mmamolo

Let's take a look at all of the goals Howard has let in. Game 1. 1.PP Pavelski - Wristshot from the slot on the PP after a sweet pass from Boyle with a crowd in front of the net. Not much he could do on it but hey, I'll stretch and say it'd be awesome if somehow he coudl of stopped it so we'll call this one neutral. 2. Heatley - Thronton works down low and passes the puck out front to Heatley. Broken down coverage and Heatley gets a tap in. No way Howard can stop that. 3. Setoguchi - broken play off the face off, Howard breaks to make a save and the puck deflects off someone and lands right on Setoguchi's stick with a wide open net. No way he can stop that. 4. PP Pavelski - While on a 5-on-3 we've killed around a minute of the ~1:10 PP, pavelski gets it down low and Howard gets caught cheating a bit and gets beat throw the legs. This one, in my opinion, I think he could have stopped. Game 1 summary. 1 goal his fault, 2 not his fault, 1 is neutral (and that's me stretching for all you irrational Howard haters). Game 2. 1. Pavelski - slapshot on the PP. Howard would want this one back. 2. Clowe - drives the net and puts it throw his own legs to beat Howard down low off a fast break by Pavelski. WIth poor defensive zone covereage in front of the net I'll stretch for you all again and give you a neutral. 3. Pavelski - 5-on-3 breakdown with a mad scramble in which we couldn't clear. Howard made some huge saves on this PP and finally the sharks put the puck in the net. There is no way you can blame Howard for this goal. 4. Thornton - Lidstrom's stick breaks, Heatley rips a short for which Howard makes a tough save, the puck unfortunately bounces off Rafalski's shin right onto Thornton's stick for a wide open net. No way you blame Howard. Game 2 Summary. 1 goal his fault, 2 not his fault, 1 is neutral (again, stretching). Total: 2 his fault, 4 not his fault, 2 neutral (again stretching)

The Darren Helm diving call in game 1 was ridiculous. I don't understand for the life of me how they can call that a dive and then refuse to call any of the coutnless 'embelleshing' antics the sharks have pulled. At the end of the day there were bad calls made on both teams (the bertuzzi goalie interference and holding and the Heatley goalie interference etc) but again it comes down to the how and when of the calls. Momentum changing calls kill anything and everything teams have built. In all fairness, yes, Detroit absolutely deserved some of their penalities - as did the Sharks. But to have an extended 5-on-3 PP in both games 1 and 2 of a series of over a minute long is pretty rare (although the Kronwall penalty was deserved). I think the problem really lays in the fact that basicalyl no one watching the game could understand the bulk of the calls that were being made. So many of the calls were just so questionable and borderline that it made the officials look completely inexperienced. As a wings fan, obviously, I foudn the officiating frustrating. The two Bertuzzi calls drove me absolutely insane because they were completely off the wall in my opinion. To make matters worse we have players embellishing all over the ice and the refs are buying into it - Nabokov and Setugichi being the two biggest culprets. Finally, a discussion that has been coming up a lot as of late is the idea of refs 'evening' up calls for stats and discussion purposes. It's kind of funny that in a 4-3 game, with 4 odd minutes to go, the Wings are down a man, the refs decide to give Heatley and terrible goaltender interference call to negate the Sharks PP. Sure this marginally helps the Wings as they no longer have to kill the penalty but what it really did was get the refs out of the hot water of they put themselves into with the bogus Bertuzzi goatender interference from earlier in the game. Problem is the how and when of the call.

To me if you were to be so inclined I would think the Art Ross would be renamed after Gretzky just because of the scoring

Maybe Im being a little biased but here are a few small comments: 1. Asking the Thornton line to keep pace with either the Datsyuk or Zetterberg line (right now) is asking a lot. 2.Claiming Babcock has 'very little confidence' in Lilja and Ericsson is a stretch. I don't agree with that statement for either of the defensemen but even if I were to go so far as to somehow agree with Babcock doesn't have much confidence in Ericsson there is zero chance he has little confidence in Lilja. Lilja has been very solid down the stretch and so far in the playoffs. Just take a look at him on the PK - especially in game 7 against Phoenix. 3. Thinking the Sharks will go 3-1 at home is a very confident statement considering Detroit went 2-0 in San Jose this year and the author of the article had just previously finished mentioning how he put a lot of stock in season series numbers. 4.Ridiculous finish to an otherwise half way decent article: 'The blueline concerns me but I like the goaltending matchup. Datsyuk is a magician but I have a feeling Thornton finally asserts himself. Henrik Zetterberg has a ridiculously beautiful wife but Patrick Marleau is the best looking man in the world. Todd Bertuzzi should be in prison. Tomas Holmstrom's behind gets more press coverage than Jennifer Lopez but Ryane Clowe is giving him a run for his money. Niklas Lidstrom is bulletproof but Dany Heatley has a sniper rifle. Brian Rafalski is a patriot but Joe Pavelski is the new American hero. I keep flipping this coin. Unbiased. Unprejudiced. Fair. And it always comes up heads. San Jose in seven. Book it. Go Sharks'

My predictions: Pittsburgh over Montreal in 5 Boston over Philadelphia in 6 Detroit over San Jose in 6 Vancouver over Chicago in 7

Logan Couture and Buzz from Home Alone was the best

SJS/DET:4-2 CHI/VAN:4-3 PIT/MTL:4-1 BOS/PHI:4-2 I never made Rd 1 selections so obviously I don't get to make conference and SC picks but come on, my blinders would have been on so cleary I would have chosen Detroit as West Champs and SC Champs ha

I'm by no means supporting Mike Green but I think it's a little harsh to completely put all of the blame on him for the Habs second goal. When the puck was turned over at the offensive blueline Ovechkin was out of gas and didn;t backcheck what so ever. The puck was flipped over the head of Carlson who lazily skated back to the defensive end and let Moore skate right passed him and pick up the free puck. Green simply lost the foot race and tried to take out the man. Carlson should have picked Moore up as the second man in the zone and been the responsible second defensmen. Even if Green had narrowly won the foot race to the puck Carlson wasn't even putting himself into position to give Green an outlet pass. It was completely lazy on his part. Take a look at the reply, both Ovechkin and Carlson are coasting while Green is at least trying to get to the loose puck - he lost loses the race. That being said, I agree, his defense is poor and he got exposed for it this year in the POs just as he did last year and just as he probably will next year. The guy is a PP specialist and when your PP goes cold he's flat out a liability. It's unfortunate what happened for Caps fans this year but hey, they're getting their bumps and maybe they'll be better for it in the long run.

Not trying to be a dick, but Helm scored the second goal for the Wings in Game 6. His -3 hurts for sure but he has been huge on the PK and he had a massive game last night in Game 7. I'm really surprised that you'd give Ericsson that low of a grade. He has cut his turnovers way down from the regular season. I think the only knock he realyl has is he coudl turn the physical play and intensity up. I think your grade for Abdelkader may be a little biased. He has been great but his 1 goal in 6 games and Helm's 1 goal in 7 games and look at the difference in grades when they both bring tons more to the table. Draper has played hsi role great, especially last night. Howard is the biggest miscue in my opinion. He was huge in games 4, 5, and 7 for sure. But he was very average in 1, 2, 3, and 6. He didn't steal anything or make that big save we needed. Don't get me wrong, at the end of the day he was a beast when we ultimately needed him to be but an A is a little high in my opinion. I'd probably have given him a B+ or something.

I dont want to say that's typical but maybe it's not surprising. I think a lot of the time you see the Adams go to a coach who turned a team around from a s*** year last season to a strong competitive year this season and with that usually results in making the playoffs without really being a contender - hence the early exist. Nashville is the only team, of the three, that was already a solid team. So I guess that makes it a little interesting in that regard.

Well, it's very possible I missed Minfly's acknowledgement as it's not like I read every single post in every single thread. So it may have been overly harsh of me to act as if it were fact that some one like Mindfly hadn't owned up. Obviously everyone has their own gut feelings on outcomes of future games and opinions on what's going to happen but what rubs me the wrong way is when ppl announce their opinions as though they are infallable and then disappear when it turns out they were wrong. I'll admit when I'm wrong just as often as I'll take praise for when I'm right. I'll be the first to say that I felt like Leino was going to be a solid 3rd line contributor on this team and post 15-20 goals this year - I was wrong. At the same time I thought Filppula was going to be a legit top 6 forward by the end of the year - I was right. Opinions are opinions but I can't stand when ppl refuse to acknowledge when they were wrong.

Maybe so...and the only guy you could maybe replace would be Trotz but they had a hell of a year too. You couldn't leave off Sacco or Tippett with the years those teams had.

You guys are all dreaming. 23 man roster: Franzen - Datsyuk - Holmstrom Bertuzzi - Zetterberg - Filppula Hudler - Helm - Cleary Miller - Abdelkader - Eaves Draper, Ritola Lidstrom - Rafalski Kronwall - Stuart Lilja - Ericsson Kindl Howard Osgood

Any Pens fan who wants to claim the East provides the same level of competition as the West is a liar and a joke. Just call it like it is. I'm not taking anything away from what the Pens have accomplished but none of the remaining teams will give the Penguins the same type of challenge as the remaining teams in the West would. The only way the Pens dont go to the finals is if they don't put forth their best efforts in a full series.

Hank has an awesome beard for sure but how anyone can vote for anyone but Bert is beyond me. There are awesome beards on this team but Bert crushes all. He has the blackest, fullest, gnarliest beard I have ever seen and what's most impressive is that his five o'clock shadow shows up by brunch.

As good as Pav is defensively Hank is our ultimate playoff shutdown guy. Plus, when Holmstrom plays with Pav at times his skating can be a defensive liability. I think you match up Zetterberg against the line that is producing the best for the Sharks and right now that is the Pavelski line while Datsyuk's line takes care of the Thronton line. If things start to change and the Thornton line actually puts a couple goals in then you adjust but for a moment consider these stats: Joe Pavelski gp 6 g 5 a 3 p 8 Ryan Clowe gp 6 g 1 a 7 p 8 Devon Setoguchi gp 6 g 3 a 3 p 6 Total: gp 18 g 9 a 13 p 22 Joe Thornton gp 6 g 0 a 3 p 3 Dany Heatley gp 5 g 0 a 4 p 4 Patrick Marleau gp 6 g 1 a 2 p 3 Total: gp 17 g 1 a 9 p 10

That's exactly right. I think ppl are niave to think that refs don't do that on purpose. Those were useless PPs but at the end of the day ppl can hide behind the fact that the total number of PPs were even. It's all about the HOW and WHEN of the penalty calls.

Being wrong is one thing - obviously we're all wrong from time to time and there's nothing wrong with that. Trying to convince us all that that it never happened it what pisses ppl off. At least you're big enough to own up to it. I guarantee half of the doubters don't even show up on these boards today - like Mindfly. Although, you have to question the validity of their posts in the first place. Half the time they're just trolling anyways. Or at least it seems that way.

Even if Washington gets passed Montreal, which is far from certain, Pittsburgh is all but guarenteed to go to the finals. Philly - without Carter and Gagne won't have the offence to keep up and Boucher can only do so much Boston - Rask and their d can only contain pitts for so long until their lack of scoring eventualyl does them in Wash - their PP has been their down fall and even if they advance and their PP kicks in the lack of production from Semin and Green stings. Their D wont be able to contain the Pens and will be exposed just as they were last year. Mtl - if they win and somehow magically their offence continues on this hot streak (which is unlikely) their D will get exposed (as it should have, and has at times, against Wash). It pains me to say but the Pens are walking to the finals because the East is so disgustingly weak.

The same number of PP opportunities is another lame tactic the NHL uses to keep up competitive outcomes of games...as is the how and when penalties are called. Make no mistake about it, refs control the flow and momentum of games. It is to the NHLs benefit to have close, hard fought games and giving trailing teams chances on the PP to get back in games and come from behind exciting victories is exciting for the elague and it's fans. I'm not saying games are rigging or predetermined or any other conspiracy b.s but if you think for one second that the refs don't control the flow and momentum of games to purposely keep them competitive you're nuts.

The thing I find most troubling about the NHL, and what this thread and PP stats doesn't show, is when and how penalties are given out. You're definitely right that at the end of the day PP opportunities end up being about even which is ludacris in itself. But what is more troubling is the timing of these calls. It's pretty obvious, from reading most ppl's posts here, that we're all in agreement - there are coutnless penalties that occur throughout the game and the refs pick and choose which ones they actually call. This means it's up to their discretion to change the flow and momentum of the game. If for example tonight the Wings have 3 straight PPs. They're up a goal in the 3rd with 10 minutes to go and are dominating and the refs decide now is a good time to call a marginal penalty against Detroit. At the end of the game the stats will show Det with 3 PP and Pho 1 but the momentum swings are huge. The quality of penalties are huge. Getting a marginal call against you affects players outlooks on what's happening so much more than a deserved penalty. To me it's so much more about the how and when than the actual quantity (since it'll all but be even at the end anyways).

Terrible 5 on 5 is a stretch. He is definitely slow but he still has very good puck retrival skills down low. Also, $3.5M will definitely get a real good player but not necessarily one that can replace what both Bertuzzi and Holmstrom can bring you. Plus, when you deduct two roster players you need to add two roster players. So if you go out and get a league min guy (500k) you only have 3.25M for your top 6 guy based on your calculations. Although, in all fairness, if my memory serves my Holmstroms current salary is $2.2M/yr.

Rafalski, no questions asked.

Stevkrause, this is why we get along

RIS,TSN (HD),FS-D (HD),FS-A AS per NHL.com