It was 20 years ago today...

The play began innocently enough, with Berezan dumping the puck into the Oilers' zone, then heading to the bench for a line change. As he reached the bench, the Northlands Coliseum suddenly became quiet. "I turned and I saw Lanny with his hands in the air," said Berezan. "I had to ask him what happened." McDonald told him. "Sometimes," said McDonald, "the good Lord smiles on you."
- from the 1986 book On Fire, by Eric Duhatschek and Steve Simmons.

With the Avalanche polishing off Dallas this afternoon, we are now one Oiler win and one Flames win from the first Battle of Alberta playoff series in 15 years. This needs to happen. It would please so many people...

The rookie Winchester solves the Red Wings Octopus Voodoo by just taking the damn thing home with him. Why hasn't anyone ever thought of doing this before? I love Staois' face in that pic.

Now that had all the elements of the '05/'06 Flames' home games that we've come to know and love.

• Lots of speed
• Very few good scoring chances on Kipper
• Solid saves on most of those occasions
• Long, boring stretches through the middle with the lead
• A very red crowd, and most importantly,
• Never any real chance that the Flames were going to lose

I'm not going to belabour this very long, as he could always come back in Game 6 with a hat-trick or some damn thing, but I hope everyone has now clued in to which Huge Contract Superstar is dominating this series. For some reason after Game 4, watchers even in Calgary persisted in their comments that Scott Niedermayer was "controlling the game from back there", despite plenty of visual evidence to the contrary and a difference of six between his and Iginla's +/- rating.

Last night Jarome chalked up another 2G, +1 while Niedermatador went -1; the numbers alone may not have changed anyone's perspective, but Nied getting pylonned by Iginla in front of the net for a 3-0 score just may have.

If I could pick one defenseman in the league to retrieve a puck in my own end, under pressure, and get it out safely, I might well pick Niedermayer. The number of times he's confounded Flames forecheckers with a quick, accurate pass in an unexpected direction is pretty impressive. And, the offensive element to his game is clearly a big plus. But if I'm picking a defenseman to neutralize the other team's top line or top scorer, he's a long way down the list. There's four Flames D-men who have been doing it more impressively than him, this series.

Speaking of Selanne, how can anyone not be impressed with this guy? I admit it, I thought his career was dead. When Kariya and Selanne moved to the Avalanche before the '03/'04 season (prompting a few people to concede the Stanley Cup right there), I predicted correctly that they'd be ineffective. Usually when a guy like Selanne loses that step, it's gone forever, and furthermore, they can't usually adjust their game to compensate. But somehow he's fast again, and he's still opportunistic, and he might be tougher than he's ever been (leading to the outwardly absurd Kelly Hrudey statement that Regehr may have elbowed Selanne's head into the glass in self-defense).

Now that the game is over, I'm glad the Ducks came back to make the score close. I think that sometimes players have the same problem as fans and media; as a game recedes into the past and memories cloud, they confuse margin of victory with ease of victory. I'd much rather head into a tough road game coming off of a one-goal win than a three-goal win, because I think there's a much better chance that the players will be in the needed mindset.

Postscript: Odds are back at 40.8%. One more win each by the Flames, Oilers, and Avalanche, and we have ourselves a Round 2 Battle of Alberta (a.k.a. the Smythe Division Finals).

There are a couple of terrific stories to the Edmonton-Detroit matchup.

Orbs of Power - Mac-T and Babcock have been having a battle of words regarding who has been the Oilers' MVP in the series so far. Babcock says Rollie, Mac-T says Pronger. A case can definitely be made for both, but the Orbs have been absolutely huge. Before the series started, Wings fans were pretty much banking on "The Inevitable" (i.e., Pronger (Sasquatch) having a meltdown). Not only has he not melted down, he has a grand total of zero penalty minutes through 5 games. This would be remarkable for any top-2 d-man through any 5 game stretch, nevermind for a guy who has averaged over 34 minutes per game against Detroit's top line in a playoff series where the officials have called it absurdly tight, and where there has been almost an extra game worth of overtime. It is almost as if Pronger read the comments on the Wings message boards decided to intentionally stick it to them by going through this series unpenalized. On top of that, he has 2 goals and 5 assists to lead the team in playoff points.

Horcoff - that goofey-eyed son of a gun has arrived. Hrudey showed it perfectly during the Game 4 'Behind the Mask' segment. Everytime Horc gives up the puck he is moving and banging his stick asking for it back. He is second on the team in playoff scoring, and has the most shifts/game on the team outside of Orbs. Hrudey nailed it again after last night's game noting that Mac-T selected him to take the final face-off, which Horc capped off by diving face first in front of a Lidstrom slapper to take a frozen puck to the head. That play ensured that Horc will be worshiped by Oilers fans for life.

Roloson - When Rollie was traded here the mantra was "one more save". That's all that was needed. Even his biggest supporters, admitted the trade "came down to which old guy you liked" best and were hedging their bets by acknowledging that even average goaltending would vastly improve the team. I'm not sure too many people thought that 5 games into playoffs he would post a .931 SV% -- good for second best in the league despite facing almost twice as many shots as the top dog. Although I put up that photo of a guy standing on his head, it was mostly because I liked the image so damn much, not because Rollie has been playing crazy out of his tree good. Sure he has made a few spectacular diving saves, but for the most part he is just in solid position and is anticipating the play well.

Legace - I really don't think Legace has played all that bad, but he thinks he has played that bad, and that's all that matters. After the previous loss, Legace had this to say:

"It's the same replay from the last couple of years," goaltender Manny Legace said Wednesday."It's just the same old reel."

After last night's loss, he had this to say:

"I don't feel too good, to be honest with you," said Legace, who has allowed 14 goals in the series. "I feel like I'm sick. But that's the way the playoffs are . . . I'm not playing to the level of where I have to be to win games and win series for our team right now," said Legace, who is in his first full season as a No. 1 goaltender and has seemed more comfortable as a backup. "I'm just playing average. And average isn't good enough in the playoffs."

That's the way playoffs are? Sounds like this guy just isn't built for pressure situations. If the Oilers shooters didn't have confidence before, they sure will now. Alas, Osgood is hurt and I can't see Babcock putting in a minor-leaguer for a Game 6 on the road.

Lack of effort from the Wings - after Game 4 I was suprised at the lack of effort put in by the Wings in what was essentially a must win, and I said "if this was the best we can expect from the Wings, then the Oil are not out of this thing yet." Last night's game was even more surprising. After a good first period, the Wings just packed it in after the Oil scored the first goal. I wonder if Rollie is in their heads along with nightmares of Kipper and Giggy. So much for all that vaunted leadership and experience. I also wonder if the scheduling had anything to do with it. Who were the eggheads who gave the teams with the worst travel schedule two afternoon games? I'm not sure how it is in person, but on TV the crowds at those afternoon games in Detroit have sounded dead.

As noted yesterday, the Oil are 15-1 all time in playoff series when they have won Game 5. But they are clearly not out of the woods, yet. If this series has reminded me of anything, it would be just how difficult it is to win a 7 game series without home ice advantage. Lose the game on Monday and the Oil go back to Detroit for the deciding game. Based on the way the series has gone, home ice doesn't appear to be that big a deal, but I sure wouldn't want to be in Detroit for a do or die game.

Turns out Molson is on the side of the Oilers, and they have surreptitiously handed out free voodoo flags.

Sure they look like Flames flags, but read the fine print . . .

As Edmonton's utes are looting and turning over cars in Old Strathcona, the Flames are getting ready for a, uh, pretty big game.

I don't have much to say. I noted the importance, and benefit, of the Flames home-ice advantage before the series, and I still believe it unreservedly. The defensive errors in Game 2 were very unusual for a home game, and unlikely to be repeated. And finally, I'd say through 4 games we've now seen what each team can do, and the Flames' best looks better than the Ducks' best.

All that said, the longer you leave a series to chance, the more opportunity you give the hockey gods to mess with you. Tonight's prediction is Anaheim: 1, Calgary: More than 1. Go Flames.

Way back on April 21st (gawd it feels like longer), I predicted:

Oilers in 7: split in Detroit, win Game 3 in Edmonton, lose Games 4&5, win back to back Games 6&7. Oh, and D-vo will score a lot of goals.

So far the plan is working perfectly. Even Dvorak's lack of goals indicate that my predictive powers are still going strong since he hasn't scored a goal this year when predicted to do so.
He is, if you will, my anti-prediction, the yang to the rest of my predictive ying.

But, if the fellas want to accelerate the plan by beating Detroit this afternoon (1pm MDT), I'm all for it. Apparently, history is on our side:

In past NHL best-of-seven series, the team that loses Game 1, wins Game 2 and 3 but loses Game 4 has an all-time series record of 34-29 (.540). That number improves to 15-9 (.625) when only considering the opening round.

And once winning Game 5? "Edmonton's all-time series record when winning Game 5 is 15-1. "

Sacamano's Keys to the Game:

• Discipline. If the Oilers can demonstrate that they are smarter than your average bear, and that they have learned their lesson about penalties, they have a good shot. If not . . .
• Someone has to keep closer tabs on Zetterberg and Lang.
  
• Does Jim Harrison have what Stan Weir didn't?
  
• Someone has to take Hemsky and shake him by his scrawny neck the first time he does a dumb drop pass giveaway instead of shooting from the slot and then hooks a Red Wing trying to make up for it. Then they need to go and shake Greene and Winchester just for good measure.
  

I haven't heard about lineups yet. Is Tarnstrom back? Ullie in for Green? LeGG in for Harvey/the Gem?

Just so anyone who wants to discuss Playoff Stats knows what they're talking about:

• Goals per Game: 6.46 (2006) vs. 4.40 (2004), increase of 46.8%
• ES Goals per Game: 3.50 (2006) vs. 2.92 (2004), increase of 19.8%
• PP Goals per Game: 2.54 (2006) vs. 1.16 (2004), increase of 119.1%
• 5-on-3 Goals per Game*: 0.39 (2006) vs. 0.19 (2004), increase of 105.1% (*these are included in the PPG/gm stat on the previous line as well)
• PP Opportunities per Game: 13.11 (2006) vs. 8.48 (2004), increase of 54.5%
• PP Success: 19.3% (2006) vs. 13.8% (2004), increase of 40.4%

If there's one figure in there that really surprises me, it's the increase in PP Success, not only over the '04 Playoffs, but over the regular season (where the PP was 17.7%). Even if you subtract out the additional 5-on-3 goals, it's still well above the regular season number, and well well above the '04 playoffs number.

One other set of numbers for you:

• PP Opportunities per Game: 8.48 (2004 Playoffs) vs. 8.48 (2004 Regular Season), identical
• PP Opportunities per Game: 13.11 (2006 Playoffs) vs. 11.70 (2006 Regular Season), increase of 12%

There's a set of numbers I don't have at my fingertips, which is the average number of minutes in a regular season game (roughly 61-62) and in a playoff game (roughly 64-66). If I had them, I'd tell you what those two comparisons mean on a per-minute basis. (That is, clearly penalties were called less frequently in the '04 playoffs than in the regular season since more minutes were played; I just can't quantify it.) It's quite possible that the 12% increase in PPOpps/gm in the playoffs is entirely due to a 12% increase in Duration of Game. Based on the chat around the campfire this morning, if that is in fact the case, then if I were Gary Bettman I'd be sending out that press release, and stat. (Referees Show Perfect Consistency! I Intimidated Them Into Doing Their Jobs, Not Into Calling Phantom Stick Fouls To Keep Their Numbers High!)

Last comment on the officiating of last night's game.

First, just so Babcock doesn't get confused, the refs didn't cost Edmonton the game.

Second, it is nice to see that Red Wings fans and media were just as critical, if not harder, on the officiating than the Edmonton guys.

Red Wings television analyst Mickey Redmond called the officiating “a disgrace to the National Hockey League.”“It was pretty bad,” he said on Fox Sports Net Detroit. “The guys (referees Dean Warren and Marc Joanette) won’t be doing many (more) games.”

Not to get all Tom Benjamin on you, but two questions need answering:

1. How many fans didn't enjoy NHL playoffs in the past?
2. How many fans (of both teams) didn't enjoy the game last night?

If the answer to #2 is greater than the answer to #1, we have a problem.

At some level it is even tough to blame the refs -- I guess they are just doing their job as defined by the league; but Warren and Joanette seem to have taken to it a little more than others. It's like they have changed from thinking officials to unthinking robots with an utter lack of hockey sense.

I put this in a comment to a previous thread in response to a point by Saler :

I think what really pissed Mac-T off, though, was that a situation should ever arise when a stand-up guy like Stoll, who has never taken anything remotely like a dive as an Oiler, would think it is better to go down easily than to fight through some incidental contact. Same with Shanahan checking himself to the ice to avoid contact with Pronger in the third period, as [Brian List] noted in a post over at your place. Those types of decisions have to be seen as a result of the way the game was officiated.

Again, the refs didn't cost the Oilers the game. Edmonton's lack of discipline cost the Oilers the game; but the refs might have cost a few fans some enjoyment.

Like my old pal Sacamano, I don't usually like to talk about the refs either, for the same reason. (I've brought up officiating and the standards many times, but for philosophical discussions.)

But that high-sticking call on Yelle was a killer. He got it with 30 seconds left in regulation, and the Ducks scored just after it expired in OT. But it's not a penalty. Rule 61, here's the first words following the image at the left:

A "high stick" is one which is carried above the height of the opponent's shoulders. A player is permitted accidental contact on an opponent if the act is committed as a normal windup or follow through of a shooting motion.

Anyway, Yelle caught McDonald on the side of the head on his follow-through from clearing the puck out of the Flames zone. There's not all that many things that are noted specifically in the rulebook as Not A Penalty, so it's pretty disappointing to get a penalty for one of those things.

I don't know what to think now about Phaneuf. I'd say he and Ference have undergone some sort of strange, Freaky Friday/18 Again/Vice Versa switch, except that Ference used to be a good 6th defenseman and is now playing like a top pair guy, whereas Phaneuf used to play like a top pair guy, and is now playing like a pretty crappy 6th defenseman. Last time this happened, he got home and took charge again; let's hope history repeats itself.

The plus side, at least for my peeps out in Cranbrook, is that he's taking attention away from Scott Niedermatador's performance. Here's the status of the Jarome Iginla Shutdown Watch through 4 games:

• JI: 4GP, 3-3-6, +3
• SN: 4GP, 1-3-4, -3

The best part tonight was when Andy Murray rolled tape on (I quote from memory) "Iginla's terrific move off the boards" to create a nice scoring chance in the 1st; the name of the D-man left standing there like he had been touched in Frozen Tag was never mentioned, for some reason...

I feel about as optimistic as I think is non-insane for a 3-game series with Anaheim. See you tomorrow!

I don't usually like to talk about the refs because in the grand scheme of things everything tends to even out in the wash; but that missed pick call on the 5 on 3 was a back-breaker.

Here's the description of Rule 67 (Note 4)*:

(NOTE 4) Pick:
A "pick" is the action of a player who checks an opponent who is not in possession of the puck and is unaware of the impending check/hit. A player who is aware of an impending hit, not deemed to be a legal "battle for the puck", may not be interfered with by a player delivering a "pick". A player delivering a "pick" is one who moves into an opponent's path without initially having body position, thereby taking him out of the play. When this is done, an interference penalty shall be assessed.

Yep, that sounds about right to me, although Stoll probably could have fought through it a little harder, which would have made the call easier than simply flopping after the contact.

[UPDATE 1]: I just saw a clip of Stoll saying that he was definitely clipped, but admitting that he went down too easily basically looking for the call. Bad move by Stoll. Mac-T also said that he thought Stoll flopped a bit and didn't look all that pleased about it. Not as displeased as Tortorella about TB's goaltending, but unhappy nonetheless. It has to be seen as a symptom of how the game was called as a whole. If you are going to call every little ticky tack thing (on both sides) you have to expect that people will try to draw those kind of calls.

Anyway, there were about 10 other penalty calls on the Oilers that were deserved, and Edmonton did have two 5 on 3's that they failed to convert. Terrible discipline. Hemsky was quite simply, awful tonight. In addition, like the other loss, the Oilers had zero 5 on 5 production -- not that there was a heckuva lot of 5 on 5 play.

[UPDATE 2]: Mac-T was pretty good in the post-game interview. He mentioned that he wasn't a big fan of the two refs, but that he knew it was going to be tightly called before the game, tried to warn the players about it, and they just didn't adjust as well as Detroit's players did. In other words, while not liking the way the game was called, he put the blame squarely on the Oilers players rather than the refs, which sounds about right to me. Babcock completely missed this distinction, and made some snide comment about how he didn't go whining about the refs when Detroit lost the last game.

The bad news, of course, is that it is now a best of three series with home ice advantage going to the President's Trophy winners. Somewhat daunting to say the least.

The good news is that if this was the best we can expect from the Wings, then the Oil are not out of this thing yet. The other good news is that the Oil will not win the series in 5, meaning that they get another home date and the associated revenue.

*Note: Fenwick was the first to put up the graphic and link to the rule book. I thought it looked so darn good in his entry, that I updated mine. In other words, although it looks like my entry was earlier, I totally ripped him off.

Oh, my - what to expect... will the Flames head to Game 5 with a chance to eliminate the Ducks on home ice, or will it be stomach-churning 2004 territory (when all of their series were tied 2-2 thru four)?

Two themes are common in today's radio chatter. The first I agree with: that it'll be a Kipper night. If the Flames win, I expect that he'll be the 1st star. They could have won Game 3 with Boucher (or hell, Conkannen) in net; the Ducks will no doubt be better tonight, which means that Kipper will have to stop some good scoring chances.

The second I disagree with: that Giguere returning to the net is good for the Flames. No, he's not a Top 5 NHL goalie anymore, but it's not like he was bad (a la Theodore) this season, and he's a frickin' Conn Smythe winner. He can win a game. He'll no doubt be better tonight too; McCarty can probably toss any thoughts of scoring another goal like Game 3.

My mindset going into this game is "Boy, it would be awfully nice to win this one, and it would sure make things a lot easier, but at least we're not screwed if we lose". I sincerely hope that the players are not equally philosophical about things.

3-2 Final, and I think Jarome gets the winner. Go Flames.

I know we have been through all of this before, and because I really liked Cross I hate to do it again, but, I just can't let this one go.

Cory Cross was just described as "fast". I kid you not. And, for good measure, Jason Wooley was also described as "one of the smartest players on the roster."

Oh mercy, please make it stop.

Looks like everyone has confidence in Manny Legace except Manny Legace:

"It's the same replay from the last couple of years," goaltender Manny Legace said Wednesday."It's just the same old reel."

In fact, it sounds like he is more on suicide watch than anything else:

"Talked to him last night," Draper said. "We're going to hang with him all day.

Patrick Roy must have loved Tuesday's game winner given that he was the one who originated the Assume I Have the Puck in my Glove and Pose move to let Shanahan pot the game winner in Game 5 of the 2002 WCF. Sweet justice, eh Patty?

It's tough to beat any team 3 in a row in playoffs, nevermind the President's Trophy winner. I wonder what the historical stats on this are -- has the PT winner ever lost three in a row?

Having said that, it is definitely nut-cuttin' time for the Wings. As such, I'm fully expecting them to come out flying. Tonight's game should be the best of the series. Babcock has all but guaranteed a Wings victory.

The preview linked above claims that Roloson has been "good and lucky"? Lucky? 4 of Detroit's first 6 goals were flukes. And I'm not sure how Williams disallowed goal makes Rollie lucky -- he gave Williams nothing to shoot at and it snuck under the side of the net -- this is lucky? Whatever.

Pronger has been a horse, and Detroit fans are still coming to terms with the fact that he just might not meltdown this time. So far, he has a grand total of zero penalty minutes through three games.

The two Wings who have looked most dangerous are Zetterberg--who has improved every game--and Yzerman. Stevie-Y is geriatric and wobbles around the ice on two reconstructed knees -- and when I say reconstructed I'm talking about doctors sawing his bones apart so that they could insert wedges to realign the joints. Yeesh. The good news for Oilers fans is that it sounds like he is not going to be able to go tonight (although I'll believe it when I see it). That is actually a shame, I've always liked Yzerman and if Edmonton does pull this series out, it would be kinda sad if Stevie's last(?) playoff series ended in injury.

For the Oilers, it sounds like LeGG might get another shot as Harvey suffered a mid-upper-lower body injury with flu like symptoms.

Sacamano's Keys to the Game:

• Can the crowd keep it up. Last game was loud. In fact, it set a new Rexall record of 108 decibels. My favourite part of that article:
  

"Metz said he may take a reading in Joe Louis Arena in Detroit for Game 5 Saturday to get a comparison.
But what he'd love to do is have a Calgary-Edmonton series up next. Then theBattle of Alberta could be a battle of sound as well.
"It would be interesting to take the readings in both buildings if we get that series."

• A common theme in the Edmonton media this year has been the lack of a killer instinct on the Oilers. Pronger notes the same thing. Everytime the Oilers get tentative, they lose or almost lose (like on Tuesday).
  
• Judging by the "Rollie, Rollie" chants at Tuesday's game, Roloson is well on his way to becoming an Edmonton folk hero. Another good game by him would just about seal the deal.
  
• Can the Stan Weir magic continue?
• Penalties. The Oil need to stop taking them. You can only tempt fate for so long. Of course, some decent officiating would make fans of both teams happier.
• Fitness. I really think Detroit has one on Edmonton, here. In each of the OT games, Detroit has looked fresher. Pronger has logged 113:22 minutes, and Edmonton had six 30+ min players on Tuesday compared to only 1 (Lidstrom) for Detroit. If this series goes 7 games, I think Edmonton's players are going to be sucking wind.
  

[UPDATE]: Chopper is back, baby! Look for him to score a shortie.

Some good laffs:

• The commenters over at Covered in Fark are spitballing on filthy rhyming chants for post-victory celebrations on Whyte Avenue. Do you like word games? Be sure to check it out and contribute.
• And in case you missed it, Tuesday's Solving the Mac-T Bone was probably the funniest comment thread in the short history of this blog.

So, Willie Mitchell accidentally kicked it into his own net last night, which means that Colorado has taken a 3-0 lead in the series, which means they're probably going to win, which means...

...that on Cosh's Big Spreadsheet, the likelihood of a Battle of Alberta is now up to 37.1%. As I noted Tuesday, a Colorado series win means CGY & EDM advancing = CGY & EDM facing each other.

[Sidebar: the 37.1% is a function of three inputs, right: the likelihoods that CGY, EDM, and COL will each win. You may have noted that the B.S. still gives Dallas a 20.6% chance of winning their series. The spreadsheet is what it is; it uses some things and ignores others, as Cosh explains in the methodology. Obviously, a human would peg that percentage lower, since coming back from 3-0 down has only ever happened twice in NHL history (and never in basketball, and the notable once in baseball).

That said, the DAL/COL series is as good a candidate as I can imagine for the big reversal, and the B.S. gives the biggest clue why: that Theodore is probably unsound. Add on that the Stars were the better team in every interval you could choose over the season, and I personally would give the 3-0 comeback at least a 5% or maybe a 10% chance of happening.]

I'm a bit late with my thoughts on the game, and I really don't have much more to add that hasn't already been covered by Cosh, CinO, the Calculator (hattip Mirtle), IOF, LT, BDHS, A2Y, Saler and Christy.

In sum, I thought that the Oil controlled the play for most of the regular time, but Detroit controlled the last 10 mins of the third and the OT's. If I can take anything from last night's game, it is that Edmonton really can win playing a number of styles. The first part of the game certainly wasn't trappish hockey, and it wasn't until they started really playing trappish hockey that Detroit got back in the game. I take great comfort in that.

One thing is certain, I think I'm starting to agree with A2Y about Oilers fans. I live in the same Old Strathcona neighbourhood as Pleasure Motors (heck, we might live in the same building), two blocks away from Hooligan Alley. Last night one of those drunken fools snapped the Oilers flag off my car. Thankfully, the window was intact. I swear if it was you, Grabia, heads are gonna roll.

Anyway, the other reason I'm so slow with this update is that the game almost killed me. Mirtle guessed that it must have been a rollercoaster of emotions for Oilers fans. I don't know, I've never felt as sick on a rollercoaster as I was feeling in the second OT. I was having a heckuva time until the two quick ones by Detroit in the third; but, I can't say I really enjoyed myself during the OTs. Even the winning goal was more of a relief than anything else. I came home totally exhausted and spent most of today recovering. Oh, and there was a tiny little twerp in the seat next to me who honestly wanted to fight me. I guess that's what happens when you get tickets through a bar. One of his buddies slept through the first OT (in the bathroom?), but found his wind for the second OT enough to spill his beer all over the people in front of him. Good times.

Anyway, I think I'll let the video evidence speak for me. The game was loud. Really loud. I was happy to see Paul singing the anthems, but I couldn't hear him at all. Nobody could hear him, and the crowd kept getting ahead of him in the singing. Finally, the video guy got the bright idea of putting him up on the jumbotron so that we could at least read his lips and keep the tempo. I actually couldn't hear myself when the Oilers hit the ice for the first time. Of course, during the second OT when I was in a fetal position whispering "please, please, please" I could only hear myself.

As a couple of folks noted, the best part about the crowd last night was the huge love they gave the Oil after Detroit tied it up in the third. It was definitely inspiring.

If there's one thing I've enjoyed in the past couple of weeks (besides the whole general Playoffs! thing), it's been watching Oilers fans co-opt everything they used to hack on Flames fans about. Let's run down the list of criticisms to which Flames fans are now entirely immune coming from Oil fans:

• Overly excited about accomplishment short of winning the Cup - check!
• Playing patient, defensive (boring!) hockey as long as you win - check!
• Relying on great goaltending to keep you in games where otherwise you'd be screwed - check!
• Shameless, shameless bandwagon jumping - check!

Did I miss any?

One for the next season of "You Make The Call" happened in the 1st period of last night's Flames game. I think we're all clear on the gist of Rule 51 this year:

When any player, while in his defending zone, shoots the puck directly (non-deflected) out of the playing surface, except where there is no glass, a penalty shall be assessed for delaying the game.

Late in the first, Huselius whacked the puck over the glass, no deflection, and was assessed a penalty. Just right, I'd say, but then we saw Iginla and Sutter arguing about it. What they were saying was that the puck was in the air when Huselius hit it (which it was, roughly 2 feet above the ice).

The opening sentence of Rule 51 uses shooting and batting the puck interchangeably, so I assume that also applies to the 2005-06 Addition: accident or not, bat the puck out of play and you've got yourself a minor penalty.

Except, like I say, the Flames were arguing. And I'm pretty sure I know why this is; it's because in a game late this season (I forget who the opponent was, but John Garrett was the colour guy) someone on the other team batted a puck at roughly head-height straight out of play, and there was no call. And it's not because the refs missed it; there was a discussion, and the result was, no penalty.

Can anyone tell me what the correct ruling is here? Is it possible that swiping your stick at eye-level (i.e. above the shoulders/crossbar) and batting a puck out of play is not a penalty, but doing the same at knee-level is? Your help is urgently requested, friend.

Boy, not much to complain about from that effort. The Flames turned in a simply dominating performance on both ends for their 5-2 victory.

I blabbed way back at the beginning of the season that good penalty killing is not all that separable from defensive effort/success as a whole; for the most part, the things you do to kill penalties well are the same things you do to defend 5-on-5 well.

Last night was a great example of how you can say the same thing about the offensive end. If you're dominating the puck and creating good 5-on-5 chances, the powerplay suddenly looks like a piece of cake.

The Flames outplayed the Ducks for the majority of the first, and got their first PP 13 minutes in. It took a whole 29 seconds to score. They got their 2nd PP a minute into the 2nd period; this time it took a whole 33 seconds to score.

Huselius was just fantastic. He's always a good puckhandler, but last night, his legs were moving too, and he looked really serious about not giving up possession. It truly looked like he had the puck on a string.

I'm not sure what Randy Carlyle's next move is. Selanne, if not McDonald, is playing well, and Scott Niedermayer is doing what he does. The Ducks need to play with a lot more fire than that to win another game, let alone the series, but the value of the ol' dressing room tongue-lashing is questionable.

The exception might be Ryan Getzlaf, who at this point needs someone loudly in his face, probably spraying spittle. He's 20 years old and had a two-stride lead on 34-year-old speedster Chris Simon in a tie game, yet somehow managed to lose a race to the puck and allow Simon to make a sweet pass into the slot to Kobasew, for the goal that turned out to be the game winner.

Getzlaf's critics, when he was whackin' it with the Hitmen last season, claimed that he lacked the maturity to be a good NHL player. He's got a lot of years ahead of him, but last night, his critics looked 100% right.

CBC Notes:
Don Wittman is starting to wear. I enjoyed him the 1st couple of games, as his cliches are a nice break from the cliches of the regular guys (he hasn't used the word "footrace" once). But he uses the stats off the game sheet as a crutch, and how many frickin' times in a game can you refer to Randy Carlyle's comments at the morning skate! (I lost count. I do, however, know how many times he referred to Gary Bettman's presence at the game: it was 16, once for every minor penalty the refs whistled.)

Andy Murray might have had the crack of the year, demonstrating some actual humility, not the phony "Ha Ha I Was a Sieve" humility of Garrett/Millen. McCarty took a penalty late in the 2nd period, and the Ducks had Getzlaf out there with Niedermayer on the PP point, despite the fact that Francois "Bob" Beauchemin already had two goals from that very position. Murray:

"This is their normal #1 unit out there, but I'm surprised that Beauchemin isn't back out there... [very brief pause] ... that's why Randy Carlyle is in the playoffs, and I'm sitting here..."

Good stuff coach. Anyway, the Flames are suddenly back in the driver's seat. They played tremendously in a game they really needed, when the doubts were creeping in: they've done that all year. Next, they need to show some killer instinct, and kick someone when they're down: they haven't done that all year. Show it to me!!!

I am emotionally spent. More tomorrow. If I wake up.

I'd like to dedicate this post to Andrew Ference. He's been excellent these first 3 playoff games.

If Winbister can engineer a win for the North Team as well, Oil fans are welcome to join in.

Wow! As if beating Detroit wasn't gratification enough. While Red Wings fans just seem confused by it all, it seems that the Oilers' success is causing Canucklehead Fans some serious mental anguish.

Bonus!

[Update]: Wings fans rebut. They're not confused, they're indignant.

Someone has put together a sweet little video recap of the Oil's season (plus a few vintage clips for good measure). I had totally forgotten about that wicked 2.2 second finish against Phoenix.

I'm nervous! What a strange feeling... kind of like my first quart of Johnnie Walker.

The Flames need to get home-ice advantage back. The 4 GA and multiple odd-man rushes against from Game 2 was an anomaly that's not likely to reoccur. But, for that to matter, they need to win one on the road here. A victory tonight would put the Ducks in the unhappy position of absolutely needing to win Game 4, and you never know how a team will respond in that situation.

I haven't yet heard what Sutter is doing with the lineup tonight. Game 2 saw Mike Leclerc, C.F.H. and Craig Macdonald inserted in the place of Lundmark and Simon. Leclerc had a dodgy start but was actually pretty terrific for the rest of the game. (The letters behind his name, btw, stand for Can't Find the Handle -- I'll need to add that to the Glossary). Craig Macdonald was fast, but didn't offer much else.

Considering that two of Calgary's five best scoring chances in Game 1 were excellent passes by Simon, I think he has to draw back in there. I doubt Lundmark gets back in tonight unless it's in the place of Lombardi, which I would find unfortunate -- I think Flames Cup-winning scenarios involve Lombardi at the top of his game, so Sutter needs to give him a chance to find it.

The absolute last thing I'm concerned about is that the Flames have only won 1 of their last 13 in Anaheim. Anything before last season is ancient history. In the past two seasons, then, they're 1-3. Two of the losses were Game 82 of the respective seasons, when Calgary's playoff seeding was locked-in. Past that, we have a 5-1 Flames win in January '04, and a 4-1 loss in October of this year: it was a 2-1 game with 3 minutes left in regulation, and the Ducks scored a pair of late PP goals to seal the deal. Pond bugaboo? Not so much.

Matt's Key to the Game: can the Flames continue to shut down Selanne and McDonald without the ability to set the line matchups? Matt's Prediction: almost. One goal from those guys, none from the rest of the team. And two from the good guys, to put the big pressure onto Anaheim going into Game 4. Go Flames.

The Oilers have put themselves in a heckuva position to take control of this series.

I like the way the Oil responded in Game #2, and especially how they adjusted their non-trap. Horcoff says it all:

We did a better job of getting in on the forecheck a little more," Shawn Horcoff said of adding more pressure to the neutral-zone trap the Oilers employed in the series opener.
I think in Game 1 we tried to sit back a little bit too much, and that's not really our game. That's not what we're trying to do.
The only time we want to sit back is in the neutral zone.

If the Oil can continue to mix it up -- forecheck aggressively when it is possible (i.e., against the Wings 3rd and 4th lines) and play conservatively against the top two lines, they stand a good chance of winning.

Sacamano's Keys to the Game:

• Who is singing the anthem? The last playoff game I went to the egghead marketing geniuses decided to replace Paul Lorieau with some lame pop group, and the crowd didn't know how to respond except with semi-polite applause. Note to said eggheads, we don't go to playoff hockey games to see teenie-boppers "interpret" the anthems. The Optometrist has been firing up the Rexall crowd for over two decades, and nobody does it better.
  
• Can the Oilers control the electricity in the crowd and still play a "smart style of hockey against a very explosive team"?
• How will the Edmonton crowd ("10 times louder" than in Detroit)--used to run 'n' gun smash-em-up playoff tilts with Dallas--respond to a potential snoozer?
• Can the Stan Weir magic continue?
  
• Can Peca, Pronger, and Rollie continue to perform?
• How much beef gets thrown on the ice? LeGG wants lots?

Given that I'll be up in the gallery losing my voice, I will not be able to chime in during the game -- but I'll have a bird's eye report for tomorrow.

Eric Francis finally gets one right:

Make no mistake, the Calgary Flames are in trouble.
Outplayed at home the first two games of the playoffs by an Anaheim squad that force-fed the hosts a heaping helping of their own medicine, the Flames now head to a building where they've won once in the last seven seasons.
While the first two games were close enough to go either way, the most casual of observers can see the Flames have been slightly out-chanced and out-skated by a young, feisty bunch that has done the unthinkable -- beat Calgary at its own game.

This business of Colorado beating Dallas twice at home is quite something, and has one important implication you should be clear about:

Colorado Win + Calgary Win + Edmonton Win = Battle of Alberta in Round 2.

I'm not cheering for the Oilers until the final seconds tick off of both the Avs' and Flames' 4th victories, but it could happen. (The B.S. has the odds of a (2nd or 3rd Rd) EDM-CGY matchup at 14.9%, up from 7.9% just before the playoffs started.)

The Edmonton-Detroit series has just entered rarified air. To describe Pronger's leadership and spectacular play, Mac-T just pulled out the ole "Old Bull-Young Bull" story:

An Old Bull and a Young Bull were standing at the top of a hill overlooking a large meadow full of cows. The Young Bull says excitedly, "Let's run down there and f**k us a cow!"
"No, son", says the Old Bull, "let's walk down there and f**k them all."

You don't know how happy this makes me.

I'm not sure whether the Oiler's non-trap has gotten into the heads of the Detroit players, but it sure is messing up the Wings Fans.

Top 2 Red Wings Fans' solutions to solving the Oilers:

1. Shoot the puck at Pronger's face everytime the Oilers try to trap.
   
   
2. Dress Cory Cross
   
1. Matt at On the Wings said: "Also, the consensus seems to be that the Wings ought to dress Cory Cross tomorrow night. I agree. . . the Wings need to be able to match up better physically with Edmonton at the moment. Cory would be fired up to play in the playoffs in Edmonton, I'm sure."
2. megan in the comments to Matt's post: " I agree with dressing Cross. He's been the closest thing we've had to tough all year."

Now don't get me wrong, I liked Cross almost as much as Cosh did, but if he is the key to beating the Oilers, it's a pretty weak lock indeed. Sure he is physical, but was there a worse Edmonton defenseman for throwing bad passes through the neutral zone against trapping teams than Cross?

It was a very disappointing result.

I don't have a ton to say about the edge in play. Yes, Anaheim deserved to win, but I think you can make too much of these vague things like "winning the 1-on-1 battles" and so forth. The fact is that Anaheim scored once on a breakaway and twice on 2-on-1 rushes, and these are things you just don't expect to see from the Flames at home. If you showed me a random game sheet where Matthew Lombardi was -4, I'd just about bet the farm that it was from a road game. [Disclaimer: I do not own a farm]. The positives, as I see them:

• Special teams have been good. Yeah, the PP was frustrating at times last night, but 2/11 is a mathematically decent performance (excepting the SHG against, which is of course terrible, but happens from time-to-time). They also have scored more often (once) in 2 games than the Ducks (zero) on Ducks powerplays.
• Kipper has been solid. I'm sure he'd like another crack at the Niedermayer breakaway, but he didn't have a chance on the other goals.
• Iginla has been pretty strong on the puck, and looked very fit.
• I don't think Scott Niedermayer is anywhere near as good as most people say he is.

Sacamano and I both mentioned Hrudey (glowingly) earlier; he had a good bit during the OTT-TB game showing Spezza making unnecessary/dumb moves with the puck. Well, I saw Scott Niedermayer doing the same things in both games.

He's very calm back there for sure, and yes, the man can skate (so can Ference). But he's not perfect. He makes mistakes that the Flames can, and I'm sure will, take advantage of. And the talk of him taking on Jarome Iginla man-to-man is frankly an insult to guys who have actually done that in the past (I'm thinking of Mattias Ohlund in particular). He'll continue to be out there against Iginla most of the time, I'm sure, but it's as the Ducks' best defenseman, to defend against Calgary's most dangerous line. But when this series is over, neither he nor Iginla will have the bruises and scars to show for constant confrontation.

Phaneuf had a terrible game last night, but I think both he and Regehr are better players than Niedermayer. We'll see what happens.

Beating the Ducks on the road will be a different challenge than at home. The Flames aren't going to get the matchups they want on the Selanne line; the Lombardi line is going to have to play a lot better, if they stay together, which I don't think they will. It's unlikely that they'll continue to shut out the Ducks PP, or get more opportunities than the Ducks.

The upside is, their forecheck should be a little less tentative in Game 3. Iginla has come to play. Regehr is doing a hell of a job putting the body on Selanne; Warrener or Dion/Hammer will have to pick that up on the Pond. And, after the lovin'.... we've got Kipper. Back tomorrow with Game Night.

As we all know, 16 Wins is the goal of every playoff team. With yesterday's huge victory, the Oilers now have 16 playoff victories... since 1992.

Here's hoping these next 14 years are as fruitful as the last 14.

Well, well, well.

The Oilers and Flames both split their first two games. The difference? The Flames have lost home ice advantage, and the Oil have stolen it. This should be particularly worrisome for Flames fans given that Calgary lost 61% of their games away from Pengrowth. Oh sure, you can point to Edmonton's poor home recod--which still wasn't as bad as Calgary's road record--but let's face it, home-ice in playoffs is a different beast. Rexall will be rocking on Tuesday. Did I mention I have tickets?

Eric Francis blames, in part, "overzealous officiating" for the Flames' loss.

Thanks to the type of overzealous officiating fans feared most when the 'new' NHL promised to be extended into the spring, the only flow in last night's game came courtesy of Scott Niedermayer's mullet.

And in the midst of a steady parade to the penalty box, during which 19 minors were handed out, the Ducks broke the game open by converting four of the type of turnovers the defence-first Flames rarely commit.

This paragraph is laughable. Despite the clear implication that Anaheim scored on the powerplay, they in fact went 0-6. Calgary, on the other hand, converted 2-12. I suppose Francis must be blaming the refs for giving Calgary so many more powerplay opportunities than Anaheim, which then allowed Niedermayer the chance to score a shortie. Aw, to be fair, he does place most of the blame on the Flames' D. Strange that he didn't mention Kipper giving up 3 goals on the first 5 shots.

Looks like Sutter's abuse of Phaneuf in the media two days ago really paid off, too. Way to instill confidence in those youngsters, sir. Hey, maybe you can also run him out of town.

Enough Flames talk

The Oil are coming home with a split in Detroit, which is pretty much what everyone in Edmonton wanted. There is now, predictably, a debate going on at the watercoolers between those people who would 'rather lose playing Oilers hockey than win playing the trap' and those people who are not complete idiots.

You have to think tha the ole 'here we go again' must be creeping into the minds of Detroitonians (Detroiters?)? Afterall, Edmonton was one double-OT flukey goal (or 4) away from being up two games to zip. The fact that there are articles in the Detroit Press entitled "Panic in Detroit? (þA2Y)" tells you all you need to know. I also love how that article pretends that Rollie is an unknown quantity. Do we need to compare the post-season records of Roloson and Legace, again?

At what point does "playoff experience" become a liability? I'm thinking, in particular, of those Detroit old-timers who know that this is very likely their last kick at the can and so try to do too much, inadvertently sabotaging their own team. I haven't seen it by yet, but it is something to keep an eye on -- especially if Edmonton wins on Tuesday.

Quick Hits:

• Kelly Hrudey is, by far, the best analyst on the CBC right now. I love him.
• The Alberta Beef thrown on the ice was brilliant -- even if it was conceived by a local country radio station
• I hope Datsyuk is back in the line-up -- his playoff ineptitude continues!
• Cosh suggests that Oil fans "Moo" the Wings instead of "Boo" them. F-A-N-T-A-S-T-I-C!
• Props to Lowetide, whose inspired choice of Stan Weir as a talisman did the trick.
  

Since I haven't quite gotten my thoughts together yet on the state of the Flames-Ducks series, I'll throw out a few notes on the broadcast and the officiating. [Loud disclaimer for the thickest of you: I'm not "blaming" the officiating, or the obstruction standards, or the CBC for that matter, for anything. This is discussion.] As it happens, there's a fair bit of crossover between the two items, namely:

**The Corpse still hasn't quite gotten their technical ship together. One glaring error is still that the out-of-town scoreboard is frequently stretched out horizontally, with the left half being cut off of the screen. More irritating to me yesterday, though, was their errors (at least two in the Flames game) in showing the actual infraction on penalty replays. I know it's tougher these days (see Al Trautwig's comments), but it's still fairly straightforward to watch when the ref's hand goes up, then check what he was watching at the time.

Fr'instance, Todd Fedoruk took a tripping penalty late in the 1st last night. He got tied up with a Flame (Phaneuf, I think) twice in succession. The first was (rightly) not a penalty, and the second was: a pretty by-the-book call. The CBC replayed the first tie-up, with Andy Murray commenting on "a pretty soft call". Well, yeah. They also replayed Vishnevski cracking Sandbox in the head, late in the 3rd, as the reason why Salei went off for tripping. Someone wasn't thinking too clearly.

I don't know about a backlash, and there's no consensus whatsoever, but we are definitely starting to hear some strong and unapologetic opinions from people who do not like what they are seeing. Jenna Holbrooke, co-hosting on the FAN960 this morning: "I hate it." -- quote/unquote. And Chris Selley had a good little bit yesterday, concluding like so:

...with every horseshit phantom tripping and hooking call, [the NHL is] abandoning the playoffs — the single greatest test in pro sports and the NHL's single greatest asset — to the exact same sort of randomness the shootout represents. It's nothing to celebrate.

**Andy Murray again: I'm still giving him a thumbs-up on the whole, and the chalk talk stuff is welcome relief from the same old cliches, but Hey -- right now, you're a broadcaster, not a coach!

In other words Andy, when you're commenting on penalty replays, I can see why a coach would say things like "the stick above the waist will draw a whistle more often than not", or, "you have to watch out for hands up in the head area": you're instructing your players how not to get called for penalties that they're not committing. But surely, in your role as colour-guy, you have a moment to point out that "hands up in the head area" is not actually a penalty. Phaneuf got called for Roughing in the 3rd last night where no question, it looked at full speed like he shoved or elbowed Corey Perry's head into the glass. On the replay though, it was equally clear that he didn't touch Perry's head, and Perry's head didn't touch the glass.

Those of us who are uncomfortable with the penalty parade are much happier being reminded that refs are fallible and the game is fast than being reminded that if it simply looks like a penalty, that's good enough. And even if Murray (and the rest of them) have been sternly warned not to criticize "the crackdown"--and I don't know that they have--it serves no one's interests to shrug off phantom calls as a consequence thereof.

**If I was going to pick one replay to show Here's What I Hope Doesn't Get Called in the Playoffs, it'd be Regehr's interference penalty on Selanne. The puck wasn't visible on the replay, and it might well have been an infraction strictly speaking, but yikes: it's two guys skating next to each other and bumping. This is still hockey, right? And I know my examples haven't reflected this, but the Ducks got whistled for some bogus calls too. Rob Niedermayer certainly didn't obstruct Leopold, and I don't even think he actually held his stick, but off he went. Vishnevski's hooking penalty in the 3rd was crap too, I thought.

**General complimentary note: Kelly Hrudey is terrific. He's probably better now than he's ever been. It's been years since I've made a point of catching the studio chatter on anyone's broadcast (in any sport!), but Hrudey has made me reschedule (and compress) my breaks from the TV. Well done, sir.

Game 2 of Flames vs. Ducks goes tonight at the Dome, 7PM MDT. Still no word on who will be starting in goal for the Ducks. Here's J-S Giguere in the LAT:

"My whole game is about my lower body," he said. "If any part of my leg is not good, it can be troublesome. You can't afford to be 95% in the type of game I want to play. You have to be 100%."

Way to give it away, buddy. The Ducks had your injury categorized perfectly blandly as a "lower body" thing, and then you just blurt out that it's about your leg. What if the Flames weren't sure, and were going to try to go after his toes - or his nads?

Related, here's a little anatomical diagram I cooked up to help the uninitiated identify playoff injuries:


The sense seems to be that Giguere has some ham soreness, though I suspect a lack of bacon has something to do with it (or maybe he's just screwed in the headcheese).

Does it matter? Who knows. McCarty had a lot of net to shoot at on his OT winner, but I don't know that this means Bryzgalov was either slow or out of position.

The game should be interesting. I guess I couldn't scoff at anyone who though the Ducks carried the play for long stretches on Friday, but I still think they were only dangerous for a total of about 3 minutes (the beginning of OT), plus their 5-on-3 time obviously. Other than that, I didn't think they had many chances to score on Kipper, the two italicized words being an important distinction.

I dunno. I'll give the Ducks one PP goal tonight, but I'm guessing they'll be hapless otherwise, in about a 4-1 Final (goals by Iginla, Donovan, Langkow, and Hamrlik). Go Flames.

Let the record show, that I blame the loss squarely on Lowetide and his "Possible Oiler Drafts" post. I mean, really, who posts about the Oilers upcoming draft on the eve of a playoff game? He claims it wasn't defeatest but . . .

Delma Huddle will be back in the line-up tonight, but Chopper will not. As A2Y notes, this makes Mac-T's job a bit tougher as he will not be able to smother Zetterberg as consistently.

It sounds like Mac-T will, again, be running some sort of trap; but I'm guessing that the forwards will be a little bit more aggressive than last game. At least I sure as hell hope so. It is one thing to adjust your game to suit the opponent, it is quite another to completely abandon your own team's greatest strengths.

Terrific insight is not required: if the Oil don't win today, the series is all but over. Prongs played a whopping 38 mins in the first game, and with the quick turnaround afternoon game, it might become an issue. Of course, it might be more of an issue for those old-timers in red. Again, staying out of the box is required, and let's hope the refs actually call a decent game today.

Finally, it is helpful(?) to note that in 1987 the Oil lost Game 1 to Detroit and went on to win the series 4-1.

Go Oil!

I'm going to break with general consensus, here, and say that the Oil played a helluva lot better than the shot count would suggest.

In fact, for much of the game I was pretty happy with the way they played. It seems that most folks were pretty disgusted with the lack of demon forechecking "Oilers Hockey"; but I actually thought that Mac-T was pretty tricky starting the game in the trap. He mixed it up a bit too, starting the second period with some aggressive forechecking before sitting back again.

And you know what? It worked. For the first part of the game, Detroit didn't have a whole lot of quality opportunities, and the crowd was completely out of the game. When Edmonton was up 2-1, the boring style of play continued to work. Detroit was getting lots of shots, but not that many were truly dangerous. It was only when Detroit tied it up that the wheels fell off the bus a little bit.

Also, a few folks definitely looked a bit nervous--especially Torres and Horcoff.

Rollie, as predicted, was dynamite.

Tomorrow's game will say it all. The Oil have two choices. Come out pissed that they lost a game the could (should?) have won. Or come out questioning themselves and fritter away the playoff series.

Oh, and the CBC nonsense not only caused me mental anguish (where was the powerplay time clock), but when it cut away to the Calgary game in OT, I jumped up to flip on the radio, crunched my foot against my desk, and broke my pinky toe. It is purple and swollen today, and I have a distinct limp. Thanks a lot Hockey Night in Canada.

**I figured before the games yesterday that the hottest topic this morning would be reffing, but no: looks like it's the CBC. There was a host of technical glitches, some of which I caught myself, but their biggest sin was certainly buggering up their regional feeds.

I had to catch the first 3 minutes of the Flames/Ducks game on the radio, wondering why CBC Calgary hadn't switched over from the Oiler game yet; apparently when the CBC A/V Squad finally did get the Flames game going, they switched the whole damn country over, including Edmonton.

A sincere suggestion for Oiler fans: even without Centre Ice, you may be able to get the Detroit broadcast of the game. Most satellite and digital cable packages carry the Fox affiliate out of Detroit, which is carrying the games. It's Ken Daniels and Mickey Redmond with the call; they're pretty good, and this also solves the Mark Lee problem described hilariously (in part) here:

Usually it takes a couple rounds for an intelligent colour man like John Garrett to lose his temper at a bungling booth colleague, but Garrett flipped out briefly in the second period when Lee described a negligible Detroit shot from a bad angle as "dangerous." [...] The Prime Minister is said to be a hockey fanatic, so I'd like to personally appeal to him to order the Corporation to re-hire Chris Cuthbert and send Lee out to cover Taiwanese jai-alai. (If they don't play jai-alai in Taiwan, so much the better.)

(Read the whole thing for the Fake-but-Accurate transcript of Lee's play-by-play.) The Prime Minister is known to be a Calgarian, so I'd like to personally appeal to him to order the CBC to send Garrett to the Ottawa series, and put Millen with Lee -- together at last!

**I was pretty happy with the officiating in the Flames/Ducks game. Until OT at least, it resembled what I've seen most of the year (except for the odd game where it seemed like any kind of contact was a penalty).

I'll be interested to see if Dan O'Halloran and Mike Hasenfratz get into any more games, though, and how soon. Scott Niedermayer took out Langkow in OT with a move that could pretty easily have been called a penalty in previous years, but was a black letter obstruction interference call now. DL moved the puck around the boards, then took off in pursuit; a couple of seconds later, Nied hits him, then gets his stick in DL's belly and holds him onto the boards, then upends Langkow with the stick.

If that stuff is not going to be called, again, I'm happy (at the moment, I was actually happy that there was no call, as I'd rather have the "credit" in the bank against a cheap touch foul than I would the PP opportunity).

**Andy Murray = pretty good. Once the Corpse gets their Level 1 technical problems worked out, maybe they could get him a telestrator pen. We've been hearing for years that Murray is a great preparer and a great Xs & Os guy -- let's learn something then, shall we?

**Boy, Nashville is dead already: San Jose is so hot, and how are you supposed to stop Thornton and Cheechoo? OOPS, how'd that old take (circa Thursday) from every single NHL expert get in there?

**My favourite item in the game stories was that last night was the first time the Flames opened the playoffs with a win since 1988. Man, would I ever love stress-free advancement into the 2nd round.

More later, maybe.

How many times this year, I wonder, have I heard one of these variations on a theme:

Five, as in Cups, is the only number that matters... division titles are meaningless... 5 Cups... losing Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals constitutes a "choke"... 5-1!!!... the Clarence Campbell Bowl is a consolation prize... five cups... jeez that Western Conference Championship banner is garish... 5, 5, 5, etc. etc.

Well, fine. Oiler fans are apparently so sophisticated (or is it spoiled by success?) that mere playoff game or series victories are not legitimate cause for enthusiasm. Fair enough. I guess I'll hear from you either in about 8 weeks, or sooner for the annual discussion of which alumni should be hired/fired by the organization.

For Calgary fans: it's Game Night! Things shape up well for the home team. I'm thinking an early goal by Anaheim, then two for the Flames (Langkow and Amonte), and one into the empty net for good measure. 3-1 Final. Enjoy - and Go Flames.

The Oilers playoff preview pointed out that in"[Roloson's] last eight games, he had a 1.75 goals-against average and .931 save percentage."

1.75 GAA and .931 SV%

And people are worried that Manny freaking Legace is going to outplay Rollie? Puh-leez.

And don't forget, the Wings have both Cory Cross and Dan Cleary on their payroll. Is it possible to lose to a team featuring Dan Cleary?

Mudcrutch notes that the Flames are opening a new "world class restaurant, bar and hybrid entertainment facility in the heart of downtown Calgary." I'm sure he's right that the venue's revenues are non-hockey-related, meaning the players will not (nay, cannot) receive any benefit.

And that's still probably better than the converse: if the club had to accept all the risk firing up this venture, knowing that a good chunk of the revenues and/or profits from the thing would automatically go to the players or weaker NHL franchises (none of whom are accepting any risk), it wouldn't happen at all.

The cherry on top of this delightful tale is that this will probably be the only joint in town where the proprietors can't give Flames players a free steak. If the NHL's CBA is as much like the NFL's as I understand, then all compensation -- salary, bonuses, incentives, etc. -- are subject to the salary cap, meaning that the team, joint ventures involving the team, and people involved with the team just can't go around giving stuff to the players. Laughing? Don't forget that a couple of years ago, Dick Vermeil had to welch on a promise to Morten Andersen on NFL say-so: Vermeil had offered Andersen a nice bottle of wine (from his own cellar) if he made a game-winning kick; Andersen made it; and the league reminded Vermeil that uncontracted bonuses were a strict no-no -- sorry Morten.

Good! I mean, what kind of a level playing field would it be if one wine-loving coach could go around giving away free bottles for this and that.

NHL.com chat transcript where Gary Bettman uses the word "partnership" 9 times here.

Now, where were we again? Oh, yeah: F**KING PLAYOFFS!!!

I see that someone residing in Toronto is representing Canada West. I thought Harper was supposed to end that sort of nonsense.

Joking, of course. Well done, Tyler.

I'll get this out of the way right off the bat: I'm picking the Flames over the Ducks in 5. I expect Calgary to win both of the first two games; one of two in Anaheim; and Game 5 at home.

I make this prediction with as much confidence as I can muster, given the nature of the Stanley Cup playoffs (the Red Wings, a legitimate clear favourite, are barely a 1-in-5 shot to actually win the big trophy). And I don't particularly care if the Flames win in 4, 5, 6, or 7: certainly my joy at seeing a Game 7 victory would far outweigh any embarrassment caused by my prediction (or what follows...).

I think the Flames are the better team, but specifically, I just don't think Anaheim will beat Calgary at home. I'll confess that generally come playoff time, I'm wary of teams with great home records and weak road records like the Flames. First of all, there's the fairly uncontroversial idea that the "adrenalin advantage" of the home team is somewhat neutralized in the playoffs; the road team tends to match the homer's intensity, whether that's because It's The Playoffs, or because the loud home crowd actually gives a jolt to both teams.

But I also have this notion, not supported by statistics (or contradicted by them as far as I know), that this advantage (that is neutralized in the playoffs) applies mainly to the offensive end. I don't want to go into much more detail on this, mainly because I've essentially pulled it out of my rear, but think about every regular season game you've attended: the crowd gets more excited during a 2-on-1 for than one against.

Which is a long way of bringing up these numbers:

• Flames G.F.: Home = 108; Road = 108
• Flames G.A.: Home = 70; Road = 123

Calgary's Home Goals Against numbers are unbelievable, both the raw number (which amounts to 1.71 GA/gm, and an even lower GAA/60min) and as it relates to their road number. You'll also note that their scoring is the same both home and away.

All this together makes me believe that their Home Ice Advantage is less a matter of attitude (or intensity, or comfort, or crowd noise) than it is a structural advantage, for lack of a better term. In short, as good defensively as Calgary is overall, I think getting the matchups they want, especially against the other team's top scoring line, really cinches it.

In 41 home games this season, the Flames allowed 42 even-strength goals. That is crazy good. And if you check out the Ducks +/- stats on the year, you'll see that the Selanne/ McDonald/ Kunitz line is waaay out in front of the rest of the forwards; the next highest forwards are Getzlaf and Fedoruk at +6.

The Flames need to shut that line down in Calgary, and I think they can. Past that, it's a question of whether the Flames (or hell, just Kipper) can play well enough in Anaheim to take one there. The answer to that is Yes. Get 'er done, boys.

This is it, folks. Let's get it on.

Since my predictions have been pretty much flawless all season, I'll continue to make the tough calls. Oilers in 7: split in Detroit, win Game 3 in Edmonton, lose Games 4&5, win back to back Games 6&7. Oh, and D-vo will score a lot of goals.

Sacamano's Keys to the Series:

• Will physical play be allowed? If the McCreary and Sutherland call ticky-tack fouls, the Oil might be in trouble against the Wings powerplay. If they let the hitting go, Detroit's tired old men will dry up like octupii in a prairie field.
• Goaltending -- I'm actually quite confident that Rolli will outplay Legace. Heck, Manny has only won 2 career playoff games and, despite the hype, both his GAA and SV% are worse than they were for the last two seasons. At least Roloson won a playoff series.
  

Injury Report

• Datsyuk is apparently out for Detroit -- hilariously, the SportsNet ticker listed Datsyuk's injury as "a problem with his left thing". I swear I'm not making that up. I suspect his thing will be sufficiently healed for him to play tonight. I'm not worried about it. Datsyuk is one of those thoroughbred players who isn't effective if he doesn't feel perfect. A few good licks from Smith/Staois/Pronger/Torres/Peca, and he is going to be a non-factor.
• Moreau left practice early, and he might be out with a groin problem. Gaaak. I'll believe it when I see it -- you pretty much have to amputate something to keep Ethan out of a playoff game.

Hmmm... how prophetic was my choice of post title for my playoff predictions?

I have TSN on in the background, and Maggie the Monkey has done her Eastern Conference predictions. We're in complete agreement... (and you too, Winters!)

From BofA fan-pub The Globe & Mail, via Mirtle:

...Bob Cole and Greg Millen will call the Ottawa series...

Yeah, baby!!! Calling the CGY-ANA series will be Don Wittman and Andy Murray. Andy Murray? Hey, whatever, as long as Millen's stuck in Ottawa, I'd take Joan McCusker.

[Sacamano Update]: Oh man, Lee and Garrett? Bru-tahl.

Even if I believed the reports that Datsyuk was going to miss Game 1, would it really make any difference?

Afterall, it's not like Datsyuk ever shows up for the playoffs anyway (37 career playoff games, 3 goals).

[edit]: And all three of those goals were way back in 2001-2002.

It would seem that this thread has settled down, and may not get to 100 comments. At the risk of beating a dead horse:

Jarome Iginla had a good, not great, season, and now is the time when he will, or will not, earn his money. Am I saying that if the Flames go deep in the playoffs, he gets a pass on his non-Hart Trophy-contending regular season? Well YEAH!

He captained a team that has met pretty high expectations thus far (I picked the Flames to be 2nd in the conference, but close enough). He led the team in Goals and Points. He was 2 back of the team lead in Assists; if you exclude assists on Goals Scored By Jarome Iginla, he led that category easily too. He's a very good defensive forward, and he's always better at the end of games; I remain convinced that he's the fittest skater in the NHL. And Cosh notes sincerely in his original piece, he is a mensch; a guy any city in the league would be proud to have on their team.

And if you want to argue that he's overpaid, which I do not, the problem still remains of how you might spend that $7M in a way that makes the Flames better than they are now. You just can't go to Sport Chek and pick three $2.3M scorers off the shelf; they're set in goal, and have a fantastic defense.

Go forth, Jarome, and show everyone what you're made of. We can have this discussion in July.

In the first skirmish of this year's playoff series, the Oilers have crushed the Red Wings.

I'm talking, of course, about the playoff slogans, which can make or break the second season.

Detroit came out of the gate with "Bring it!" -- which I thought was pretty lame until Christy listed all of the former slogans used by the Red Wings including such inspirational lines as "Get Up!", "I Want Stanley!", and "Are You Ready?".

The Oil have countered with with "Get Electric!". Sure it might still be weak, but at least it assures that Oilers fans will be doing something other than sitting in their seats thinking: "Now I know I was supposed to bring something, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was."

Bettman: Refs will make calls, or else

I'm not sure how concerned I should be about this. Against anyone besides Detroit, a parade to the box doesn't really affect the Flames chances one way or the other (by the numbers, they have a marginal special teams advantage over the Ducks).

My concern, such as it is, respects where exactly the league's and Bettman's priorities are. The goal, I certainly hope, is to have the best-officiated games possible; exciting games, where both skill and force-of-will are rewarded. This should be the criterion on which playoff officiating is evaluated.

Unfortunately, Bettman makes it sound in this article like the criteria will be:
(A) Does the # of penalties called (per game) remain consistent with the # in the regular season, AND/OR
(B) Does goalscoring (per game) remain consistent with the figures from the regular season

For some people, not the least of which will be the fans and media of losing teams, they will indeed look to those statistics, and if either or both numbers are down, claim that the league's reputation is once again shot, etc.

That'd be a shame. The league's primary, if not only, concern should be facilitating the most entertaining and intense games possible. For all the people who complain that the refs put the whistle away in the playoffs, and that it's just a clutch-and-grab show, the NHL playoffs are still pretty damn popular among hockey fans. Here's hoping...

[P.S. Again, I'm not saying that they should throw the obstruction crackdown into the trash. But I would be darn happy if the refs (A) used "no harm, no foul" discretion, and (B) were sure of infractions before whistling, as opposed to calling something every time a guy falls down anywhere near an opponent's stick. The standard would be no more convoluted or discretionary than it it now.]

Wow. Spend 12 hours standing in line for playoff tickets and the inmates start running the asylum around here. Judging by my bulging inbox and by our stats, it appears that jhuck and madcrutch hit refresh approximately every 48 seconds yesterday --- and they found new content from each other 4 out of 7 times.

To change tack slightly, before the Oilers go out and whip the Wings, I thought I'd better do a wrap-up of the regular season.

[I'm really lazy, so this is just an total rip off update of my Oilers Midpoint Evaluation. Some players didn't even get an update because they were pretty much the same as they were back then.]

Hey hey hey. The Oiler have completed half their regular season and, going in to a new year, I thought it was time to post some sort of midpoint year-end evaluation type thing. I still don't give grades, and I still don't use fancy statistics. Sue me.

POWERPLAY/PENALTY KILL - Perhaps the biggest story of the year. Last season the Oilers were an abysmal 29th/17th in the league. This year At the midpoint they were 7th and 13th. The Oil's powerplay cooled off significantly in the second half, ending up 14th in the league; but the penalty kill just kept on trucking, finishing 8th, with a league leading 15 shorties.Maybe Craig Simpson is more than just a pretty coiffure. Of course, adding Stoll, Pronger, Bergeron, Spacek, and a new and improved Hemsky didn't hurt.

FACEOFFS - from 11th last year to first second (o.4% behind Nashville) this year. Is this important? I still dunno - it can't hurt.

5 ON 5 - An interesting regression. Last season they were 9th in the league with a 1.22 ratio.This year the Oilers areAt the midpoint they were exactly even in goals for/against 5 on 5 , and they got even worse from the midpoint on, ending up with a negative goal differential (0.899 ratio). The loss of 5 on 5 strength is almost certainly a result of some questionable horrific goaltending. Thank goodness the powerplay is working.


After taking talk-show abuse all preseason about how he could never be a #1 center, Horc has quietly put together a pretty nice terrific season. He still isn't a true #1 - whatever that is - but he has been pretty effective, if inconsistent. He blew away his former season best, and put up 22-51-73 in 79 games (i.e., 6 points more than Iggy).




Smytty - The Mad Mullet hasn't had to carry the load this for the first half of the year, which is good because I'm not entirely sure he is still capable of it. Has gone missing more than previous seasons. Having said that, he has still had a pretty nice first half and always seems to be around at nut cuttin' time. Is it possible to not love this guy?

Like many, I made the mistake of underestimating Smytty. He really turned it on down the stretch and ended up with a tidy 36-30-66 in 75 games (i.e., 1 goal more than Jarmoe). That's his second best offensive year. Significantly, he is better than a point a game vs Detroit this year.



ALES HEMSKY - Learn how to fake this signature, folks, because the sky is well and truly the limit. 11 goals, 27 assists at the midpoint and 19-58-77 on the season. He is starting to shoot, can pass like crazy, and finally provides the Oilers with someone who can work the powerplay halfboards without messing his minipad under pressure. He is tougher than people give him credit for too. Another guy with a career high in points (and with 10 more points than Iggy).




JARRETT Stoll - Remeber when Stevie Y used to have a pretty boy face? Seen him lately? I predict a similar result for Check out Stoll's mug now. The breakout player of the year. 14 goals, 26 assists at the midpoint and 22-46-68 in 82 games (i.e., 1 point more than Jarmoe). Early on he was consistent as anyone on the team, but went missing a bit down the stretch. He still has a rocket of a shot. Along with Hemsky and Pronger, Stoll has been largely responsible for the somewhat improved powerplay - especially when they put him back on the point. Yet another guy who blew away his career high in points. He hasn't been able to get open for the one-timer from the top of the circle on the powerplay (aka: the Anson Carter Special), but has still managed to put the biscuit in the net at a decent clip (Hey Pepper, is that you?)



SERGEI SAMSONOV -- Seryozhenka has been a nice addition for the Oil -- especially when Mac-T doesn't put him on the fourth line with Laraque and Harvey. He has made the powerplay better, gives the Oilers a player who can create on his own, and the kid has wheels. Just shy of a point per game in Edmonton.






RAFFI TORRES - Torres is still as streaky as hell Stoll is consistent. When he is playing well he is tough to miss. Like Pronger, he has been pretty good at picking his spots for the physical play, but is not nearly as effective when he isn't hitting. Still Mrs. Sac's favourite player, despite his Houdini Act. Wow, the Oilers actually did have a forward who didn't outscore Jarmoe. 27-14-41 in 82 games.




Radek Dvorak - Injuries have slowed him down, but this facial expression really still says it all. Somewhat confused, still sorta happy. This is a guy that I so want to do better. He has all the skills, creates a tonne of quality chances, but just seems to be permanently snake-bitten. It is inexplicable.

No change in status here. I don't expect it will ever change. Sigh. Actually, it should be pointed out that D-vo is one of the Oil's best defensive forwards, and when he skates like a demon he causes more than his fair share of turnovers on the forecheck. I'm still going to predict big things from him in playoffs.



Mike Peca - The Oilers undisputed MVP. We should be paying him 8, nay 18, million dollars. Meh. He obviously wasn't the first line scoring centre the Brain Trust was hoping he could be, but I'm still extremely decently happy with his play. He is exactly the kind of guy that the Oilers needed to get them through tight games against elite players. Markus who? Jarmoe who? He is going to be a key in the Oilers first round playoff win. I have to say, however, that he seems to be kind of a wus. Blaming the St. Loo loss on the pregame ceremony which, apparently, ruined the team's "biorhythms"? Puh-leeze. He's gonzo at the end of the season, and I'm ok with that.


Fernando Pisani - 18-19-37 in 80 games. Unbelievable 5 on 5. Just an absolutely solid, consistent third line outscorer. This is one that the Brain Trust should get credit for - they recognized something that most others didn't. With Reasoner gone, Pisani is also filling the role of Mr. Everything and Instant-Chemistry. I love Fernie.





Ethan Moreau - Moreau is another guy like Dvorak who I keep thinking should be able to breakout. I don't really understand why he doesn't have more goals. By far the hardest working guy out there, has crazy wheels, never gets tired. Still doing pretty well with 8 goals 12 assists from the third line at the midpoint, and 11-16-27 on the year. The basketball injury killed a huge chunk of Moreau's season, but he looks to be rounding back into form. Fun stat is that Moreau has about a million shorties this year.




Le GG - I had such high hopes for Georges. The new rules should have made make him unstopable . . . well, if he hadn't taken over Marchant's hands. Over the last two weeks he has been pretty active and has been able to draw a lot of penalties. I'm not entirely sure that his salary is worth it, though. I wouldn't be suprised to see him packaged outta town. It would be a shame because he is a sentimental favourite in town. At least he has a degree to fall back on . . . As usual, LeGG turned it on down the stretch and was playing some decent hockey. Inexplicably, Mac-T pulled him from the line-up at just this point. I'm so confused by Georges.









Todd Harvey - A funny guy. I love it when he scores goals. Other than that, he has been continues to be pretty average. But he and his molester mustache continue to make me laugh.





Chris Pronger and his orbs of power- way better than I thought. He is just so solid in the defensive end it is ridiculous. He is also so calm with the puck that we finally have someone to give the wingers time to get up ice for some nice long breakouts. Equally impressive has been his transition from mean, cross-checking SOB to well-positioned, little-penalized, gentleman. I personally think he might have gone a tad too far in that direction, but I'm sure he'll be back for playoffs. Soaks up a tonne of minutes and, as Cosh once noted, shortens every penalty kill to one-minute. The Oil's real MVP. Detroit fans seem to think he is going to pull a Jekyll and Hyde in playoffs and spend most of it in the penalty box. I doubt it.



Bergeron - a nice sophmore mid-season. I didn't like his pairing with Pronger at the beginning because he was a bit too deferential, but they seem to be playing prety well together now. Added bonus is that he is actually hitting the net with his canon this year - well, mostly. He scrambles a lot, but that makes him fun to watch. Bergy has a rough second half. The last few games of the season he seemed to get it together again, but for a stretch there he was terrible. Sophmore slump or something.




Jason Smith - I dunno. Okay. Nothing spectacularly good or bad. Now that he can't pull off the facewash in front of the net he isn't as effective. However, he still seems to be able to pull of a physical game without too many penalties



Steve Staois - I dunno. Somewhere between Smith and Cross - probably closer to Smith. Joins Harvey on the All Molester Mustache Team.



Igor Ulanov - Get your memorabilia now, because he is one contract deadline away from retirement. I love him, just love him. I think he is one of the funniest guys on the team. But he needs to join the other retired Oilers behind bench. Still soaks up a fair number of minutes - although I'm always on pins and needles when he is the one looking to clear the puck from the d-zone. Igor has been out of the lineup for much of the second half. I'm not sure whether he will get back in for playoffs or not. I kinda hope he does.



JAROSLAV ŠPAČEK - K-Lowe's greatest accomplishment this year. Spacek has been huge for the Oil. He has a cannon of a shot, is a perfect partner for Pronger, is calm with the puck. Just an all around great d-man. And we gave up Tony Salmelainen for him, who I'm pretty sure will never play in the league. A steal.









DWAYNE ROLOSON - After a bit of a rough start, Rollie seems to have found a groove. Whether that groove is deep enough to steal a few games in playoffs remains to be seen. I'm still happy with the deal.









JUSSI MARKKANAN - I think Jussi is a very solid backup or partner goalie. I really thought he could be more, but I'm not sure he can play any more than 55 games a year. Still, not as horrible as some would make it out. Pretty much irrelevant now.




TY CONKLIN- I may have jumped the gun based on last night's performance. I admit it, I have blinkers. I really want him to do well, but I really don't think he is very good. I hope he proves me wrong. Pretty much irrelevant now.










RANDOM PB GUYS

DICK TARNSTROM - Perhaps K-Lowe's weakest acquisition. Tricky Dick has been inconsistent at best. He has certainly not delivered the powerplay quarterback skill-set that he was touted to possess. He'll be gone next year.

JEAN-FRANCOIS JACQUES -- has been in 7 games and didn't play horribly.

MATT GREENE - Has been decent.

BRAD WINCHESTER - A big kid, nice wheels, decent hands. Overall he has done a nice job.

REM MURRAY -- Rem the Gem is back in Oilers' silks. He actually started off not too badly, but then the wheels seem to fall of the bus a little bit. I wouldn't be suprised to see him in some playoff games given Mac-T's bias towards vets. He was also the Oil's nomination for the Masterton, and would be a terrific choice.

DANNY SYVRET - played very well while he was up. This kid is going to be good.

DAN SMITH - I don't really remember. Sorry.

ROD PHILLIPS - God knows I love Rod, but the year off really hurt him. Constantly behind the play and searching for names. Still, not many can call a fight like Rod, and not many home town announcers are as tough on the team as he is. Morely is as solid as he has ever been. Rod picked it up in the second half of the season, and he continues to set new benchmarks for how to rip a referee. Don't get him started on the subject of video goal reviews.

ONE: Sacamano will be updating the sidebar shortly to show the playoff matchups, so let's do a quick debriefing of what's getting deleted, namely, the Samsonov & Lundmark stats.

They are (were) there because of a discussion in a comment thread right after the trade deadline (you know, when the Oilers improved themselves and the Flames did nothing), where I said

...I think we need to keep track of Samsonov's and Lundmark's goals going forward, maybe in the sidebar (and also provide updates on Record After Trading Deadline). I hope the discrepancy doesn't embarrass me too badly.

Numbers:

• Samsonov: 19GP, 5G/11A/16pts, even
• Lundmark: 12GP, 4G/6A/10pts, +2

Nope, not too embarrassed. My other comment back then seems about right:

I honestly don't know if Lundmark was brought in to be the 13th forward, or a 2nd-liner. I just know that the difference between his 2 goals and Samsonov's 6 for the rest of the year is hardly worth the fuss made over Sammy (he's not Alexander Ovechkin, folks).

OK, so I was a bit off on the exact numbers.

TWO: I see our traffic is hitting a crescendo along with general interest in the NHL. Get it while supplies last, folks. I see by the playoff schedule that there's only 8 or 10 days left until all Sacamano will have left is some lame Flames smack, and maybe a few bitter tears about all the red car flags on the U of A campus.

THREE: lwoCPO at Abel to Yzerman appears to be doing a better job with the Edmonton smack than I ever have. Nice manners though, I liked this:

Took a glance at the stats this morning and saw that half our visitors today hail from Alberta. Nice to see you and I hope your Spring ends in gut-wrenching heartbreak.

I hope you're exactly half-right, buddy.

FOUR: Cosh has his annual Big Spreadsheet up. It's a pretty simple concept but a few minutes to read through the methodology is well-advised. Speaking of Cosh, if you didn't catch this in the comments yesterday, the folks at CalgaryPuck.com weren't too impressed by his nomination of Iginla for the Lady Byng Trophy, and made in known in a thread titled Colby Cosh is a big fat idiot. Heh - many of the comments belong in the Seriously? file, probably none moreso than this one:

It is a funny website, but seems very distasetful [sic] at times. The mention of Jarome Iginla winning the Lady Byng did not make me laugh.

A substantially fair evaluation of ColbyCosh.com, no question. And from the Irony file, this comment on our own fair site:

Well if that site is intended to be just a place for fans of either team trash talk at each other I'll just avoid it. Not really my cup of tea, but it does have its place.

Indeed.

FIVE: From the bookies, here's the series prices for the opening round:

• EDM (+450) @ DET (-600)
• TBL (+375) @ OTT (-500)
• SJS (-165) @ NSH (+145)
• ANA (+180) @ CGY (-220)
• NYR (+220) @ NJD (-260)
• COL (+200) @ DAL (-240)
• MTL (+190) @ CAR (-230)
• PHI (+115) @ BUF (-135)

There appears to be some value bets there. And DET and OTT are co-favourites to win the Cup at +325; the longest shot is the Oilers at 40-1.

Playoff Predictions!

East:

Tampa Bay over Ottawa. The Sens have a lot stronger D than the Lightning, and I'm probably making this pick out of sheer stubbornness, since I picked the Lightning to win the Cup in October. But I think Vinny will outplay Heatley, Richards will outplay Alfie, and St. Louis will outplay Havlat. I'd probably never pick John Grahame to outplay Hasek, but it's certainly plausible that he'll outplay Ray Emery.

Carolina over Montreal. I think the goaltending matchup between Marturs Gerbe and Crystal Ball is roughly even. Whatever the Hurricanes did all season to hit 112 points, I assume it is good enough to get by the Habs, who I don't believe in at all.

Rangers over Devils. Yeah, they're the Devils, but guess what? The Rangers are good defensively too - they scored more goals and allowed fewer than New Jersey this season. Why? Good question. I don't think I like the Rangers to go deep, but I definitely like them to win this series.

Buffalo over Philadelphia. It's hard not to like Forsberg in the playoffs, but there can't be much magic left there, and the Sabres are good.

West:

Detroit over Edmonton. There's just too many stars that would have to align for the Oil to beat Detroit 4 times in 7 games. I do hope, however, that Edmonton wins Game 1, if Winters secures his ticket and we get to see this:

Maybe, if I'm lucky, the CBC'll cut to me, the lone Oilers fan, disgustingly thrusting my pelvis at the back of some Wings fan's head when we score in Overtime.

Dallas over Colorado. I just don't think the Avalanche are good enough anymore. 'course, I also thought that in 2004, and the Avs waxed them.

Nashville over San Jose. Picking Joe Thornton to lead his team to playoff victory is just too much like picking Peyton Manning to win the Super Bowl. I will stake no amount of money or reputation on it until I see it happen. Plus, since when is the prospect of shutting down a dynamic scoring duo in a playoff series unlikely? Since never, that's when, and besides, the Predators don't have to shut Joe & Cheechoo down every game, just 4 times.

Calgary over Anaheim. Uh, yeah. That's a separate post.

I put my chances of beating Maggie the Monkey's predictions at about 70/30. Whatever. Wait, check that. I second the sentiment of Pleasure Motors:

Not whatever. F**KING PLAYOFFS!!!!

Before we get to full-on playoff mode,

Your highlight of the regular season was:

For me, I think I'd pick the 3rd period of the Flames-Wild game in mid-November; the lads' sheer domination for 19 minutes, turning a 2-0 deficit into a 3-2 lead, followed by defending a 5-on-3 PP (6-on-3 with Roloson on the bench) to clinch the victory.

Non-Flames-related, I have to go with something I saw live, so I'd pick the PIT-MTL shootout on TSN very early in the season, where Crosby roofed it over Theodore to win the game, sending the water bottle about 20 feet in the air and Miller/McGuire into hysterics in falsetto.

Schadenfreude highlight: it could be any of a large number of Oiler goaltending "highlights": the one that stands out most is probably Conky banking one off of Brendan Morrison's cup, back into his own net.

The floor is yours...

The Oilers-Red Wings playoff schedule has finally been announced, and Datsyuk gets one day less injury rest than expected.

Mountain Daylight Time, of course

Game 1: Friday at Detroit, 5 p.m.
Game 2: Sunday at Detroit, 11 a.m.
Game 3: Tuesday, April 25 at Edmonton, 8 p.m.
Game 4: Thursday, April 27 at Edmonton, 7:30 p.m.
*Game 5: Saturday, April 29 at Detroit, 1 p.m.
*Game 6: Monday, May 1 at Edmonton, 8 p.m.
*Game 7: Wednesday, May 3 at Detroit, 5 p.m.

I know Detroit was resting a few guys tonight (Legace, Lidstrom, Zetterberg), but it's not like they didn't have anything to play for; a win would have tied the 1979-80 Canadiens' streak of 21 straight games with a point.

Instead, the Red Wings end their regular season by getting spanked by the Predators 6-3.

I have no doubt that this will be spun by the Wings faithful as a welcome wake-up call/just what the doctor ordered going into playoffs/great for preventing overconfidence/blah, blah, blah.

Whatever.

Query: We all know that nhl-ers hate afternoon games, but are there any figures on whether they favour the home or away team?

Cosh has convinced me. Iggy deserves it.

MATT-UPDATE: The highlight of the piece, for me, is awarding Kipper the Sergei Zubov Trophy For Being The Player I'd Most Like to Kill With My Bare Hands. Pretty awesome, when juxtaposed with this, from the discussion of Great Terrors back in February:

I feel like Hasek and Roy are too temperamental to qualify. Strangely enough, I can't name a goaltender who quite meets my emotional criteria...

SOMEbody has watched a few more Flames games, and rethought things...

This video gambling debt at Canucks Op Ed is funny. Really funny.

Now that I've shelled out for the PPV game tonight, I've decided that it's worth cheering for a Flames win (and for an Oilers loss; mmm, I love it when a plan comes together).

Per the post below, I think Anaheim is probably a better team than Colorado, and as such, I'd rather meet Colorado in Round 1, matchups be damned. The Avalanche just need to make up one point on the Ducks to get into the 6th spot.

Colorado had a nice stretch from about New Year's to the Olympic break, but otherwise have been pretty mediocre. Anaheim had a brutal start, but have been consistent and solid ever since.

No matter what, though, we're in a decent spot. Brian Boucher is getting the start, so if Anaheim wins, we get the Ducks in the playoffs, but they didn't beat Kipper, who stoned them dead last week. If they lose, but Colorado also loses, we get the Ducks in the playoffs, but Hah! They just lost to our backup goalie at home!

[Laugh of the day: I was out and about in the car, and listened to an interview with a Kings/Ducks beat reporter from a SoCal daily, the Riverside Times-Something. He was not only surprised that Sutter started Kipper against the Kings Saturday, but slightly offended. Why? Because it made it less likely that Luc Robitaille would score a goal in his last home game. Oh, my heart was breaking, let me tell you. (P.S. Robitaille was stopped by Kipper in the shootout, and Mike Rogers' comment on the radio at the time was, "If Luc was skating any slower there, he would have been going backwards.")]

Oilers lose 5-1. Calgary wins 3-1. Go Flames.

Most of us hockey fans--especially those of us who might me interested in making small, legal wagers--take a look at not only the Standings as a whole, but some of the breakdowns, too. Home/Road, GF/GA, Last 10, Last 20, Record Against Playoff Teams, etc.: we all have our little prejudices about what's most important and what's less so.

I share Mirtle's uneasiness at picking teams who are in the doldrums as the season ends, but not enough to dismiss those teams. Most of all, momentum (or confidence, if you prefer) is terribly fleeting.

Take the Nashville v. San Jose series (please!). With the Sharks on fire and Vokoun hurt, everyone and their dog will be taking the Sharks to destroy the Preds. But consider this crazy, one-in-a-million possible event: Chris Mason plays well and Nashville wins Game 1. At that point, how much is San Jose's momentum worth? Yeah, you might well still favour them to win the series. But at that point in time, Nashville is up 1-0, knows they can win, and is heading into Game 2 at home. Are you willing then to stake much on the fact that San Jose's momentum will carry them to victory? I'm sure not.

What I am willing to do is throw out the first 20 games of the season. I think they're worth nothing besides the points earned. Most NHL teams are in a different dynamic now than they were in November, not to mention the roster turnover. Here's the NHL standings for games 21 thru 80 for each team.


I'm not saying this is worth a whole lot, if anything. But it actively excludes some data which, for all intents and purposes, is ancient history (unless you're a Thrashers fan). You could argue that looking at just the 2nd half would be even more illuminating, I suppose, but my own intuition (prejudice, whatever) tells me that the last 60 games gives a good picture of what a team actually is. They've all gone through good and bad stretches, as have the individual players.

So, if you want to play along with this premise, what do these numbers show us that isn't equally obvious from the full, overall standings?

• Montreal is the worst team in the playoffs
• Ottawa's 17-3 start might just give them the #1 seed in the East, as since then, they have been good but most certainly not great.
• The right 8 teams made the playoffs in the West
• Detroit is scary
• Buffalo is the class of the East
• The Flames and Oilers are finishing right where they ought to be
• The Kings have actually been terrible for most of the season, not just recently
  
• Atlanta was done in by their ugly, multiple-pulled-groins start

Again, this is nothing earth-shattering, but just maybe it's a bit of extra information at the margin that will be useful in handicapping the playoffs.

A BofA no-prize to the first person who can name the author of this astute assessment of Spacek's contribution to the Oilers D:

"When they added Pronger I thought they had arguably the best four-man group of defensemen in the NHL (with Pronger, Jason Smith, Steve Staois and Marc-Andre Bergeron)," Sutter said. "Now, it's even better and I have no doubt their six defensemen are clearly the best in the League."

Boy, there's a lot I want to get to by Friday, and I barely know where to start, so how about this. As part of the ongoing series, here's the standings for the "4th Quarter" of the season. I know throwing out the last two games is a bit capricious, but most of the 81st/82nd games of the season involve at least one team for whom the result is unimportant, so there you go. Anyway, The East:


And, The West:


Detroit's 35 points in the 4th quarter is the best quarter by any NHL team this season. If the Leafs had had a merely poor 3rd quarter, they'd be in the playoffs. Offseason moves are a total wildcard, but the early favourite for a breakout team next season has to be the Blue Jackets. Give the credit to Joe Thornton for the Sharks' surge if you like (Joementum!), but their 4th quarter was WAAAY better than their previous 40 games, when Joe was also in the lineup. Related: be careful about handing a 1st-round victory to the Sharks too quickly. You'll note that Nashville had 26 points over the 4th quarter; what you may not know is that in their last dozen box scores, only one features Tomas Vokoun as the Winning Goaltender. There's ample reason to dismiss the Preds' Cup prospects, but they are not a Bad Team.

The Oil take on the Avs tonight in a totally meaningless (from the Oilers perspective) game.

For Colorado the game is still important: if the Avalanche win and Anaheim loses to Calgary, then Colorado jumps to 6th place letting them avoid Dallas in the first round and face the much weaker Flames instead.

One would think that there is a decent chance of this happening. The Flames will want to send a message to Anaheim in case they meet in the first round. The Oilers have called in the farm to rest a bunch of folks tonight (probably Pronger, Smith/Staois(?), Moreau, Hemsky). I bet Igor gets in the game tonight, which will please at least one fan. Actually, it would please me too. I love Ullie -- I occasionally don't think much of the way he plays the game of hockey, but it can't be denied that he is one funny guy.

Who knows, perhaps tonight we will even see that loose Oilers team we have heard so much about.

Worse Case Scenario: the Oilers throw out a bunch of minor-leaguers and press-box guys who actually play like minor-leaguers and press-box guys. The last thing the Oilers need is another one of these fiascos against the Avs going into playoffs. Confidence is a mysterious entity that is best not tinkered with.

Put up your blades, folks; it's time to start growing those playoff beards/leg thickets.

The Oil went 2-1-1 vs Detroit this season, with both of those wins in OT. Head to head the two teams each scored 13 goals, and the Wings outshot the Oil by a paltry 10 shots. This has the makings for a beauty of a series.

And hey, Greg Millen says to watch out for the Oilers. Could you get a better endorsement . . . well, other than this one?

This also means that I am happy to have some new material to read. Specifically, I'm encouraging everyone to check in on these terrific Red Wings Blogs.

• Abel to Yzerman - AtoY has been all over this matchup, and has even put up a bunch of content from the Edmonton scribes. Sadly, it looks like he actually has some sympathy for Canucks fans (clearly his team wasn't knocked out by those smug Vancouverites last season), and he appears to still be under the delusion that Detroit has a chance against Edmonton. Didn't he hear about Millen?
  
• Behind the Jersey - Christy's site is fantastic because it has so much content. Unlike most of us who just show up to drop science on Flames fans, she does things like player profiles, interviews, analyses, photo shoots.

I see that Vic has fully joined the mathamagic crowd and thinks that the numbers favoured Dallas instead of Detroit. I'm fully in the camp that is happy the Oilers drew Detroit rather than the Stars. You just know that it would have come down to some overtime, Turco would have flopped some lucky save and sent the puck up to Modano, and Arnott would have buried it. I feel ill just imagining it.

Happy Easter everybody. Especially to my godson, whose proclivities towards the Flames I blame entirely on his father.

I figure it will start at Rexall Place with another stirring "Our Tolerance for Crap is Now Zero" speech by Mayor Stephen Mandel.

Then it will speed across the river along . . . duh . . . Wayne Gretzky Drive. The caravan will slow down for the Calgary Trail to 109th stretch along Whyte Avenue to let all the patio dwellers have a wave.

Then back across the river and another slow cruise down Jasper Avenue.

Finally, back to Rexall to let the boys join all the fans in the Northlands beer gardens.

See you in the conference finals, Jarmoe!

I can't believe we have never run a caption contest schtick before.

But this photo (þOF) , combined with the rumours that Mac-T is again trotting out the disastrous Ryan Smyth at Centre Experiment, is simply too good to pass up.

Just what could he be thinking?

The Edmonton Sun cracks me up. It really does.

Today, Terry Jones states emphatically:

"After everything the Edmonton Oilers have put themselves through, in the last week and throughout the year, they could actually put a playoff spot away tonight.

That's right. Tonight.

With the Vancouver Canucks blowing a 4-3 lead late and losing 5-4 to San Jose at home last night, the Oilers magic number is now two."

Meanwhile, Derek Van Diest claims:

"Even if they do win their final two games tonight against the Ducks and Monday versus the Colorado Avalanche, the Oilers could still be left on the outside looking in at playoff time."

Incredibly, they are both wrong.

In fact, thanks to Big Bert's defensive inabilities, the Oilers' magic number is still 4.

The most relevant kryptonite factor tonight is that Edmonton has beaten Anaheim at Rexall/Skyreach/Northlands 11 straight times. Look out, that sounds like a streak that needs breaking!

No prediction today because, well, I fear Cosh might be right when he says: "Prepare for further disappointment as you make future predictions based on any premise other than "The Oilers are infinitely gutless." Of course if they win and Dvorak gets a hat trick I will cry myself to sleep for weeks.

I'm hoping to see LeGG back in the line-up tonight. He was playing his best hockey of the year and then got pulled because . . . why again? Can anyone explain this?

Sacamano's Key to the Game: Smytty's Moolay blocking Giggy's view of the puck.

Scoreboard Watching:

• Vancouver @ San Jose (Go Jose)
  
• Colorado @ Calgary (Go Avs)
  
• Minnie @ Nashville (Go Wild)
  

Regular season Home Game #41, tonight vs. Colorado at 7PM MDT. TV = Flames PPV.

The Flames need a win (or an OTL) to clinch their first regular season division title in 11 years (Edmonton: 19 years and counting). The last was in 1995, which incidentally was the last time the NHL resumed play after a lockout.

Since the Flames only need a measly point out of their next 3 games, and have really nothing else to play for, what does that mean? Probably that Boucher will get his 2nd start since the Olympics (though not tonight, of course). The only seasonal milestone anyone is pursuing, as far as I can tell, is Phaneuf going for his 20th goal. Other than that, it'll just be a matter of trying to get and keep players healthy.

Apparently Calgary Police are hoping that the Flames do clinch the division tonight (and for a Happy Game) so that they can "dry run" their new "procedures" for the Red Mile. I don't want to sound too snotty about this, since I haven't read most of the media stories. I did watch Global News Tuesday night though, and basically learned that the police/gub'mint want everyone to "Come out and have fun", as long as no one drinks, lifts up their shirts, jaywalks, or makes too much noise. Woooo!! I can hardly wait to see this year's website.

At least compared to some other jurisdictions, the Calgary Police Service is probably owed the assumption that they won't go way overboard, and push people around just because they're wearing blue unis, so I'll reserve judgement for now. Play safe everybody!

As for the game, I mentioned on Tuesday that Mrs. Matt got us tickets, so we'll be there, right after dinner with friends at Ed's. I expect to see a 3-2 result in favour of the home team; if Theodore starts in net for the Avs, I offer a hedge prediction of 6-2. Go Flames.

Apologies if this is common knowledge by now, but I don't see it in any of the game stories, so:

There will be no Battle of Alberta in the 1st round of the playoffs this season. (Booooo!)

The Oilers can now finish no higher than 7th. They can pass both Colorado and San Jose, but only if those teams lose all of their remaining games. If that scenario were to happen, both of those teams AND the Oilers would be passed by the Canucks, since Vancouver's 3 remaining games are against Colorado and San Jose.

A second-round matchup is also unlikely (let's assume for fun that the Oil will qualify for the playoffs in 8th, and that the Flames win the NW). Not only would the Oil have to beat Detroit, but Dallas would also have to lose to whoever they play, leaving Calgary and Edmonton as the highest and lowest remaining seeds, respectively.

Here's the Standings with Games Remaining (which you've all seen) along with each team's Best and Worst possible seeding (which you probably haven't). The West:


And the East:

Meh. The Oil lost on the road to the best team in the league -- no biggie (see, I can be a Zen Master too).

I didn't see the game so I don't have any original insights, but from what I've read elsewhere it sounds like they played pretty well. Well, unless you read the HF jackals, where it sounds like Edmonton dressed 20 elementary school kids.

The Magic Number with Vancouver is now 5. 2 of those 5 should come tonight when the Canucks gas one against San Jose.

The weird thing about the Oilers right now is that they just can't score 5 on 5. Weren't the Oilers 2nd or 3rd in the league last season in 5 on 5 scoring? What de ga'hell happened?

Is it time to get the red car flags out in Edmonton yet? Or is that Friday, after Vancouver has taken 3 points from San Jose and the Oil has lost to Anaheim?

I have to admit though, the Oilogosphere is taking things in stride. Lowetide is trying to be constructive, and has started a Coaching Resumes series; bravo, sir. But I think Pleasure Motors speaks for everyone:

You want to know why CinO are a bunch of drinkers? We're Oilers fans. It kills the pain of living.

Next time I'm there Dave, I'll buy you one.

At the risk of inducing some bad karma, this post by Jez Golbez contains the funniest line I've read in quite a while:

"The city of Vancouver was shaken yesterday. Not because of an earthquake, but because a 4-2 loss to the Ducks caused about 1,000 Yaletown Yuppies to jump off of the Canucks bandwagon. (It sounded like a pile of empty plastic bottles, if you must know.)"

Oh, mercy.

The Flames take on the now-officially playoff-bound Ducks, tonight at the 'Dome (7PM MDT, RSN West).

They play the Ducks twice in their final 4 games, and really, the matchup is kind of a win-win thing. The only way the Ducks are likely to finish down in 6th is if the Flames beat them both times, in which case, we'll be happy to meet them in the playoffs! If the Ducks perform well (or the Flames perform poorly), well, we're not likely to meet them in the playoffs anyway (as the 4th or 5th seed), so who cares!

That said, the Flames can clinch the Northwest Division title tonight, their first regular season title since 1995. Their magic number is 3, so they need either a win coupled with an Avalanche loss to PHX, or an OT loss coupled with an Avalanche regulation loss to PHX.

And if it doesn't happen tonight, well, they can do it to the Avalanche head-to-head on Thursday, when I will be personally present in the 'Dome! (Sans Sacamano)

Thanks to the fine online work (and $$$) of Mrs. Matt, the two of us will be attending the regular season home finale. Frankly, I wouldn't mind if it was clinched tonight, so that on Thursday, we can beat Colorado just for the fun of it.

Tonight's the night for Kipper's 10th9th (thanks MetroGnome) and final shutout of the season, I'll call it a 2-0 win. Go Flames.

These numbers guys have some nerve. All formulae and no heart, that's what I say.

Tyler has the stones to accuse virtually the entire Oilogosphere of being unable to "handle the ups and downs that come from cheering for the Oilers."

He claims that "cheering for the Edmonton Oilers . . . is not for the weak stomached or the faint of heart. It requires faith and constancy and the ability not to get bogged down in the horrific present."

In other words, he would like us all to be Zen Masters, trusting in the power of the probabilities to lead us from this horrific present and to deliver us a glorious future.

Nay, sir!

Cosh discussed this way back in November, and he defined once and for all the Soul of an Oilers Fan.

"I wonder if it's a coincidence that the real war on the Battle of Alberta weblog has involved Flames-loving host Matt sitting back, smirking, and pretending to hover loftily above his own team's struggles while the Oiler fans who comprise the majority of the site's readership rend their flesh like teenage goths . . .

But urging good cheer is pointless. The Edmonton Oiler fan has been chosen for a special role in the dramaturgy of the National Hockey League. It is a role which fits him well. He is the modern analogue of the Russian serf . . . Little can he guess what the wind will blow to the doorstep of his frost-laced lair; his instinct tells him that it cannot be anything too good. In a fog of superstitious inarticulacy, he awaits the hammerblow of history."

Beatin' ourselves up after a bad loss is what we do, dude -- numbers or no numbers.

We all know that the loss to St. Loo was brutal, but, thanks to Vancouver's ineptitude I'm over it.

Look, the fact is that the Oil had no chance against the Blues. It was a perfect storm. Oilers never win when there is a pregame ceremony. Witness:

• Nov. 22/03 - Heritage Classic - loss
  
• Oct. 18 - Paul Coffey night - loss
• Nov. 21 - Oilers Banner Night - loss
• Jan 12 - Mark Messier night - loss
• Jan 21 - Tomas Steen night - loss
  
• Feb 12 - Oilers Olympians night - loss
• April 9 - Al MacInnis night - loss
  

I could go further back, but I think you get the picture. Combine that with the fact that the Oilers never beat a team that is on a losing streak and never beat an unknown backup goaltender, and it was simply an impossibility to expect anything but a loss. I don't know why I didn't mortgage the ol' condo and head to Vegas.

Tonight's game is a different story. If I'm Detroit I'm thinking that this is a potential first round match-up and so a message needs to be sent. If I'm Edmonoton, I'm calculating the Kryptonite Factors and I like what I see.

Oilers Kryptonite Test

• Playing a crappy non-playoff team - no
• Jersey retirement ceremony - no
• At home - no
• Facing a crappy unknown back-up goalie - no
  

Call me crazy, but I'm optimistic about tonight's game. Not only that, but I'm pretty sure that this will be a preview of the 1st round of playoffs. Of all the teams ahead of the Oilers, I really think they match-up best with Detroit.

Prediction: 3-2 Oil

Scoreboard Watching:

• Anaheim @ Cowtown
• Phoenix @ Colorado
• Nashville @ St. Loo
  

I don't like to take up space on this site with high & mighty moralizing, or with criticizing the print media, but today's the day, because the Ottawa branch of the Professional Hockey Writers Association has nominated Dany Heatley for the Masterton Trophy, and that is bloody outrageous.

The trophy was presented by the NHL Writers' Association in 1968 to commemorate the late William Masterton, a player for the Minnesota North Stars, who exhibited, to a high degree, the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey. Masterton died on Jan. 15, 1968, after an injury sustained during a hockey game.

I don't wish bad things for Dany Heatley. You have to move on from your mistakes in life, and he's done things exactly the way I would have. He had his interests represented vigorously in the legal system. He got himself moved into a situation that he thought (correctly, as it turns out) would be better for his career and his life.

But he hurt himself driving a car at an insane speed, and killed his friend in the process. I don't care how well he dealt with things afterwards: you don't get a damn trophy for that.

Dany has been extremely fortunate that Dan Snyder's family forgave him for their loss. But that gesture by Snyder's parents does not mean Heatley is a victim. For that matter, Snyder's parents do not have the unambiguous right to speak for him now that he's gone. Don't you think that Dan Snyder has a cousin, or an old friend, who put his fist through a wall this morning when he heard that Heatley has been nominated for a trophy? For his perserverance?

Those who defend or protect Heatley have been very successful promoting the idea that the fatal car accident was just one of those terrible things that occasionally happen when youth, money, and two good friends are involved. I wish more people would consider the possibility that, hey, maybe Dan Snyder was sitting there, rigid and terrified, begging Heatley to slow down.

Dany Heatley is not a victim. All his problems were of his own making, and his injuries were self-inflicted. He's been forgiven more than adequately. Give him a trophy? Come on now.

With Edmonton's loss to the worst team in the conference last night, they no longer control their own playoff destiny, strictly speaking.

If they win the rest of their games, they'll finish with 97 points. If Vancouver wins the rest of their games, they'll also finish with 97 points, but they'll hold the first tiebreaker (most wins).

If this happens, but Vancouver only beats the Avalanche in OT, then Colorado can also finish with 97 points (W's vs. PHX, CGY; L vs. EDM; OTL vs. VAN). Colorado would also hold the Wins tiebreaker here.

Now, all that said, it's a pretty unlikely scenario. Vancouver is unlikely to win out; if they do, some will be in regulation, which cost ANA & SJ points; and CGY plays COL once and ANA twice, and isn't likely to get swept in those games. Basically, it's "good news" for Oil fans; if you win out, you're very very likely to make the playoffs.

The bad news is, if you don't win out, you're nearly completely reliant on still staying ahead of Vancouver, because there are few plausible scenarios that finish with COL, ANA, or SJS finishing 9th (roughly, one of them would have to lose the remainder of their games).

From my perspective, the worst thing about last night's Oil loss is that now, the scenarios under which they can finish 6th and lose a BoA playoff series are fewer and less likely. 7th or 8th is effectively now a best-case scenario for Edmonton, meaning that any CGY-EDM playoff series could only be in the conference finals, with Edmonton having already beaten DET and DAL.

Uh, whatever. Just miss the playoffs already, and get a head start on the off-season shakeup.

Some dueling headlines regarding the Oilers' loss last night:

Most Ridiculous Headline:

• "Oilers lose heartbreaker 2-1"

Heartbreaker? Say what? A heartbreaker is when you play well but lose on a flukey last second shot. It is emphatically not a heartbreaker when the team doesn't actually show any . . . you know . . . heart.

Most Obvious Headline

• "Oilers pull a no-show: and it could come back to haunt them"

Really? It could?

Best Alliterative/Rhyming Headline

• "Misery in Missouri"

That one's not bad, actually.

Best Headline Award:

• "Allow me a moment, sirs, to shake my fist at the heavens"

To the point. Emphatic. Emotive. Other than blaming the wrong guy, I think he's nailed it.

One thing was clearly decided tonight. The team that makes 8th place will not be the team that plays the best down the stretch. It will be the team that sucks the least.

Absolutely pathetic.

Whooops. I almost forgot about this game and its early start.

Clearly St. Louise has noted that Edmonton sucks in games with pre-game ceremonies. Big Al MacInnis gets his number retired tonight, and I see that Tony Twist is one of the honoured guests. That cracks me up.

Sacamano's Key to the Game: The video goal judge. Well, that and keeping these lame-o teams from coming back in the third period.

Scoreboard watching:

• Dallas @ San Jose
• Minnie @ Colorado
  

Flames @ Canucks, on HNIC any second now.

A tie through regulation time clinches at least 8th for the Flames. Any kind of win clinches at least 7th. And a regulation win just about means the end of the Canucks' season.

I'm very heartened by the Flames' last road performance. I think they'll put in another one tonight. 3-1 Calgary. Go Flames.

...is the "N/A" in the table here. Oilers fans are so precious...

As peter points out in the comments to the Flames GD post, a Flames win coupled with an Oilers loss seals the deal on the two teams' relative regular season records.

I don't see it happening. In fact, I'm betting that the Oil pick up a single on the Flames tonight.

3-2 Wild in OT. 5-1 Oil.

Sacamano's Key to the Game: The Blackhawks inept management team.

The Flames host the Wild tonight, 7PM MDT, RSN West.

Calgary leads the season series 5-2, including wins in all 3 home games so far. The first of these wins was a 3-0 shutout, but the last two were comeback victories: the 4-2 win over the Christmas break, and the Period of the Year, where they turned a 2-0 2nd intermission deficit into a 3-2 regulation win. Which reminds me...

We all know, thanks mostly to the friendly northern commenters on this site, that the Flames can't score. They're 26th in the NHL in Goals For, last among playoff teams, Jarmoe is robbing us blind, etc. etc.. Well, guess what:

• Calgary has the 2nd-best record in the league when Trailing After One (8-7-1, Win% of 0.500)
• Calgary has the 4th-best record in the league when the Opposition Scores First (14-11-4, Win% of 0.483)
• (P.S. Edmonton is 17th and 26th in those categories, respectively.)

I like the Flames' chances tonight. Calgary plays a similar game to Minnesota, just better.

Bonus prediction: Brian Rolston will be a non-factor. Game prediction: 3-2 Calgary. Go Flames.

Way back in January, I (among others) took a detailed look at the increase in scoring this year. Click back for a refresher; I have some updates. I can't quite find up-to-date numbers for Time Spent on Special Teams, but the raw numbers should tell the same tale.

*Total scoring is presently at 6.06G/gm in total. In '03/'04, it was 5.14G/gm, so we have an increase of 0.92G/gm (relative increase of 18%).

*PP scoring with a 1-man advantage is up from 1.26G/gm to 1.78G/gm, an increase of 0.52G/gm (relative increase of 41%)

*PP scoring with a 2-man ad (5-on-3) is up from 0.125G/gm to 0.287G/gm, an increase of 0.16G/gm (relative increase of 130%)

*SH scoring is up from 0.177G/gm to 0.227G/gm, an increase of 0.05G/gm (relative increase of 28%)

*Subtracting all of the above from the total increase, we see the ES scoring per game is up 0.19G/gm (from 3.40G/gm to 3.59G/gm, a relative increase of 5.6%)

In other words, 79% of the scoring increase this season is attributable to special teams goals, and 21% is attributable to even strength goals. Regardless of whether you are happy or unhappy about this, those are somewhat jarring numbers. (What are you going to say next time someone asks you what's the biggest difference in the NHL this year?)

For the record, PP opportunities are up 39% this year (from 8.5 to 11.8 PP Opps per game). PP Success is up from 16.5% to 17.7%, but some or most or all (or even more) of this increase is due to the huge increase in 5-on-3 goals. Data on 5-on-3 Success & Opportunities is difficult to come by, or I'd be more specific here.

Make of it what you want. I simply think that if we're going to evaluate the changes in the game, it's nice to know just what we're talking about.

For all intents and purposes, we're down to nine teams in the West, and the East is settled except for final seeding.

When you can't think, link.

• CinO is working for the weekend, and links to a killer tune that, amazingly, I missed on my Ultimate List of Hockey Songs.
  
  
• Tyler reports that our odds are still in the high 70's of making the playoffs, and Vancouver is below 40%. And Edmonton still has a 0.8% chance of taking Calgary for the Division title. Go Canucks. Ugh. I feel dirty.
  
  
• If Tyler's stats didn't cheer you up, LT you ten more reasons for Oilers fans to be happy.
  
  
• SM confirms that GUBA isn't the only idiot associated with the Golden Bears Hockey Club.
  
  
• IOF confirms that it isn't our goalies that are bad . . . they never had a chance in the first place. Well, I wish that's what he was saying anyway.
  
  
• And, finally, Razor admits that peddling the Dallas "birth canal looking bull and color scheme" probably wasn't a great idea.
  

Season Record: 38-26-12	Season Record: 35-34-7

Is it wrong to be tired of watching Oilers-Wild games?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those guys who hates the Wild because they are so defensive. I actually think Minnie is pretty offense minded these days when they turn over the puck -- which seems to happen an awful lot against Edmonton. It's just that I'm tired of watching them. Rollie has only been with Edmonton for under a month, and he is getting his fourth start against the Wild tonight. B-O-R-I-N-G.

In any case, after two laughers against teams that had already mentally hit the 19th tee box, I'm guessing that tonight's game will be another tough one. Let's hope all those goals helped some of the Oilers forwards remember that they used to be able to score pretty well. A win tonight would go a long way in helping to bury the Canucks.

Since I've only been wrong 38 times this year, I'm going to continue to predict an Oilers win: 3-1. Smyth, Bergeron and *gasp* Dvorak.

Sacamano's Key to the Game: Stop Rolston - the guy has killed us this year.

Scoreboard Watching:

• Dallas @ Anaheim
  
• San Jose @ LA
• Nashville @ St. Louise

*With the win over Phoenix last night, the Flames' magic number to clinch at playoff spot is now down to 3; equally encouraging, their magic number to clinch the NW is 8, thanks to Colorado's loss to San Jose.

*Huselius and Phaneuf each scored their 19th goal of the season last night. One more each would give the Flames five 20-goal scorers, something that only 5 NHL teams can boast of right now (one of which is the Oil, the others being Detroit (7), Carolina (6), Buffalo (5), and Tampa Bay (6)). You may recall that last season, Shean Donovan's 18 goals was good for 2nd place on the Flames.

*The Flames' special teams have somewhat quietly improved a whole hell of a lot over the season. They're presently 9th in the league on the PP (18.8% - they're also T4th in SHG against w/ 6). They're 10th in the league on the PK (83.9%). There was a so-ridiculous-it's-funny moment back in the 1st period of Game 4 this season (vs. Colorado) when the Flames were at 5% on the PP and 50% on the PK, good for 30th on both counts.

It's an open question as to how important Special Teams Play will be in this year's playoffs relative to last time (best vague guess being "somewhat more important"), but regardless, being solid in both areas sure can't be a disadvantage.

*McGuire's 2nd-most dubious assertion last night was about Jarome Iginla. (The 1st, by-the-way, was after noting Kipper stopped 41 shots against Detroit: "Wow - when was the last time the Flames gave up 40 shots!" Well Pierre, it was way back on March 18th. They also allowed 39 on March 9th, 19th, and 21st. Anyway...)

So... he asserted that the Flames were not near as good on the road as at home (OK so far) because the home team can matchup Iginla, and that pretty much takes care of things. Just looked it up: Jarome has 19 goals at home this season and 14 on the road. I suppose you could use those numbers to support either side of the argument, depending on how significant you find that 5-goal discrepancy. (This season, home teams in the NHL score 10.7% more than road teams, so if you had to guess how 33G broke down between H/R for a Mystery Player, your best guess would be 17/16 or 18/15.)

I predicted during the Olympics that Jarome would be Large over the remainder of the schedule. That hasn't really happened, statistically, but damn, he does look good out there: I'm still of the mind that we're heading into the playoffs with the best forward and the best goaltender.

*With last night's win, the Flames exceeded last season's point total of 94, with 6 games left. Only 2 of those points have come from shootout wins, so we're definitely ahead of pace.

The bad news, of course, is that because Martin Gelinas is +24 with 16 goals in Florida, and Chris Clark is playing a poor man's Warren Young in Washington, "the Flames are not as strong, personnel-wise, as they were in 2004, when they went to the Stanley Cup final."

Duhatschek's statement there is non-disprovable. Winning the Stanley Cup, the only way the Flames can improve on last season's performance, is incredibly tough even with the undisputed top roster in the league. And even if they do, someone could (and would) argue that it was on Kipper's back, in spite of the weaker skaters.

But I like the way things are going.

It's Flames vs. Coyotes, live across the nation on TSN, 8PM MDT.

The Flames' last (other) home game against the Coyotes was waaayyy back in Game 7 of the season, Home Game #3: Calgary was shut out 2-0 (2nd was an empty-netter) to drop to a miserable 2-4-1 at the time. Since that time, the fortunes of the two teams have, uh, gone in opposite directions.

The Flames' magic number is now 5. Any combination of points earned by the Flames and not earned by the Canucks, adding up to 5, will officially clinch a playoff spot. (Magic number for the NW title is 12; same deal, but with Colorado).

The last time Calgary & Phoenix met up, the Flames played one of their better games of the year (on the road! against someone other than Edmonton!); it was far more dominating than the 4-3 final score would suggest.

The car radio tells me that all of the injured Flames will either be back tonight, or they're just about there (if you're counting, that's Warrener, Leopold, McCarty, Nilson, and Leclerc).

I expect that Phoenix will play a lot better tonight than they did against the Oilers on Monday, but it's not going to be enough. Maybe we'll see Reinprecht score a goal, but I think Kipper is going to be a wall, insofar as he's needed. 3-0 Final. Go Flames.

Sacamano brings it up, and it's not the first time I've wondered, or been asked about it: why are there so many more good Oilers blogs than Flames blogs?

Well, I dunno. For starters, there is a good Flames blog. Five Hole Fanatics, published by frequent commenter Metrognome, has good original content and analysis. I have been terribly negligent in not putting it up on the blogroll; it goes up today.

Apart from that, though... it's pretty barren out there. Red Mile: The Calgary Flames Blog is a terrific looking site that has lots of handy links. This is not to criticize -- it is what it is -- but the content is almost entirely game recaps and news, in most cases straight off of the wire. I'd like it a lot more if the author was more opinionated, like in the disclaimer at the foot of the page:

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author. If you don't like what I write, you're obviously an Oilers or Canucks fan and I feel sorry for you.

Maybe you should go cry to your mommy when we knock your team out of the playoffs again.

That's the spirit! There's also CalgaryPuck.com - I understand that their forum is fairly popular. I'd also compliment them on some nice stats work linked from the sidebar, addressing special teams, strength of schedule, and ice time. It's not really a blog, though, it's a fan site. The blog-style updates on the main page are mainly game reviews, written with a bit of flair, so they got that going for them, which is nice.

I probably visit Calgary Puck about 90% less than I would if so many of their ads didn't flash and/or vibrate. But hey, it beats this site's business plan!

All in all, though, full credit to mc79hockey, IOF, Lowetide, and (still my favourite hockey blog) Covered in Oil: they have the Battle of Alberta (Hockey Blog Division) pretty well dominated.

Hilarious Postscript:
Found while "researching" this post: The Red Mile Revenge. In their own words:

The Group: Red Mile Revenge! An association of poets and other artists interested in bringing culture back to the so-called Red Mile
[...]
Performance poetry (dark, erotic and provocative) and more! So if you have a monologue, a diatribe, a work of fiction that you can perform in 10 minutes or less, come on down!

Awesome! How's that going, anyway?

I have no idea how I planned to measure success for this kooky venture, but I feel successful now. The March 7th event was fantastic, even with a game playing in the next room.

We turned a negative into a positive by mocking the sports fans in the next room and jeering when the obnoxious "goal scored" siren went off... only twice, those pansies!

I really like that we have so many regulars now, and new people are actually coming to me with inquiries. Very cool!

Nice! Stick it to those obnoxious sports fans! Spoiler alert if you're going to click through: the site author describes herself as a "Star Trek geek".

Yet another promising Oilers blog has popped up. Black Dog Hates Skunks (BDHS if I may) has been commenting around for a little while. He started off commenting on all kinds of things including the Olympics, but lately has focused enough on the Oilers that I'm including him in our
Hockey Blogroll.

Just what is going on in Calgary? Does anyone actually care about them down there?

Hey Hey Hey!

Sorry for the unannounced absence, but as Fenwick mentioned, I was somewhat indisposed.

Mrs. Sacamano and I are pleased to introduce Li'l Miss Sacababy, the newest Oilers superfan. Appropriately, for readers of this web log, she was born on the morn of a Battle of Alberta. Perhaps more appropriately, for people that know her father, she was born on April Fool's Day.

Speaking of BofA and April Fool's, I had this gag all lined up for Saturday morning when the big event pulled me away from my computer. I was hoping to have at least one Flames fan choke on their morning muffin, but instead it was me gettin' punk'd.

What with all the learnin' about 'colostrum and 'meconium', I haven't even had time to catch up on all the Oilers news. I see that Madcrutch has the Oil up above 75% probability of making the playoffs which is nice. In any event, I imagine I'll be back in action sometime this week, although I suspect my commenting rate may be somewhat decreased as it seems pretty difficult to type with only one hand.

Go Oil!

I listened to last night's Flames/Wings game from partway through the second period on. I'm now of the mind that the biggest reward for the 3rd playoff seed (i.e. the Northwest Division title) is not the home-ice advantage, and it's not the more favourable first-round matchup: it's the guarantee that we wouldn't face the Wings until the conference final (if it comes to that, etc...).

Unless the Wings are really able to make short work of their first two opponents, I like the chances of beating them in Round 3 a lot more than Round 1.

Unrelated: mike w at Covered in Oil has come up with a new wrinkle on excerpting the TSN message boards. He's reporting on the emoticons used by angst-ridden HFBoards posters (in this case Canucks fans). My only comment: why the hell didn't I think of that! (Also, nice Bertuzzi picture. Just in case people don't hate the guy enough, you go and show him wearing a Yankees hat? For shame, Mike.)

Flames vs. Red Wings tonight, 7PM MDT, radio only.

I had no good idea what kind of heater the Red Wings were on lately. Ducks? Pffft! Check it:

• Points in their last 13 games (10-0-3)
• 19-2-4 in their last 25 (18 of those 19 wins in regulation time)
• Remember that fooferaw in San Jose after the Olympics, where their 5 Swedes didn't play and they lost 5-1? That's their only road loss in regulation since January Freakin' 10th.
• Go back to mid-December when they lost consecutive games (1 in OT) to Atlanta & Florida. Since then, their road record is 17-2-1. I can't imagine that it's only because I'm a Flames fan that I find that remarkable.

In other words, the Red Wings are a very, very good hockey team. The Flames have already clinched at least a split of the season series, and if they earn a point tonight, I'll be satisfied with the result. Whether I'm satisfied with the performance is another matter, of course. The Flames played a heck of a game the last time the Wings were here: winning 3-1, extending their win streak at the time to 8 games, and just generally carrying the play.

In light of those previous (two) performances against Detroit, and the fact that they seem to have their Home Mojo working, I'll call it 3-2 Calgary in OT. Lombardi scores again, and Amonte finally gets off the schneid. Go Flames.

Before I put up the world famous Flames Game Day feature, I thought I'd bore you all with an update on how my various fantasy teams are doing.




Hockey

I've had a good year, but I'm 2nd in a 20-team league with only the mathematically remotest possibility of moving up to 1st. Jammy Jagr has been unbelievable for me, as the 36th overall pick in the draft, as have Zetterberg, Tanguay, Gaborik, and Demitra (their various injuries aside). My chance of winning the thing in the last two weeks here probably depends on a very very long shutout streak by Kipper, together with some high-scoring losses by Niittymaki, Kari Lehtonen, and Marturs Gerbe, all goaltenders for the David Johnson squad I'm chasing.

Basketball

I'm in an 8-team head-to-head league with Grabia and some of the Sports Matters fellows, and just won my quarterfinal match. I'm lucky enough to have grabbed Dwyane Wade with my first-round pick, who has been dynamite all year save for the odd 10-turnover performance. The rest of my roster seems to be either finally recovered from lengthy injury (e.g. Jermaine O'Neal), or really rounding into top form (e.g. Yao). Despite having finished 5th in the "regular season", I may actually have a chance in this week's semifinal against the Artest Humanitarians: besides the great team name, they also have a roster that stars Steve Nash, Mike Bibby, and NBA Fantasy God Shawn Marion.

Baseball

I'm in a 12-team head-to-head league with Cosh, Tyler, and a number of the aforementioned Sports Matters dudes (i.e. way too goddamn many Oiler fans). As I was reminded roughly hourly during our weeklong 27-round online draft, my roster is pretty heavy on guys who are old (Javy Lopez, Tom Glavine), fragile (Scott Rolen, Mark Prior, and more), or both (Frank Thomas, Barry Bonds). It's the kind of roster where if the injury gods are on my side, I could darn near dominate the league; if they're not, I'll be fighting for 11th place with waiver pickups like Frank Catalanotto.

Unfortunately, the season didn't get off to a great start, as one of my guys who is both young and relatively rugged had a problem. If you read Cosh's site, you and his 1500+ daily readers already know about it:

Due to an editor's error, the following sentence appeared in my baseball preview yesterday: "Can you believe C.C. Sabathia is still just 25 years old?". This should have read "Can you believe C.C. Sabathia is going to leave the mound with a case of sprained fat seven outs into the season?" ColbyCosh.com regrets the error -- though not as much as Matt Fenwick, who owns Sabathia in my fantasy league.

Thanks for that, Colby. This might be a long, long season. (P.S. While "sprained fat" is a somewhat imprecise diagnosis, it's probably as good a characterization of Captain Cheesburger's ailment as any.)

8 games: 5 CGY regulation wins, 1 EDM regulation win, 1 EDM overtime win, 1 EDM shootout win.

Goals: CGY 26, EDM 17

Points: CGY 12, EDM 6 (difference of 6)

Present CGY lead over EDM in Standings: 6

Number of refs who tonight assured themselves they won't be working the postseason: 1. In the end, the right call was made, but how can the ref call Torres for highsticking, then forget to blow the whistle while the Oilers rag the puck around? I might have seen that happen before, but never for more than a second or two. In this case, Roloson had time to get to the bench...

Flames Sacks/Hurries on Oilers D-men: waaaay too many to count

Good Chances for Tommy to Complete his Hat-Trick: about 4

The 1st Goal by Langkow, How Often Does a Flame Forward Convert a Perfect Setup From Iginla Like That?: Maybe 40%

So Matt, did you laugh much when Hughson pointed out that the Oilers were trying to play Peca and Pronger against the Iginla line, then remembered to further point out that the Iginla line had all 3 goals to that point?: Yes I did

Tonight's Goal Totals for Two Guys Who Have Dressed as Flames Forwards this Season: Reinprecht 3, Leclerc 0

Are the Oilers going to make the playoffs?: Probably, but they have to be better. Back around Christmas, mudcrutch (among others, but most notably) did a pretty good job of demonstrating that the Oilers were succeeding in spite of abysmal goaltending. I'll have to take a look at the updated (or rather, the 2nd half) numbers. I doubt their scoring is as good lately, and I doubt that their xGA is as low as it once was.

Best Period of the Battle of Alberta so far this Season: Period 1 of Game 8, tonight. Just mean and rough enough to make me believe that a playoff series could go that way.

See you in the funny pages, Oil fans. Or, the Conference Finals. Whatever.

Sacamano's day has been great enough. The Oilers are going to lose, and lose convincingly, by a 3-1 score that flatters the home team. Go Flames.

Tonight, at 8PM MST on HNIC, goes the 8th and final regular season installment of the Battle of Alberta. The Oilers need the win more than the Flames, and probably need to come out strong and/or score early to get the Edgy Rexall Fans onside. On the other hand, the Flames ought to be pretty dang far from philosophical about the whole thing. mc79hockey now has them as 99.1% to make the playoffs; I have to think a win, particularly in regulation, would bump that up to the 99.9%+ "range".

Amazingly, tonight's game has taken a distant second place on the Today's Excitement Scale, as the world has a brand new Oilers fan.



Bright and early this morning, one Little Miss Sacamano was born in Edmonton. Both she and Mrs. Sacamano are apparently doing well. Congratulations and good wishes can be left in the comments, if you desire. I'll start a separate thread for the hockey talk.