enough given the way they frittered away their opportunities in the dying minutes. They simply didn’t deserve the win.
Didn’t the Oilers say something about needing to win more at home? Was that just me that heard that?
Oh well, there’s always next year.
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Posted by TLP
A thing I predicted: The Coyotes would make the playoffs. You could also file that under “A thing everyone on the planet thought was lunacy.”
And certainly, I get why. People looked at the Coyotes, who made very few “impact” personnel changes in the offseason (and by “very few,” I clearly mean zero) and in fact took on almost nothing but bad salary in the form of other teams’ unwanted contracts, and saw what they saw last year. Phoenix was a bad team by any metric, one that often seemed not only lost but beyond rudderless to boot, and so the fact that they added contracts that seemed to have negative value to an already-woeful lineup seemed the last shovelful of dirt on the whole Hockey In the Desert experiment, and, most would argue, with good reason.
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Posted by TLP
Mike Richards really doesn’t get enough credit.
If I were to ask you to ballpark his production over the last two seasons, what would your guess be? Something like 100, 110 points maybe? Pretty respectable, eh? Yeah, try 155. One hundred and fifty-five points in 152 games. Goal totals: 28 and 30. Set your watch to that kinda production.
I understand he’s the Flyers captain, but can you think of a quieter point-a-game guy in the league? The guys ahead of him on the point totals list are routinely mentioned as being top-whatever in the world, and somehow Mike Richards has to sit there and have everyone act like he doesn’t put up huge numbers? You hear Eric Staal’s name brought up a lot more than you do Mike Richards’, and for what? One extraordinary season three years ago? Richards is every bit the player Staal and unlike Staal, who is overrated, he’s critically underappreciated.
Look at the goals he scored tonight, picking up a hattie as his Flyers crept by the Capitals in a really great 6-5 overtime win. The first two were absolute snipes the quality of which we haven’t seen since Dealey Plaza, and the third was one of those Johnny-On-The-Spot plays that good players always seem to be in position for.
Let’s put it this way: Alex Ovechkin is a man on a mission this year, yeah? Line of 6-3-9 in three games. Third player ever to score like that to start a season. That’s crazy. For real. And Mike Richards was considerably more impressive than him tonight. Wrap your head around that.
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Sentence I’d never thought I’d type ever: “Andrew Raycroft was considerably better than Roberto Luongo tonight.”
Indeed, it was that Raycroft made 11 saves on 12 shots, while Luongo made eight on the same number. Really. I don’t want to start making wild assumptions here, just three games into the season, but there’s got to be something seriously wrong, physically, with Bobby Lou (more like Bobby Loo, and that’s a joke for all my British readers), right?
He might have been helpless on the goal from Antoine Vermette, and it looked like one of his defenseman got a piece of the Rusty Klesla marker, but the goals from Kristian Huselius and Nikita Filatov? Yeah, he’s gotta get those. The Huselius goal especially was just ugly. An unscreened wrister from the circle, no matter how hard, shouldn’t be beating Roberto freaking Luongo middle glove. It should be a physical impossibility. He barely even reacted as it rocketed past him.
Luongo just doesn’t seem himself, as the Raycroftian stat line this season more or less bares out. Granted, the defense hasn’t been helping him much, and his run support to this point has been virtually non-existent, but this is the guy Hockey Canada wants repping the country on its home turf come the Olympics? The way he’s playing right now, Belarus would give them a game (and by that I mean lose 11-1, not 11-0).
Hockey Canada should really consider having a look at Steve Mason, the kid at the other end of the ice who made a number of spectacular saves and isn’t making Andrew Raycroft appear to be a viable option as a starter. At least he couldn’t be any worse than this Luongo joker.
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Posted by TLP
Puck in the slot, Alex Ovechkin streaking toward it, you’re supposed to pick up the trailer.
Do you:
A) Dive at the puck.
B) Try to get in position to jockey with him to disrupt a shot.
C) Intentionally commit slash Ovechkin in the spine and hope they don’t score on the resultant power play.
D) Give Ovechkin 45 minutes to load it up, cock and fire a 620-mile-an-hour shot past Tim Thomas and doom your team to a loss.
Hint: NOT D!
I’m not exactly the world’s foremost expert on backchecking, but I feel like that’s pretty straightforward.
But this play was symptomatic of the Bruins’ entire 4-1 loss to the Capitals tonight. Lazy backcheck, disinterested forecheck, hopeless rushes. It all adds up to a bad loss.
Someone on Twitter noted that Boston fans can expect a similar offensive output most nights this season, and that’s certainly truish. He cited the loss of Kessel as the reason for the drop in production, but really it’s that the Bruins led the NHL in shooting percentage last year, putting 10.9 percent of their shots in the net, a full 1.45 better than league average. Only five other teams (Pittsburgh, Philly, Atlanta, St. Louis and Vancouver) broke 10 percent. The extra 1.45 accounted for an extra 36 goals above average — ironically exactly the number Kessel scored last year — and made the Bruins second in goals for instead of tied for 17th.
So all year, Bruins fans will be scratching their heads saying, “Why isn’t Lucic/Krejci/Ryder/Wheeler/Kobasew scoring like he did last year?” It’s because their shooting percentages were 17.5, 15.1, 14.6, 14.0 and 16.3, respectively and they’re all likely to regress, to varying degrees, toward the mean. Regardless of how well Marc Savard passes (very) or how good the defense is (also very), they simply can’t be expected to total last year’s ridiculous output.
And hey, tonight they went up against a team known for its defense and goalte…
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Posted by TLP
Feed me!