So I'm sitting here musing about Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals in Chicago tonight - I really need to be working, yes it's a holiday but we had some things come up at work and I've got a deadline in two weeks and a lot of things to do before then. After all I want to get those tasks done so I can attend the annual PM-FPS Golf Tournament at Fort Belvoir and get my butt summarily kicked by that course once again on June 11th...
In any case I'm once again musing about hockey - it is a holiday weekend after all - and I'm thinking that tonight one of two things will happen. Either the Flyers come out, score first, play a very tight game and come away with a hard fought 2-1 or 3-2 win. Tying the series at one game a piece as they head to Philly for game 3 of what will likely be a 7 game series anybody can win.
Or ...
Chicago comes out flying, and this time solves both Flyers goaltenders Leighton and Boucher - they really didn't solve Boucher last game - and come away with at least a three goal victory (at least 2 + an empty netter). If that happens the teams head to Philly with Chicago in control of the series 2-0 for game 3 of what will likely be a 5 game series that Chicago wins.
Of the two choices I have no idea which will occur. As I've been saying I will make no concrete predictions about this series. It's the Stanley Cup finals - anything can happen. After all "History Will Be Made" and at this point you really have to play all the required games on the ice. I do think though that Philly's lesson learned from game one is that even though Niemi is beatable, they want to play Chicago tighter than they played them in game one.
What do you think?
Monday, May 31, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Game 1 In The Books - Blackhawks 6 - Flyers 5
Here's my random thoughts about last night's Stanley Cup Finals Game 1...
Midway through the first period I thought - if things keep up this way, the final score will be 7-6 and I have no idea who will win. Seriously, no kidding that's why I thought. Things did basically keep up that way and I wasn't far off the mark.
It only shows how little confidence the Blackhawks have in Christobel Huet that Antti Niemi was still in the Chicago net to get the victory. It also once again just resoundingly screams what a waste of $5.5M of Salary Cap Space, Hut's contract is for Chicago. As a Capitals fan I'd like to once again say thank you for the self-discipline of the Caps Management and Ownership and for Jose Theodore, these past two seasons.
Aren't the playoffs, especially when your big players need to show up and deliver big? Flyers: Richards-Carter-Gagne combined for no goals, no assists and a +/- of (-7). Not to be outdone for the Blackhawks: Kane-Toews-Byfuglien combined for zero goals, zero points and +/- of (-9). I'd say this points to a couple of things: a) both the Flyers and the Blackhawks have good coaching staffs and used the time between series to watch a fair amount of video and come up with ways to modulate the impact of the other teams' "big guns" and b) the guys assigned to keep the other teams "big guns" neutralized executed well. That said my feeling is this level of non-production will not continue through the rest of the series and one important factor for who ever wins the series will be that they will make counteracting adjustments faster than the loosing team can react to. Given last night's game it's probably going to be much more about being a "coach's series" than being about a "goaltender's series/duel" - just a hunch on my part.
Don't get me wrong, right now I'd rather be the Blackhawks and up 1-0 in the series, but there's a lot of good things the Flyers have to build on, and I can't believe that Chicago was sitting in their locker room after the game thinking it was going to be easy for them to win their first Cup since 1961. Can't see the Blackhawks sweeping this series right now.
It will be interesting to see who Peter Laviolette starts in goal for game two. Brian Boucher was clearly the best goaltender who played last night, but Leighton wasn't really the problem for the Flyers and it was really his first bad game since he took over for Boucher in the playoffs. No doubt Niemi will be in goal for Chicago and the Hawks will be hoping he has what has become his usual stellar coming back from a bad outing game in game 2. To some degree what happens there with Niemi in game two will drive the amount of swagger the Hawks have when they travel to Philly for game 3 and 4.
32:21 of Ice Time is probably too much for Philly to play Chris Pronger against the Blackhawks, but I'm not sure what choice they have. I guess if they could get it so Lukas Krajicek skated 10-12 minutes in the game and/or Ryan Parent skated 5-10 minutes in a game vice 7:03 and 00:41, they might be able to dial Pronger's ice time back to something on the order of 27 minutes. Seriously, if the game had gone to Overtime it's very conceivable Pronger could have been asked to play 40 minutes and that likely just won't work against the Blackhawks who are so deep. This is something that will likely be a key thing to watch the rest of this series.
I won't make any prediction on who will win but after last night's game it's hard for me to feel the Series won't be at least six (6) games long.
No Flyer penalties last night --- really? Well Laviolette had to be happy, even if the 22,000+ referees in United Center were slightly incredulous at times.
Second star of the game Marian Hossa --- really? Hossa played a good game but in a game where 11 goals are scored the fact that the second star of the game is a guy who didn't score a goal but had two (2) assists in 18:14 TOI just shows how distributed the Chicago offense was last night. Personally, nothing against Hoss, but I would have given the second star to Dave Boland for his unassisted short hand goal, but I always feel a "shortie" provides a team with a bunch of good karma and momentum and tend to overvalue their impact on a game.
Next game tomorrow in Chicago.
Midway through the first period I thought - if things keep up this way, the final score will be 7-6 and I have no idea who will win. Seriously, no kidding that's why I thought. Things did basically keep up that way and I wasn't far off the mark.
It only shows how little confidence the Blackhawks have in Christobel Huet that Antti Niemi was still in the Chicago net to get the victory. It also once again just resoundingly screams what a waste of $5.5M of Salary Cap Space, Hut's contract is for Chicago. As a Capitals fan I'd like to once again say thank you for the self-discipline of the Caps Management and Ownership and for Jose Theodore, these past two seasons.
Aren't the playoffs, especially when your big players need to show up and deliver big? Flyers: Richards-Carter-Gagne combined for no goals, no assists and a +/- of (-7). Not to be outdone for the Blackhawks: Kane-Toews-Byfuglien combined for zero goals, zero points and +/- of (-9). I'd say this points to a couple of things: a) both the Flyers and the Blackhawks have good coaching staffs and used the time between series to watch a fair amount of video and come up with ways to modulate the impact of the other teams' "big guns" and b) the guys assigned to keep the other teams "big guns" neutralized executed well. That said my feeling is this level of non-production will not continue through the rest of the series and one important factor for who ever wins the series will be that they will make counteracting adjustments faster than the loosing team can react to. Given last night's game it's probably going to be much more about being a "coach's series" than being about a "goaltender's series/duel" - just a hunch on my part.
Don't get me wrong, right now I'd rather be the Blackhawks and up 1-0 in the series, but there's a lot of good things the Flyers have to build on, and I can't believe that Chicago was sitting in their locker room after the game thinking it was going to be easy for them to win their first Cup since 1961. Can't see the Blackhawks sweeping this series right now.
It will be interesting to see who Peter Laviolette starts in goal for game two. Brian Boucher was clearly the best goaltender who played last night, but Leighton wasn't really the problem for the Flyers and it was really his first bad game since he took over for Boucher in the playoffs. No doubt Niemi will be in goal for Chicago and the Hawks will be hoping he has what has become his usual stellar coming back from a bad outing game in game 2. To some degree what happens there with Niemi in game two will drive the amount of swagger the Hawks have when they travel to Philly for game 3 and 4.
32:21 of Ice Time is probably too much for Philly to play Chris Pronger against the Blackhawks, but I'm not sure what choice they have. I guess if they could get it so Lukas Krajicek skated 10-12 minutes in the game and/or Ryan Parent skated 5-10 minutes in a game vice 7:03 and 00:41, they might be able to dial Pronger's ice time back to something on the order of 27 minutes. Seriously, if the game had gone to Overtime it's very conceivable Pronger could have been asked to play 40 minutes and that likely just won't work against the Blackhawks who are so deep. This is something that will likely be a key thing to watch the rest of this series.
I won't make any prediction on who will win but after last night's game it's hard for me to feel the Series won't be at least six (6) games long.
No Flyer penalties last night --- really? Well Laviolette had to be happy, even if the 22,000+ referees in United Center were slightly incredulous at times.
Second star of the game Marian Hossa --- really? Hossa played a good game but in a game where 11 goals are scored the fact that the second star of the game is a guy who didn't score a goal but had two (2) assists in 18:14 TOI just shows how distributed the Chicago offense was last night. Personally, nothing against Hoss, but I would have given the second star to Dave Boland for his unassisted short hand goal, but I always feel a "shortie" provides a team with a bunch of good karma and momentum and tend to overvalue their impact on a game.
Next game tomorrow in Chicago.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
So It's Set - Piladelphia @ Chicago, Stanley Cup Game 1, Saturday May 29th in Chicago
Well it's set, the Stanley Cup Finals that is. This should be a great series. Lots of action, lotos of drama. As a former Flyers fan, and current Capitals/Eastern Conference fan, I'm rooting for the Flyers, but lets be honest, Chicago has looked awesome, especially the last 4 games.
More later but last night's game 5 Flyers vs. Canadiens was a good one. ...
More later but last night's game 5 Flyers vs. Canadiens was a good one. ...
Monday, May 24, 2010
Blackhawks Sweep Sharks, Flyers Return To Philly Leading Series 3-1 and Russia Looses to Czech Republic
The headline tell is all doesn't it?
The NHL Western Conference team in the Stanley Cup Finals is Chicago after they took game four today in Chicago. The Blackhawks deserved to win, they seemed to want it more, they clearly out shot the Sharks in the second and third period and scored 4 unanswered goals, including the final empty neter to come back from a 2-0 deficit and take the series in a sweep.
The Flyers made all the necessary adjustments on Saturday to take the 3-1 game series lead with them when they return to Wachovia Center in Philly and try to close out the series against Montreal in five games. Michael Leighton got his third shutout of the series and the Flyers powered to a 3-0 victory in the second game at of the series at Bell Center.
In Germany, the Czech Republic beat Russia 3-1, Heartbreak there for sure....
Well that's it for now, Tomorrow night's Flyers - Canadiens game should be a fun one.
The NHL Western Conference team in the Stanley Cup Finals is Chicago after they took game four today in Chicago. The Blackhawks deserved to win, they seemed to want it more, they clearly out shot the Sharks in the second and third period and scored 4 unanswered goals, including the final empty neter to come back from a 2-0 deficit and take the series in a sweep.
The Flyers made all the necessary adjustments on Saturday to take the 3-1 game series lead with them when they return to Wachovia Center in Philly and try to close out the series against Montreal in five games. Michael Leighton got his third shutout of the series and the Flyers powered to a 3-0 victory in the second game at of the series at Bell Center.
In Germany, the Czech Republic beat Russia 3-1, Heartbreak there for sure....
Well that's it for now, Tomorrow night's Flyers - Canadiens game should be a fun one.
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