Someone with more hockey experience can correct me, but what I usually see.

Hockey, like basketball, is a lot about mismatches. When I play, I know what I can do and I know what the guys on the other team can do. If a poor skater is on my tail, I wont exert a lot of energy (im usually that poor skater). If a fast skater is behind me, im hot tailing ass to get to the puck. Same thing on the offensive zone. If I know the other line is not their scoring line, Ill take a liberty as a defensemen to cycle into the zone. If the other line has a guy with the name Hossa on his back, Im not going to cycle in unless im really sure the guy who cycles in for me is not Adam Burish or related.

Again, you want to get the defense out of position, so you move the puck around, especially closer to the crease because the defensemen generally will chase. You dont want the guy behind the net passing/shooting it into the crease and have it shot in. This is one of the things the Hawks do really well. Toews goes into the corners and wins a lot of pucks that end up in front of the crease. Sharp scores most his goals by camping in front of the net. Its also what frustrates me most about Byfuglien because being so big, he should be able to camp in front of the net and score tons of goals. Instead, he is the hockey version of Tyrus Thomas and steps back so he can take really weak slapshots rather than get beat up inside.

One of the problems I have with hockey is that it is hard to look at the game from the normal TV angle or the angle from the seats. Ive been watching for a while and still cant always get a feel for it. From the player's view, you usually want one of your players in front of the goal or you want to catch the defensemen in front of the goalie in a non-defending position. Goalies will greater than 95% of the time stop the puck if they see it, so you want to get a higher percentage shot if possible.

As far as matching lines, a lot of it is making sure the puck stays off the boards and out of the zones. Bigger and/or physical players usually have a better chance of winning battles in the corners and along the boards over the lighter players like Kane (who actually has been playing really well along the boards this year). So, you try to match up in that manner.

With the Hawks speed and the defensemen's ability to bring the puck up, they can dump the puck and have their speedy forwards get to the corners to win the battles. They are also great at passing and have great vision on the ice.

Dont know if that helped.

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^^^This is good stuff. Thank you.

Is there a tendancy to be better at offense, defense, or avearge all around to be a more succesful team or is it really dependant on your goalie?

Why did the penguins win over detroit last year?

When I watch Kane play I think he is a good puck handler, skater, and good at setting people up but I don't see what makes him as special as everyone talks about him being...

The goalie saving that 90-95% of pucks he sees (gotta give breaks for breakaways and occasional brain farts) and a strong defense allows you to mix and match on offense. Detroit has been great over the years because their defense (Lidstrom) was one of the best in the league both at playing defense and quarterbacking the puck into the zone. I assume his injury was a big reason that Detroit ended up losing to Pittsburgh.

Kane has come a long way from last year. His biggest problem last year was his overconfidence, like trying to bring pucks out of his zone through three guys. I think he is getting better at learning what he can and cannot do in this league and I am seeing the same thing you are as far as not looking too special. As he grows and gains experience, I *hope* that he turns into a top 20 player in the league by making where he needs to be and what he can do best second nature.

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No major sport has a less meaningful regular season than the NHL. Beyond certain boundaries (be one of the 16 out of 30 teams that make the Stanley Cup playoffs), it just doesn't matter that much--except to the extent that good NHL coaches use the regular-season games to prepare for the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Unfortunately, Joe(l) Quenneville doesn't seem to know how to do that. He's made the Stanley Cup playoffs every year he's been a head coach and has been bounced from the playoffs every year without even making it to the SCF: 0-12. That's why I think Quenneville is more likely to be fired before Lovie or maybe even Vinny (tho Vinny's likely to go first)--Quenneville doesn't take this Blackhawks team to the SCF this season and the Bowmans won't bring him back next season.

you don't watch the NBA do you?

Home court advantage is very meaningful in the NBA playoffs and *usually* determines who wins most close series and ultimately the NBA championship. Home ice advantage in the NHL? Just ask the San Jose Sharks how much that matters in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

i'm too lazy to look it up to argue with you but i think overall home field advantage can be an overrated intangible in any major sport.

i think most sports have too long of a regular season anyway.

Well, how many times has an 8 seed beaten a 1 seed in the NBA playoffs? Once: Golden State over the Mavericks--and that was a 5 game series. Had that Warriors @ Mavs series been a 7 game series, Dallas likely wins.

8 seeds beat 1 seeds in a full 7 game opening round series all the time in the Stanley Cup playoffs--Ducks did it to the Sharks last year. And the Oilers were an 8 seed and took out the top seed Red Wings a few seasons back and so forth. And it's not just 8's regularly beating 1's in the Stanley Cup playoffs, I think on average 2 of the top 4 seeds (1 and 2 in each conference) get bounced in the first round each year.

And then if you follow it all the way through to the championship round, I think you'll find that the NBA Finals more often than not feature a 1 or 2 seed taking on a 1 or 2 seed and an 8 seed has never made the NBA Finals. Whereas in the NHL 8 seeds do make it all the way to the SCF, which the 2 top seeds (1 seed from each conference) have met in the Stanley Cup finals only 1 time: Avs-Devils in 2001. Whereas 1 vs 1 is the most common match-up in the NBA finals.

that was actually what i was going to look up and was too lazy to.

I don't know what the numbers are for hockey but it actually ends up quite important in the NBA. http://www.nba.com/2009/news/features/john_schuhmann/04/17/homecourt20090417/

Now of course, just like every other sport, the team with homefield advantage normally has had a better season(except in the case of a division winner getting an advantage over a team with more wins who didn't win the division).

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Guess what? It was a seven game series. Guess what else? Golden State still won...4-2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_NBA_Playoffs

Also, they weren't the first team to win in the first round as an eight seed...not even the second...

Nuggets beat the Sonics as an eight in the early nineties...Knicks beat the Heat as an eight in the last nineties...

Red Wings scored a grand total of 2 goals in the last two games.
Offense was gone after Game 5.

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There goes one over the fence..Tru Link Fence..Beauty, Privacy Security....Call Tru Link.
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WOO LIFE!!!!

But, but, but...the Red Wings had



And the Hossa scores 2 goals a game every time he takes the ice...

Ah, the Warriors were the first 8 seed to beat a 1 seed in the best of 7 format. Thanks.

As far as the regular season goes, you can say basketball is more meaningless. Positioning is actually much more important in the NHL as 8 seeds beat 1 seeds more often than basketball. When was the last time even a 4 seed won a trophy in basketball?

As far as Quenneville goes, I have heard people say that the Hawks are really not playing his system, rather that they are playing Scotty Bowman's system. Not a lot of people come out to ask that tough question, but I think for now he deserves the benefit of the doubt. If I have complaint about him, it is that he tries very hard to get good line matchups, but when things dont go right, he almost looks like he goes into panic mode. One case was the home loss against Nashville. Most of the third period, I couldnt recognize the same lines from just a few minutes before because of all the changes. It seemed to lead to confusion and they were out of place a lot near the end, resulting in two more goals being scored. That being said, if the Blackhawks dont win a cup, it wont be because of the coach. It will be because of a very hot goalie that they run into or a team that plays against their system the way Buffalo did. Lots of speed, win a lot of puck battles and clog the neutral zone.

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San Jose lost to a very talented Anaheim team that happened to struggle early in the season with injuries, otherwise they would have been much higher.

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What? I think the last sentence defeats the point of your 1st sentence. And the 2nd sentence seems internally inconsistent.

How is positioning more important in the NHL if the 1 seed is more likely to lose to the 8th seed?

Lets say that in the NBA that an 8 seed has a 2% chance of winning the series but in the NHL an 8 seed has a 10% chance of winning. That means that it is much more important in the NBA to not be the 8th seed since you are much less likely to win. Also, that means that the #1 seed is much less likely to lose and therefore being a #1 seed is more important.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

They still didn't have home ice advantage. Nor did any of the other 8 seeds who picked off 1 seeds (or 7 seeds beating 2 seeds in the Stanley Cup playoffs and so forth on down the line). Home court advantage in the NBA playoffs > Home ice advantage in the Stanley Cup playoffs is all we're sayin.

Lidstrom was injured and Datsyuk was injured. Im sure slappy can better explain his team's fail though.

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What I am saying is that the NBA plays an 82 games season when by about game 30, you know who the top 3 teams are in each conference and pretty much bet 95% that they are going to win most of their playoff games. So, its actually pointless to play the remainder of the 50 games, right? Look right now. In the east, you have Cleveland, Boston and Orlando as the top 3 three seeds. Now, I dont watch enough basketball, but what I hear from sports radio, Milwaukee really sucks. Yet, Milwaukee is a number 7 seed right now. So, again, whats the point of playing over half the NBA season?

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Yeah, after an easy series against Columbus. The Wings struggled to beat the Ducks in 7 games. And even tho the Wings beat the Blackhawks 4 games to 1, it seemed like a longer series.

Red Wings always seem to struggle out West.

Detroit and Columbus should probably be in the Eastern Conference,
as they're the only Eastern time zone teams in the Western Conference.

But it matters a lot who has home court in the conference finals and then again in the NBA finals. So the ranking of those top 3 seeds and the overall best record in the NBA does matter. Jordan's Bulls, especially in the 2nd run of championships, were a good example of that.

But in general I agree that the NBA and NHL seasons are too damn long.

I'd be all for the contraction of both NHL and NBA seasons. And if 82 and 80 games are too many.. what does that say about the often somnambulent sport of baseball? 162 games over 6 months? Keep it. No wonder the Rams vs. the Lions had a bigger audience than the third game of the World Series this past fall. No sport is more overkilled than baseball and it's by a mile.

You've been very high-horsey with the 'my sport is better than your sport' stuff. What gives??

It's the Chantix, Keyser. How many days until pitchers and catchers report?

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

Green with envy, Keyser. In person, no sport is better than pro hockey. And I really, really get tired of the daily over analysis of baseball. It's tedious, despite my fondness for the White Sox and going to both parks.

37 excruciating days. Thanks for reminding me.

Yeah, those endless Grossman/Orton discussions were riveting. They gotta get rid of the cover 2! No more bubble screens! Move Zorich to linebacker! Keep it.

Now that I can definitely agree on.

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