Ponds and Pucks

Surprising no one, the Ducks won the Stanley Cup last night. The Senators couldn’t have played much worse if they tried. This was, I think, their worst game of the series. But there are a dozen different people who will give you the wrap on the game and their opinions. I want to look at something else. The disappointment this series held.

I love hockey. I can sit down and watch a game, just to watch it. I don’t have to have a rooting interest (although it does make it easier to get into). I will sit there and yell and shout and basically scare the dogs whenever there’s a game on. In fact, if I don’t read while watching the game, I tend to shout at every play, offering coaching advice to the TV. My niece-to-be has counseled me that they really can’t hear me. But I digress. My point is, I love everything the NHL has to offer.

But this series stank.

For the most part, it wasn’t competitive. Show me a game where Ottawa played well enough that you really thought they were going to win, besides Game 3 which they did win. Even that, at times, seemed more lucky than good. Show me any moment when Anaheim had any reason to be concerned that they might not pull the series out. Tell me who was more energetic, who had more hits. Who played like they wanted it? It sure wasn’t the Senators. I watched at least some part of every game of this series (Game 3 was on a Saturday night … that’s a discussion for another time, but it was a bad idea, Gary) and even I found myself drifting away.

I don’t know how you fix it. Maybe you can’t. Maybe the Ducks were just that much better. Maybe the Senators were just that tired from their layoff. Maybe God is from Anaheim.

But this will not be a series talked about for much longer than this off-season.

Ducks, Stanley Cup, Senators, hockey, NHL, Ottawa, Anaheim

Tonight’s Game 5 could be the end of the NHL season, the last hockey game for the season. All of us who want a longer season need to root quite hard for the Senators. But I don’t think they’ll be able to pull it off. They have been outplayed at every level by the Ducks.

If they want to win, then Ottawa needs to execute on defense and maintain some level of consistency on offense. They’ve yet to do either. ESPN2 has a stat on their bottom line about how outscored the Senators are in the 3rd period. They need to win every period. It needs to be a blowout. Otherwise it’s just a delay of the inevitable — a loss in the final frame of what will be the last game of the season.

NHL, hockey, Senators, Ducks, Ottawa, Stanley Cup, Anaheim

So there it is. The Senators had a chance to win, but let this one go. Part of the blame has to go to Ray Emery, whom I love, and who got caught off-guard leaving the net wide open for the game-winner. Ray, I love you, but you need to not let that happen.

The Ducks played well, of course. They were crisp and they seemed to be putting the puck where it needed to be, where the defense wasn’t. Contrast that with Ottawa who played better last night but still not good enough. They seemed more chaotic, less structured. They put the puck on the net but didn’t seem to know what to do after that. They were not in any way as efficient as they should have been.

The Senators need to spend their offseason fixing their major weakness. They are too reliant on a few players and not set up to capitalize. They need to work on some set plays. Right now they look like a midget team just running down the ice as quickly as possible without looking.

Senators, Ducks, Ottawa, Anaheim, NHL, hockey, Stanley Cup

If the Senators had lost on Saturday night, I would be writing now about how the Ducks were going to sweep. If the Senators had lost on Saturday night, I would be writing right now about what went wrong and how can they fix everything. I would be writing right now about what they need to do in the off-season to correct a total meltdown.

But they won on Saturday night.

Don’t get me wrong. Ottawa is going to be in for a really tough time and if they think that they are going to make a comeback. Down 2-1, they still need to win 3 out of the next 4 games. And they only have 2 more at home. They need to protect their barn and win one at the pond. Is it doable? Yes. Is it likely? No.

The main criticism from the first game was that Ray Emery looked nervous. He shook off some of those nerves for game two and again on Saturday. But on Saturday, he gave up 3 goals. That’s 7 goals for the series. It’s a dangerous thing to be that loose. His team needs to have his back and Emery needs to calm down.

And he will. Watch him at the next game and he’ll be back to Game 2 form. Emery will be the star of the series. But it won’t be enough. Ottawa made its move too late and is just not good enough. Anaheim has figured out how to shut them down.

Senators, Ducks, Ottawa, Anaheim, NHL, hockey, Stanley Cup

Watching last night’s hockey game, we can only come to one conclusion.  Ray Emery is grossly underpaid.  For 60 minutes, he kept his team in a game that they seemed to have no interest in playing.  The much vaunted Heatley/Spezza/Alfreddson line has produced bupkis.  That may be a function of the Anaheim defense, or it could be indicative that Ottawa has problems.  You be the judge.  The stat of the game though, speaks volumes.  JS Giguerre saw 16 shots.  Emery saw 31.  In the final minutes of play, the Senators couldn’t maintain the pressure in the offensive zone to let Emery get back to the bench.  Emery should have won this game, the offense in front of him lost it.

I was supposed to pick the series and I never did.  For the record, I thought Ottawa would handle business in 6.  I suspect that I will be wrong.

hockey, Anaheim, Ottawa, Senators, Ducks, NHL, Stanley Cup

My bad, I didn’t break down the cup finals yet and give my prediction.  So even though it’s probably cheating a bit, I will do that tomorrow.  Today, let’s look at one aspect of the game that was played last night.

This was a good game, with very few mistakes.  But the stars of the game need to be Ray Emery and J.S. Guiguerre.  What you got if you watched the game was a highlight reel of amazing saves.  Don’t be fooled by the goals that they let up, look at the overall body of work.  For both goalies this was a star performance.  And this is what they will need to continue if they want to drink from Lord Stanley’s Cup.

Both Ottawa and Anaheim have some major offensive forces.  But if the goaltenders can keep the pucks in front of them — by any means necessary — they’ll remain the story.

Ottawa, Anaheim, Senators, Ducks, NHL, Hockey

I had them losing in 7, but they lost in 6.  Pretty close.  Not very surprising.

Detroit never looked as good in this series as they had in the previous two. Anaheim, on the other hand, looked and played tight.  They skated well and they put the puck on net as needed.  They played a higher level of hockey, there’s really no debating it.

Now I’ll admit that I missed the third period last night.  After watching the first 2, I didn’t think that the Red Wings had a chance.  It turns out that I was right, but I’ll put it out there.

The Ducks showed that they were the far superior team.  At the end of this, there’s not a lot of breakdown to be done, it’s really just something to accept.

That and I’m really tired today.

Detroit, Anaheim, hockey, Red Wings, Ducks

The Sabres really looked like they were the team to beat.  They had won the President’s Trophy, they had waltzed through the first two rounds of the playoffs, and Ryan Miller looked like he could stop a Mack Truck just by shooting it a dirty look.  So why aren’t they playing for the Stanley Cup?

I could cheat and say that the Senators are just better.  That’s true (the season series demonstrated that as well), but it doesn’t paint the whole picture.  Buffalo could have beat Ottawa if they had made a few corrections.

• The Power Play — At no point did the Sabres fix their ailing power play.  To say that they had trouble converting is to suggest that a 500 degree oven is a little warm.  They were dreadful, absolutely dreadful.  There are no other words to really describe it
• Defense — The Sabres were slower and less prepared on defense.  They were unable to stop the top scoring line of Heatley/Spezza/Alfreddson and more often than not, they had Ottawa rushing on them.
• Intel — The never adjusted their play to incorporate combating Ottawa’s strengths.  Never.  It is what prevented Buffalo from moving on.  They couldn’t adjust.  End of story.

What do you think?

[tags]NHL, hockey[/tag]

Sabres, playoffs, Stanley Cup, Senators, Buffalo, Ottawa

I was not happy on Friday when there was no hockey, with the NHL electing instead to have a game on each Saturday and Sunday.  I was annoyed.  I was wrong.

The NHL got two great games on TV in front of national audiences this weekend.  Had the Sabres lost their series on Friday then Sunday would not have had a game on for people to watch.  The Senators would have been victorious before the weekend started and it would be a quieter weekend.  On the whole, I think the league did a great job and the games were great — which I suspect only raises the prestige of the league.

I do, however, have a gripe with NBC about Saturday’s coverage.

I was in Rochester over the weekend, so I watched the game in the Buffalo area.  For me, the game stayed on NBC.  For most of the country, however, when the Ottawa/Buffalo game went into overtime, they switched over to Versus because they wanted to cover the Preakness Stakes.  I’m all for that, since I am a huge horse racing fan.  But the Preakness wasn’t to be run for another hour.  What they wanted to do was offer the human interest stories about horses, jockeys, trainers and other assorted crap.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I love horse racing and I wanted nothing more than to watch the race.  But I don’t need to hear from the jockey who lost a beloved second cousin to cancer and is dedicating the first quarter mile of the race to her.  Show me the race.  Before it starts, show me other races.  NBC chose to switch the overtime of a series-ending game to Versus instead of sticking with it.  That hurt because a lot of viewers don’t have Versus.  NBC made a big mistake here.

I am going to hold off on breaking down the Buffalo game until tomorrow, when I break down the series.  However, I will go through the Ducks/Red Wings game.  On Saturday, one of the NBC analysts asked “if Anaheim was favored to win without Chris Pronger, shouldn’t they be favored to win with him?”  This was an excellent point, but was he a deciding factor?  He had an assist in the game-tying goal but not in the game-winner.  So I’ll make this my first poll: Is Chris Pronger a key to Anaheim winning the series?  Vote below.

The Ducks managed to score in the final minute of the 3rd period to tie the game.  I was surprised by the goal, and my reasoning is simple: they were anything but crisp.  The Ducks were flailing about but managed in the end to put the puck in the net.  They got lucky.  If they want a chance to finish off this series, they need to work on pressing their advantage on man-up situations.

I don’t think I saw the hockey game last night.  My TV must have been broken, and I must have been watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  Who were these Buffalo Sabres who took the ice last night because they didn’t look like anything that we had seen thus far this series.

What did they do right?  They kept Alfreddson off of the scoreboard.  In fact, they kept the entire line out of the boxscore.  That’s important.  Spezza, Alfreddson and Heatley are the scorers for the Senators and by preventing them from putting the puck in the net, Buffalo guaranteed that they would win the game.  Finally scoring a power play goal is also critical.

Of course, when Ottawa scored 2 quick goals, that was when my TV was fixed.  That was when Buffalo tried to give back the win.  Tried but did not succeed.  They got lucky.  You cannot allow a team like Ottawa to score like that, and Buffalo knows it.  I am glad to see that they corrected themselves in the 3rd period.  Since I picked the Senators in 6, I am rooting for Buffalo to win a couple of games.

Here’s something to consider though: as good as the Senators have been, in their 15 year history, they have never made the Cup finals.  Can they break through this time or will they choke again as has been their milieu since 1992?

hockey, Buffalo Sabres, Senators, Ottawa, NHL, playoffs, Stanley Cup

5-0
That’s it.  5-0
There’s really not much more that can be said about the game.  It was nothing short of complete and total domination.
Anaheim knew they lost and started getting punchy, which I guess I can understand.  But I don’t know how you let yourself lose that badly.  They were undisciplined and lethargic.  They gave up too many penalties and at the end of the day deserved to lose.
I really have no good commentary.  It wasn’t a game worth watching and it certainly didn’t match what I had expected for a playoff game.
Hopefully, tonight will be better.

Anaheim, NHL, Stanley Cup, Hockey, Detroit, Red Wings, Ducks, Playoffs

After watching last night’s Sabres debacle against the Senators, you can only ask what has caused the total collapse of Buffalo?  The top team in the NHL and (as I have been reminded) winners of the President’s Trophy look like a Class A team from Podunk against Ottawa.

Is it their special teams?
Last night, the Sabres gave up an almost-goal (luck was their goaltender) when the Senators had a 2 on 0 fast break.  That’s all well and good except Buffalo was on the power play at the time.  And if you look at the tape, you don’t see any Sabres getting back fast enough to even help Miller out with a quick rebound.  The Sabres have not yet scored a single PPG and have given up 1 short-handed goal.  If you don’t think that’s significant, then consider this: in game 1, the Sabres had 5 power plays and got exactly 1 shot on goal.

Is it their offense?
In three games, Buffalo has had the following shot counts: 20, 37 and 15.  That’s right, last night they had 15 shots on goal.  Ottawa more than doubled their number.  Point blank — if you don’t shoot the puck at the net, the puck won’t go in.  Ottawa has been stifling Buffalo and preventing them from putting the puck on net.

Is it their defense?
In the first two games, Ottawa ran up the score (5 goals in game 1 and 3 in regulation in game 2).  Buffalo can’t seem to stop them.  See above with regards to their 2 on 0 fast break; Ottawa is faster than Buffalo and makes the turnarounds quicker.

Is it their goalie?
No.  Next question.

Is it the men behind the bench?
Coaches in the NHL have a certain shelf life — moreso really than any other sport.  You reach a point after a few years where you’re selling something but nobody’s buying.  One has to wonder if Lindey Ruff’s magic has expired.  He won’t be out of a job involuntarily this offseason, but maybe he needs to look at whether he’s the cause of the problems.
Or maybe it’s the scouts.
Daniel Alfreddson has scored in his last 5 games (including all 3 against the Sabres).  So maybe someone should pay attention to him.  Now he’s not the only goal scorer on the team, but if it were me, I would make a point out of shutting him down and moving on.

—

I’m staying with my parents for a couple of days and here are the two things that I missed about home:

1. Hi-Def: My parents have a great TV with HDMI and all sorts of bells and whistles.  But their cable package doesn’t have Versus in HD.
2. The ability to rewind: I watch most hockey games on a TV with a DVR … but the big tv doesn’t have one here so no ability to go back and rewatch the last play unless the kind people on Versus decide to show it to me again.

Sabres, Senators, Buffalo, NHL, Ottawa, hockey, Stanley Cup

I will admit, I have watched absolutely no hockey this weekend.  The closest that I got was playing air hockey with my future niece.  I was, instead, off doing various wedding-related things for my October 21st date with destiny.

I did take a look at the recaps though, and have seen some of the highlights.  I will say this: offense wins games; defense wins championships.  In hockey, that translates to forwards win games but goalies win the Stanley Cup.  Without Dominik Hasek, the Red Wings would be nowhere near as dominant as they are, and they would not have a chance.  This is, of course, an obvious fact, but it lets me lead into the Venezia Trophy finalists whom I have ignored for too long.
The finalists:

• Martin Brodeur (NJD)
• Miika Kiprusoff (Cal)
• Henrik Lundqvist (NYR)
• Roberto Luongo (Van)

This is a great group to break down, and there are some top goalies here.  However, I have a quibble with Lundqvist being included.  One thing that I look for in this award is consistently top goalies and in my opinion that was not him.  He had a great end of the season, I won’t deny that, but overall, I don’t think he should be in the running.

Marty Brodeur has been nominated for this award 7 times in a row.  He deserves it too.  While we all call Hasek “the Dominator,” I am not sure that there has been a more dominant goalie than Brodeur in the league ever.  I’ll open it up, if anyone has a nominee.  Roy?  He’s a competitor but I don’t know if he beats Marty.

Luongo has been among the top goalies in the league for the first time ever.  His uneven play has hurt most of the teams he’s been on but this year he was exactly what his team needed.  I don’t know what happened to him to get him on the right path but whatever they were putting in his water worked.

Kiprusoff has been a consistently good goalie for a few years.  He has Stanley Cup experience and he has the ability to perform for his team when they need it.  His team was outclassed this year, but that shouldn’t discount his skill.  But he has no chance.  At the end of the day, it’s between Luongo and Brodeur.

Who should win:  Brodeur.  He is the best goalie in the league.
Who will win:  Lundqvist has some votes because people fell in love with him late.  But it won’t be enough to make a real dent.  Brodeur and Luongo will split the majority and Brodeur will win in the end.

Tonight, I will try to watch a hockey game.

hockey, wedding, Stanley Cup, Red Wings, Trophies, NHL

Red Wings/Ducks
Season Series Tied 2-2

This is another difficult one to pick.  Anaheim has coasted thus far, dominating their opponents.  Detroit, coming off of a first round that ran more like a clinic at times, ran into some problems in the second round.  Can they come back against a team that has been tight thus far?

Dominik Hasek is the key to this series.  If he plays as well as he has thus far, then Detroit will win the series.  If Pronger can get the puck past him, Anaheim will win it.  This series will test their endurance, as they will have to go 7 games to put it away.  But the Duck have the talent and I think they’ll be able to finish the Wings off in the end.

My pick: Anaheim in 7

No trophy update today, I will pick it up tomorrow.

Red Wings, Ducks, Anaheim, Detroit, hockey, NHL, Stanley Cup

Sabres vs Senators

Season Series: Senators win 5-3 (Buffalo won 1 game in a shootout)
I’ve struggled with this one for a little while.  Both teams have played great hockey thus far in the playoffs and both of them were great in the regular season.  So who has what it takes to go to the Cup finals?  The reality is that both of them do.

The history here is intense.  Both teams play in the Northeast division, so they played 8 games against each other this year.  They also met in the Conference Semis in last year’s playoff, a matchup which was won by the underdog Sabres in 5 games.

Ryan Miller will be facing one of his toughest challenges thus far against the Heatley-Spezza-Alfredsson line.  They had 23 points total against the Devils (out of 35 racked up by the entire Ottawa offense).  As a team, Ottawa scored 288 goals in the regular season, which is second only to Buffalo’s 308 in the NHL.  So Miller’s 2.07 GAA will be tested by this potent offense.  And here’s something else to consider.  Miller, this season against the Senators, is only 1-4.  Buffalo has given up a lot of goals (total in the series is 33 for Ottawa and 24 for Buffalo according to my rough math) and will have a hard time putting out the fire that is the Senator’s top line offense.

On the flip-side, however, Buffalo has a few big game stars as well.  Chris Drury has a total of 14 game winning goals in his career and 7 goals thus far in 11 playoff games.  Ray Emery, the Ottawa goalie, has 2 shutouts thus far in the playoffs and is having a hell of a season.  He was 7th among all goalies in Save %, which might be the key to everything (Miller was 16th, by way of comparison).  Can he put a stop to a red-hot Buffalo team?

Yes.

My pick: Senators in 6

Trophies:
Lady Bing
Finalists

1. Pavel Datsyuk (Det)
2. Joe Sakic (Col)
3. Martin St. Louis (Tby)

The good conduct trophy, as it’s called, is a toss-up.  Paul Kariya is usually in the running so I’m not sure who to pick.  I think St. Louis got shafted by not getting any other nominations so I’ll pick him here.
Who should win: Martin St. Louis
Who will win: Joe Sakic

Sabres, Senators, the Devils, Ottawa, Buffalo, NHL, hockey, stanley cup, playoffs