Let's Go Blues

gaijin wrote:

STLADOGG wrote:

northwest dave wrote:

gaijin wrote:Better be on freakin' NHL GameCenter.

GameCenter has been such a disappointment. No national games televised. Sometimes the games are blocked out for no reason. I don't get it. NHL should own the rights to all games. I'm willing to pay for them...let me watch dammit!

Yeah, I did it this year as well. Needless to say I cancelled the auto renewal for next year.

There's an auto renewal? Shit.

On the other hand, living in Virginia, I have no access to FSMW, and GameCenter is cheaper than ordering NHL Network on Cox cable.

You can refuse auto-renewal. It's easy.

A series preview on the kings official site, lakings.com... kind of shocked by what the "official" site posted about Elliott. I know they didn't write it, it's from a "prominent" Sharks writer, and it's all in fun...but they still posted it.

Kings (5) vs Blues (4)

Presumably, the entire Western Conference breathed a collective sigh of relief when the Kings held on to defeat the Sharks 3-2 on Saturday night to clinch the fifth seed and a first-round date with the St. Louis Blues. After Chicago, these are not only the two best teams in the West but they're similarly built, ferociously physical juggernauts. And yet one of them will be on a golf course two weeks from now and the other will be beaten and bloodied heading into the second round. This really seems more like it should be a Conference Final series rather than one in the opening round; it's just too close to call. Los Angeles is an elite even-strength puck possession team but the Blues are no slouches in that department either. St. Louis has a slight edge on special teams while both clubs suffered through atrocious goaltending throughout the regular season; the difference is that while Brian Elliott is legitimately bad at hockey and Jaroslav Halak is perpetually injured, Jonathan Quick has something of a track record as you might recall. There's also the matter of the Kings having won their last eight meetings with St. Louis, four of which came in their sweep of the Blues during last spring's semifinals; they're one of the few teams in the league capable of effectively and routinely countering Ken Hitchcock's forecheck. I highly doubt this series will be as easy for L.A. as last postseason's was but with more high-end forward talent, greater territorial dominance and a recent history of getting it done against this Blues team, I'll pick the Kings in 7.

First...
Both teams did not suffer through attrocious goaltending "throughout the regular season". The Blues had a horrible, ungodly 5 game stretch that messed up their overall numbers for the entire year. Without that little 5 game stretch, they are 3rd in the NHL in GAA.

Second...
Elliott is "legitimately bad at goaltending"...??
Well, I guess they forgot about his performance over the entire year last year, best GAA by a goalie in 70 years, and that whole Jennings trophy thing.
Not to mention that Elliott finished with a better GAA and Save% than Quick both last year AND this year.
But I guess a bad 5 game stretch this season (really a bad 7 of 10 games to start the season) after no training camp and Elliott not playing anywhere in the offseason, wipes out all of of his accomplishments this year and last.
Makes sense to me.

Let's compare Quick and Elliott.
Over the past two years, combined:

Elliott
GP - 62
Record - 37-18-5
GAA - 1.84
Save% - .929
Shutouts - 12

Quick
GP - 106
Record - 53-34-17
GAA - 2.09
Save% - .920
Shutouts - 11

Obviously that guy isn't paying attention to...well, anything really. He's a Sharks blogger afterall...and probably doesn't pay close attention to the Blues.
Quick has been great...no doubt. But Elliott has better numbers...even with his bad stretch this year.
So if Elliott is "legitimately bad at goaltending"... what is Quick?

A Stanley Cup and Conne Smyth winner?

I'm not super shocked that some idiot blogger would say something stupid, but I'm really surprised that they would put it on their website. That said, if there's one team in sports that I could see doing it, it's the one that had that Twitter campaign last playoffs.

Hitch was asked the difference between he and Sutter. Classic Hitch answer: "In the summer, he talks to cows and I talk to golfers.''

kodos wrote:A Stanley Cup and Conne Smyth winner?

I knew that was coming.

I'm sure you get my point.
Saying that Elliott is "bad at goaltending", is just a stupid thing to say when his numbers over the past two years are better than Quick's.

I have this feeling we'll have to weather an initial onslaught from an emotional Kings team... or maybe, just maybe, Game 1 wasn't an abberation and we'll see some of those open looks pay off. I'm not very emotionally stable when it comes to Blues hockey. My girlfriend thought it was cute when I yelled "(Frank)" at BWW at the top of my lungs (on my lone hockey TV) at the beginning of the year... Tuesday night she saw something entirely different.

heff wrote:I have this feeling we'll have to weather an initial onslaught from an emotional Kings team... or maybe, just maybe, Game 1 wasn't an abberation and we'll see some of those open looks pay off. I'm not very emotionally stable when it comes to Blues hockey. My girlfriend thought it was cute when I yelled "(Frank)" at BWW at the top of my lungs (on my lone hockey TV) at the beginning of the year... Tuesday night she saw something entirely different.

First of all welcome to the forum.
Second, Great post.
Third....Amazing profile picture(Tobias Blue Man)

You know what I am tired of?
- Hearing how the Kings "know how to win in the playoffs".
- And now hearing, "The Kings have all of the momentum".

The Blues had all of the momentum going into LA, and what good did that do? They lost both games.
Momentum is a vastly overused term in hockey when referring to game to game situations. Within the context of one game it is much more applicable...but not necessarily from game to game in the playoffs.

The Kings had never won a cup before last year. And before last year, they had less playoff success in their history than the Blues. They finish 8th in the standings and then all of a sudden figured out how to be a team that gets the label of "knowing how to win in the playoffs"? And now they carry that label? I'm not buying that at all. I just think they're a good team that plays a tough style of hockey and they get stellar goaltending that saves their bacon. I don't think they have some mystical power and level of play that only they can reach come playoff time and the Blues can't. They're just a good hockey team...as are the Blues.

cprice12 wrote:You know what I am tired of?
- Hearing how the Kings "know how to win in the playoffs".
- And now hearing, "The Kings have all of the momentum".

The Blues had all of the momentum going into LA, and what good did that do? They lost both games.
Momentum is a vastly overused term in hockey when referring to game to game situations. Within the context of one game it is much more applicable...but not necessarily from game to game in the playoffs.

The Kings had never won a cup before last year. And before last year, they had less playoff success in their history than the Blues. They finish 8th in the standings and then all of a sudden figured out how to be a team that gets the label of "knowing how to win in the playoffs"? And now they carry that label? I'm not buying that at all. I just think they're a good team that plays a tough style of hockey and they get stellar goaltending that saves their bacon. I don't think they have some mystical power and level of play that only they can reach come playoff time and the Blues can't. They're just a good hockey team...as are the Blues.

Piling on for today... the Kings were 4-4 in games where they could clinch series last season. Yes, they had to try twice 4 times to win series - just not against the Blues last year. This year's Blues team is playing light years better and were it not for Quick, this series would be over in favor of the Blues. No one is playing in goal as well as Quick and yes, Elliott - even though some here don't seem to think so.

Now that the Blues are out, we can start talking shit on the winner and how the championship is tainted because of the lockout