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By admin, January 17, 2010 1:11 am

Another year, it seems like another bunch of blowouts in the divisional round. Last year the Ravens squeaked by the Titans in an awful game. The rest were pretty much decided early as the Steelers manhandled the Chargers, Cardinals destroyed the Panthers and Eagles thumped the Giants.

This year so far you have the Saints burying the Cardinals and the Colts just destroying the Ravens. You know, the game that all the talking heads predicted the Colts would lose because they rested their starters? oops, not so much. For that matter there was those that said the Saints entering the playoffs with three straight losses would have an effect on them. Shockingly not playing Wild Card weekend let them rest and heal up while the banged up Cards were no where near as good as they could be.

Tomorrow is even worse. I hate the Cowboys and I hate the Vikings. I hope they find a way to eliminate each other from the playoffs. I’ve almost always hated the Cowboys. It seems like during the 90s every front runner on the planet became a fan of them. The most annoying fans possible of course. The funny thing is most of them are Steeler fans now. You know, the Steelers, one of the biggest rivals of the Cowboys in the history of the league. I hate those kind of fans.

So is this parity? An easy march to the Super Bowl for the best teams? Even the Baltimore game seemed to have some questionable calls early that helped dull any momentum they had. I’m just annoyed that it seems to be the same dam teams every year. This is probably despite the fact that it isn’t the same teams every year and last years Super Bowl Winner is playing golf (YAY!)

This is just my rant before the Jets play. I know its about a hundred to one shot of them winning, but I’m hoping for it. Rex Ryan is too much fun to be done for the season already. Revis Island is also one of the greatest Jets quotes in years. Also, the Islanders continue their winning ways and pushing towards the playoffs. Maybe for once I’ll actually be able to cheer for one of my teams in a championship game. Yes, I do realize the Mets have been to the World Series, but they still don’t count. I don’t watch Baseball anymore, too long.

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By admin, January 10, 2010 8:42 pm

Last year I did a blog about Brodeur compared to his backups. One of the reasons I did it was because of all the love being heaped upon Devils savior Scott Clemmensen. The fact of the matter was that Clemmensen was an average (at best) goalie who was playing for a defense first team. I was deathly afraid that the Islanders might be one of those teams that fell for his great run and sign him for a few years for too much money. Fortunately they went with Roloson who has been spectacular despite being 40 years old.

Instead it was almost surprisingly the Panthers who dished out money for Clemmensen while having the grossly underrated Thomas Vokoun as starter. Meanwhile they allowed Craig Anderson to sign with the Avalanche. So how did everything work out for all involved?

Vokoun continues to be silently spectacular. On a better team or a better market he would be appreciated.

Anderson has helped to bring the Avs back to respect and shortened their apparent rebuilding by leaps and bounds.

And Clemmensen? Before this season he only once managed a SV% over .900 and he’s at .888. His GAA went from 2.39 to 3.53 (Vokoun is 2.56 right now). In all his games, he’s only let in 1 goal once and has no shutouts. He’s been pulled from games twice in 11 starts. He has proven that he’s not a NHL starter or backup unless he’s playing for the Devils.

His replacement in NJ? Yan Danis only has 4 games this season, but currently has career highs in GAA (2.00) and SV% (.929). Considering that Danis couldn’t even hold onto a backup job with the worst team in the league last year, this once again proves the point that anyone can play behind the Devils defense and look good.

I wanted to add on that I hope Brodeur doesn’t make the Hall Of Fame. I know he has all the records. I know he’s broken records people never thought would be broken. I for one believe that just about any goalie who played for the Devils for the same period of time would have the same record. Its nothing against him, he’s had some great playoff runs and definitely won games others would ave lost. But statistically Brodeur matches all of his backups stats. It doesn’t matter, Marty will be a first ballot HoF’er and I’ll be here arguing that Osgood deserves to be in. At least Osgood played for other teams.

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By admin, August 30, 2009 2:14 pm

In some bad news this week, Mike Sillinger retired. I hate it when health takes the game away from a player whose as good as he is.So how does Mike Sillinger compare to the rest of his 89 1st round draft mates?

Total Games
Sillinger = 1049
89 = 9504 (an average of 475.2)

Total Points
Sillinger = 548
89 = 4480 (an average of 224)

Total PIMs
Sillinger = 644
89 = 10310 (an average of 515.5)

Total Teams Played for
Sillinger = 12
89 = 25 (Including Jets, Whalers and Nordiques in that count)

Double the average points and double the average games played. He was the man. I also like how 20 guys only managed to play for 25 different teams while he racked up 12. Goodbye Mike Sillinger, enjoy retirement.

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By admin, May 22, 2009 1:28 pm

After yesterdays post, I got curious how other teams line up in their wins vs attendance.  So I graphed the Rangers And Devils (because they are the other teams in the NY area) and the Jets/Coyotes, Whalers/Canes and Panthers because of the two teams moving and because all three teams are not in normal Hockey Markets. Here’s how it turned up.

Basically MSG will never not sell out all season long. It seems like most teams are able to manage a 14-16 average (The average league wide has been 16 or higher since the 95 Strike) and that you really have to ruin a team to get below 12 or 11. Unfortunately I’m not sure if these numbers include playoff attendance, but I do know that these numbers probably include season ticket holders. The last time I was at Nassau was during the awful 99 season, and it was an announced attendance of 9K, but there was only 5K or so actually in the stands and maybe less. Its too bad none of the teams release the actual gate average for the season.