stormboy

so i'm not watching the game--just following online. could someone describe the last goal?

thank jesus.

i just was looking at stats and realized that AO has over a quarter of that teams total goals. lol.

yeah, i just noticed that about ottawa last night. they do hold their own fate: if they win their last two games, they can't drop past eighth place. if they lose both, and the flyers and bruins win one of their remaining three games, AND (less likely, though possible) washington wins both, they would be out. washington's last two games are tampa bay and florida. the tampa series is 5-2 washington so far this season, though it's 3-3-1 against the panthers. senators play toronto, who, though the leafs suck, are actually leading the season series 4-3 and have won the last three games, plus the game is in toronto, and boston. ottawa leads the boston series 4-3, but have been outscored 13-18 thus far this season. given the fact that washington has won nine out of their last eight and ottawa has won only four, and though ottawa's opponents aren't stellar in the last two games, this scenario isn't completely ridiculous to me. boston and philly would of course have to do their part as well, but if it was a situation where ottawa didn't win its last two games (the only situation in which washington could pass them) both of those teams could go 1-2-0 or 0-2-1 and still top the sens in points (though boston would, by default, have to win one of their games if ottawa were to lose their last two). if ottawa loses their last two, washington could even go 1-0-1 over their last two and get the three points they need. if washington wins their last two games and ottawa goes 1-1-0, the teams will both have 94 points and forty three wins, but as of now, ottawa's got a wide edge in goals scored (almost twenty) which i believe is the next tie-breaker after wins (?). if washington wins both games but ottawa goes 0-0-2, they'd be tied in points but washtington would have one more win. i hadn't really paid attention until now, but i guess a lot of this still depends on carolina. they're in the same situation as washington actually but are only atop the division because of their additional win. i hadn't realized it, but if washington wins both games (and carolina doesn't) they'll jump to third and carolina will be demoted to eighth. in that case, they'd get pushed out and the sens would stay in. hmmm... the 'canes also play tampa bay and florida, so it's a possibility that they could win both as well. obviously, all this depends on the sens losing their last two games. which they may not. but for some reason (though i'm not real scared of ottawa -- i don't think they'd make it to the scf's if they make the cut) it would just be interesting to see the sens, who, at one time, plenty of people -- myself included -- were predicting them to win the conference easily and storm to the finals, drop out of the playoffs on the last day of the season. best line in the league, my ass.

you dick.

heh, it's that time of year. now that i've got all those committed to memory, i'll be paying careful attention to see when any of those situations arise. ; ) but seriously, i'd love for san jose to not win one game in the last month of the regular season, but with the role they / big joe have been on, i don't see them losing to la tonight. but stranger things have happened.

you can get the highlights of the detroit-chicago game people have been talking about on nhl.com with the highlight machine. dec 23 2005. and just for the record it was draper at 19:21, lidstrom at 19:53, and datsyuk at 4:59 of OT. it's great because they have the fsnd feed on the highlights, so it's great to hear ken daniels absolutely flipping out when lidstrom scores the tying goal. i'd like to see a more compete replay because after lidstrom's goal, khabibulin seems to be complaining that the puck was kicked in. i'm not sure how it could have been since it was a long-distance shot that scored. maybe he thought it was deflected or something. maybe he was just so stunned that he got scored on twice in the last thirty nine seconds of the game that surely there had to be SOME reason (other than him just getting owned) that the puck went in.

agree with those dissapointed that downey's out. it will be interesting once the playoffs start and homer's back who we will and won't be seeing. i'd rather see sammy and kopy sit and downey and mac start (assuming mac lives up to our sky-high expectations). if not, if mac can't do it, throw sammy or kopy back in there but keep downey. but, i have a feeling it will be dmac and aaron who sit. *shrug* am i the only one who's looking forward to a rex-flip-cleary second pp unit? maybe cleary can get those kids rolling again. that would be most, most, MOST excellent.

my thoughts. while no playoff series is a gimmie, and none should be approached as such, the idea of facing luongo doesn't scare me too much. yeah, the wings can have a tendency to fire shot after shot into the (oversized) chest pads of a goalie like louongo, but the avs, while certainly a fine team, absolutely torched him last night and their offense isn't as good as ours, though it is good. as long as the d can stay healthy to move the puck for, say, datsyuk, zetterberg, cleary, franzen, homer...we'll be in fine shape. i'm not frightened by any of those three teams, though i think they would all make exciting and competitive match ups. more on topic, this is a pretty big blow to them. they have very little secondary scoring, and what was there just took a hit. plus, even if lou was back in time for the playoffs, big games against divisional opponents with such a narrow lead right now are exactly that...big games. but i'll just say this: it's better to be watching the scrum for the bottom playoff spots from the top of the pile. it's more relaxing, if less exciting.

that helm 5-on-3 shortie was real pretty. thanks for posting.

oh cleary...how i've missed you.

nice stats! very interesting analysis. it's really strange how ozzie faces more shots than hasek...i think (if i read the stats right) ozzie actually gets better the more shots he faces, whereas hasek rocks the house on those 12-15 shot games. again, the variables associated with those stats are pretty incomprehensible, as are the stats regarding their powerplay performance. it's interesting that hasek has done so much worse than ozzie in those situations. obviously you can't discount that one game where hasek let in three shorties against chicago, 'cause it was a game like any other, but without that really poor performance he would only have one more shortie than ozzie. (correct?) but, yeah, great stats. i've been studying african economics all day, so they kind of hurt my head...but in a good way.

it seems like the late games would be a disadvantage...but i've never been sure how much it plays in. it would be interesting to see in both regular season and playoffs what are records our in 10 or 10.30 games as opposed to our record against those same teams while playing at seven thirty. i mean, you'd kind of need a control set of games on neutral ice, which obviously you don't have, and i think it was our team last year (or was it two years ago? maybe two years ago) that won a near- or new-record total of road games, while being mediocre at home. so i guess it'd be kind of hard to test...but i've always thought that playing at ten thirty (while the other team has to play at "4.30" in our barn) is a bit unfair. aren't we the only team in the western conference in the eastern time zone? edit: grammar

i agree with the poster(s) saying that win percentage is irrelevant in the nhl, since we do go by points. a team that's 42-40-0 has a "winning record" based on win percentage, but the team that's 40-0-42 will have more points. despite the fact that they have a "losing" record, they'll still be higher than the team that went 42-40-0. so what's the point in saying team a has a winning record and team b has a losing record? technically, you're correct, but that is a meaningless statement in the nhl since conference rankings are based on points. i agree that it's a f***ed up system: you shouldn't be able to have 25 teams with an over-fifty percent points percentage, but that's the way it is, and "winning record" and "win percentage" have no functional value in discussions of the nhl at this time.

terrible. it doesn't even LOOK like him.

i realize it's a part of the game and it happens to every team...but goddam. i'm tired of our playoff chances being like...well, if bertuzzi had been 100% / if schnides hadn't broken his writs / if kronner was ever healthy for a playoff game / if zetterberg didn't have back issues during the playoffs / whatever. i want a complete, healthy wings team to play a ******* playoff series. (i'm sorry, matt, for the profanity. i'm a little upset.) if we lose, whatever, of course i'll be upset...but i'll know that the WINGS got beaten by a superior opponent. not the wings lite got beaten by...whoever. whatever. we were fine enough without him, i guess. but i liked him. and now we CANNOT afford to lose any other blueliners until the playoffs are over.

right...but we DO have zetterberg. and that's why he's on our team. i mean, you could look at any night and be like, "well, if we didn't have lidstrom, datsyuk and franzen we would have gotten shut out tonight." you build teams around great players in hopes that SOME one (or a few people) turn it on every night. apparently that's worked for us the majority of games this season, whether it's three people scoring on goal each or one guy scoring three goals. somehow we've won a lot of games where zetterberg didn't score...this one, no one else did, but he was on. *shrug* i don't think that's a very accurate way to look at it. but that's my $0.02

so clearly i'm a little late. just got to watch the highlights. after the second goal, i saw the cbs goalie bitching to the ref that franzen was in the crease or something. i just like to see that with homer out, someone's still getting other goalies to get their panties all in a bind.

good post. for me, any team that makes it into the playoffs is scary. even facing the wild or the avs wouldn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. playoff series are tough. (most of the time, with a few exceptions.) i'd love to not meet the sharks or ducks for sure in round one, but stars, canucks, or really anybody else doesn't excite me, per se. except for the fact that it's ******* PLAYOFF HOCKEY and it's going to be awesome no matter what, win or lose. bring anybody on at this point. i don't care what seed we are, what seed they are, who gets a whopping 57% of the icetime at home. sit back and enjoy the show; there's nothing we can do, no matter who we play...but enjoy it. because we're fans. and aren't fans supposed to enjoy the sport that they're watching? hell. yes. dig the illuminati reference. : )

i agree...seeing them play in a series would certainly be interesting. i have no personal hatred for chris simon as i've never seen him do anything to one of our guys...i've only seen the relplays of him doing s*** to players i'm not personally attached to. i do think he's right, though. if there had only been two games left in the regular seasons, pronger's suspension probably would have only been for one game.

thanks for contributing to the conversation, since nobody knew who he was talking about until you corrected his spelling. back on topic, i'd love to see franzen continue to produce. i can't tell you how happy i've ben seeing franzen, hudler, and val get some love the last few games. but i remember a time somewhere around our last seven game winning streak that they were all playing really well. then, we went through a stretch where they were all ice cold. all three of them CAN score, as has been documented countless times. i don't want to get too excited about franzen just yet...i love to be optimistic, and i'd love to see him continue to play this way. here's hoping. :hippie:

i wish i could watch the game to see the fight. hopefully it makes it to youtube pretty soon. two straight. it's been a while.

heha..yeah. 'cause when we're winning, we have nothing (or very little -- we can always ***** about the refs) to complain about. and complaining is so much more fun. : )

yeah, i think he has to. no other goalie constantly has their stick sliding around the ice. oh, dom. he marches to the beat of his own drum, i'm afraid.

AO just got his 54th.