Thirty Stories Up

Eastern Conference

(1) Sabres vs. (6) Rangers

This is definitely the series to watch this round, as it pits the best-constructed system team in the NHL, the always dangerous Buffalo Sabres, against the hottest team on ice right now, the surging Rangers. While I’m sure Rangers fans would have much rather faced the Senators than any other team in the East right now, the fact is that everyone who wants to watch good hockey wanted to see this matchup.

It’s tough not to like the way these two teams are going to look going up against each other. Two of the best young goaltenders in the league each look to lead their teams to the next four wins. Buffalo fields 4 lines that are serious threats to score every game, and they have a system that minimizes the threat of any one player. This provides a favorable matchup with the Rangers defense, which showed against the Thrashers that they can shut down individual marquis players but has yet to prove that it can consistently shut down entire lines.

That said, it’s not all doom and gloom for the Blueshirts. They have an energy line that provides more than its fair share of scoring while shutting down opponents, and they can play a far more physical game than Buffalo’s system is tailored to oppose. They also have more multidimensional scoring than the Sabres will expect; you’ll see the Sabres defense concentrate on Jagr and Straka, but expect Avery and Shanahan to slip through the cracks and get multiple goals each.

The Rangers also have the advantage on intangibles right now. They’re unquestionably the hottest team right now, and Lundqvist has been a huge part of that. The Sabres are going to have to solve Lunqvist pretty much from scratch, as three of the four games in the season series saw Rangers backup Weekes in net. There’s also the question of the (newly-minted) “Avery Factor”, in which the scrappy midseason pickup’s mouth did as much to take several premier Thrashers mentally out of the game as his constant shots did to keep the Rangers physically in the offensive zone. The Sabres haven’t seen any of the Rangers pickups or callups this season, so they’re going in with only secondhand knowledge of some very important, hot players.

The biggest factor in this series is going to be whether the Sabres can keep their system going. There’s little question in my mind that the Sabres are the better team, but the Rangers can beat better teams right now by breaking down their game plans and neutralizing skill players. Look for a six-game series in which the Rangers surprise the Sabres out of the gate, the Sabres collect themselves, and then it becomes a grind for that fourth win on both sides. I think the Broadway Blueshirts can keep grinding, keep disrupting the opposing gameplan as they have been, and squeak out the win in what should be by far the most exciting series this round.

New York in 6

(2) Devils vs. (4) Senators

Like I said last round, it comes down to Brodeur. Unfortunately for the Devils, he showed some weaknesses last round and didn’t seem to be playing at a hundred percent. Unfortunately for the Senators, the Devils still managed to win that series, and Brodeur has had a few more days to recuperate.

Ottawa has finally gotten the first-round jitters out of the way, so look for them to play some better hockey than they have been, but the fact is that the Penguins are a far, far inferior team to the Devils, and confounding a young goalie is a far different task than beating a master.

I stand by my assertion that in any series the Devils play in, it’s all about Brodeur. The Senators are going to play scrappy hockey and get some lucky bounces for at least a win, but they’re not going to take the series unless they step it way, way up from their first-round performance.

New Jersey in 5

Western Conference

(1) Red Wings vs. (5) Sharks

This is going to be the big upset of the round (even though the Rangers are a lower seed, I think they’re a more widely expected winner than the Sharks). The Red Wings are playing some quality hockey, but the Sharks just have a team composition that I love, and they’re playing some great hockey lately. Again, I don’t catch that many Western Conference games, but I see the Sharks taking this in a hard-fought series.

San Jose in 7

(2) Ducks vs. (3) Canucks

The Canucks gave it their all in the first round, and they needed every bit of gas in the tank to get past the Stars. Without extra time to rest, they’re going to be gassed going up against a Ducks team that has every bit of the Cup-winner look to them. Look for the aging but extraordinarily effective Ducks defense to shut down the Canucks, and for the lucky bounces to be the only way for the Canucks to get more than one win out of the series.

Anaheim in 5

Filed under: Hockey
1 Comment

As a reward for finishing my research paper on time (and under budget), I let myself get sucked into an awesome New York Rangers playoff party at The Big Easy (2nd Ave. and 92nd-93rd).  Awesome crowd, great bartender, good drinks!  I think I may have a new favorite New York Rangers bar (although Down the Hatch still takes the general hockey bar crown).  The Rangers sweep the Thrashers on the heel of a great 4-2 game, proving me almost right (I thought the Thrash could take one, but the Rangers were just too much for them!)

Originally uploaded by StudentNYC.

Filed under: Life in NYC
No Comments

The tragedy this week has been difficult for all of us to comprehend. The overwhelming attitude on the St. John’s campus seems to be confusion. How could this happen? What kind of person could even think about doing something like this? Why in God’s name did this have to happen at a university, a place of learning and growing, to so many who deserved it so little?

The pursuit of learning is the highest ideal in Western civilization. From the Greeks onward, we have revered and honored our scholars at all stages of their development. Plato wrote of the philosopher-king as the best of all possible men. Though kings and emperors have held sway over continents, the names we learn and idolize, the names that endure, are the wise, not the strong: Euclid, Galileo, Newton, Leibniz, and Einstein all mean more to us, day in and day out, than any man ever deluded enough to believe that one man’s domain should spread across the Earth to the farthest border, or that what happens at the end of the barrel of a gun could ever be more important than what flows from the tip of a pen. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs places self-actualization at the top; a pinnacle towards which we all strive to reach, knowing that, in reaching it, we become more than an animal, however rational, driven by outside forces which we cannot comprehend or control. Our schools, more than any other place, are regarded as a refuge for the curious and inquisitive to experience, to learn, and to grow, from the earliest kindergartens to the most advanced degree programs. Indeed, when one receives a college degree the ceremony is not graduation, but commencement; having achieved growth and found themselves, then we consider the rest of their lives to begin.

To see so many, cut down so close to that day when they can begin anew, is a terrifying blow to that sense of order and safety that parents, teachers, and students depend on. When order trumps chaos, a parent can drop a child off for the first day of kindergarten trusting that any fears are unjustified, and that overcoming those fears leads to growth, not pain. When order trumps chaos, parents can drop their child off for the first day of college knowing that, for the child, it’s the first step along a greater path, a path that leads to completeness as a person. When order trumps chaos, potential inevitably leads to accomplishment.

When chaos trumps order, the curious and the inquisitive learn not to reach out, but to stay within. When chaos trumps order, progress is replaced by stagnation. When chaos trumps order, potential remains, unfulfilled, to be replaced by nothing.

This is why we must not let chaos triumph over order, no matter what the cost. This is why we stand together today; not a school, nor a nation, but the only identity that, in the end, truly matters: as thinking, striving people. This is why all of us today stand together: from the newest undergraduate to the most senior professor, from the student-athlete who rides the bench in the hope of someday shining to the professional athletes who take the field every day, from the struggling students to the honored elite. We each, as our own person, may reach out today because we each trust in order; we trust in the person beside us, in the person we teach, or learn from, in the dearest of friends to the bitterest of rivals, because we trust that, in times such as these, all of us know that our higher calling is to ensure that chaos never triumphs.

Today, I reach out as a graduating senior in St. John’s University. I reach out as a New Yorker. I reach out as a scholar, and as a professional, and as a writer, knowing that in each, I am not alone in reaching out. I reach out to the victims, the families, the affected, and the future, knowing my own are not, will not be, cannot ever be the only hands extended.

Today, the way to triumph is to remember. The way to remember is to honor. And the way to honor is to strive, with all of our strength, to fulfill that potential in ourselves, and to give everyone we meet the best chance to fulfill their own potential, because today, there are 32 people who will never have the chance to.

Today, we are all striving for the best within us, in order to show that there is no horror, there is no madness, there is no chaos that can overcome the best within us.

Today, we are all Hokies.

Filed under: Column
No Comments

So with the Great Nor’Easter of 2007 tapping at my window, flooding my streets, and making the prospect of venturing outside mildly unpleasant in all respects, I sit here with no Nationals game to listen to.  That’s a blessing right now, because the Nationals stunned the Mets yesterday with a strong outing from our unexpected ace Shawn Hill and some actual offense backing him up.  This is encouraging, because it means the Kasten Kops are at least playing to the best of their meager ability; the dedicated Nats bloggers have been predicting this for a few games now, because the Nats are simply playing so far below every reasonable percentage (especially their batting averages with bases loaded and runners in scoring position); there’s simply not a way for a group of reasonable, fairly competent human beings to perform as badly over the long haul as the Nationals have been lately in high-leverage situations.  The weather lets us escape for now with a 1-1 push against the Mets, as no makeup date has been announced.  It also gets us out of the week with two unexpected wins against far superior teams, and has us playing .250 baseball (who’d'a thunk it?)

Of course, far more exciting than watching the Nationals play the Official Chad Cordero Game (are we getting 1-2-3 Chad or Bases Loaded Chad tonight?) is the flurry of activity that is the NHL playoffs.  The Lightning surprised me by taking one against Brodeur and the Devils, and the Isles under DiPietro’s evidently recovered watchful eye took one against top-seeded Buffalo.  I can’t blame the Isles for rushing DP back, and it seems to be working, but you have to wonder if he’s seeing still seeing twice as many pucks as the rest of us.

The big news of the playoffs so far, however, has been the Thrashers benching young goalie Lehtonen after a shaky playoff debut in favor of Johan Hedberg.  They found themselves in a tough spot after Lehtonen’s shaky start in Game One, but the decision to bench Lehtonen has a lot of consequences, especially since Hedberg couldn’t get the job done either.  Now they have to balance whether to put Lehtonen in and hope that he can gain some playoff confidence quickly, or keep the more experienced, more assured Hedberg in and risk shaking Lehtonen’s long-term confidence.  The fact is that they’re between a rock and a hard place; Lehtonen is clearly the future of the franchise, but they gave up a lot to get into the playoffs this year, and a four-and-out is going to be devastating to the club over the next few years.  The fact that Lundqvist is as solid at the other end as he has been since January, and in general the Rangers are imposing their game on the Thrashers, means that unless everybody from down south steps up for game 3 and 4 at the World’s Most Famous Arena, this is a franchise looking at trouble.

Oh, and back to the District, United got shelled 4-2 by Kansas City.  All we need is yet another D.C. team starting out a season miserably and spending the rest of the year trying to live up to aspirations of mediocrity.  Speaking of aspirations of mediocrity, would anyone in the NFL, the media, or the civilized, football-playing world be shocked if the Redskins’ Joe Gibbs (who thinks draft picks are icky) trades his number-six pick for some candy and a pat on the back?  I foresee breaking news alerts on NBC4 if Gibbs holds out for something awesome like a Snickers or a Twix, instead of the candy nobody wants like a Take 5 or a fun-size Almond Joy.

Filed under: Life in NYC
No Comments

Our company’s semi-monthly social event was last night; first, a turn through the New York International Auto Show at the Javits Convention Center, and then a happy hour at Dalton’s Bar and Grill on 9th Avenue between 43rd and 44th.

After a little delayed start getting everyone together at the Javits Convention Center, we finally got our tickets and went in. I certainly had no idea beforehand of the scope of the show; the convention center was huge, and there were two levels of displays. My co-worker and friend Andrew and I set out to see the sights; it turned out it didn’t take long until we stumbled upon a thing of pure beauty.

This is the Shelby GT500 KR, one of the prettiest cars I’ve ever seen. I’ve always had a thing for the classic Shelby Cobras; even though I’m generally a bigger fan of the smaller Euro-style classic racers than American muscle cars, the Shelby Cobra has always stood out as a special car.  The new one preserves enough of the lines and styling of the classic that there’s no doubt exactly what you’re looking at, even before seeing the distinctive cobra on the front grille, yet it looks modern (not that the original Cobras ever really started looking dated).

That’s not a focus problem in the first picture.  That’s motion blur.  And it wasn’t even moving at the time.

That wasn’t the only Shelby at the show; though the KR concept was up on a pedestal, they had the ‘regular old GT500′ (it physically hurts me to think of any Shelby as ‘regular’) out on the show floor.

Of course, having heard that classics are back, Volvo had to get into the act.

And while I was making life difficult for the guys whose sole job was to wander around the show floor and and keep the cars polished, there was one more car I just had to touch; a pretty, pretty Benz.

Hyundai, as always, was looking to shed their ‘generic’ image; this time with a paint job for the Tiburon designed by Billy Art.

Of course, we couldn’t get out of there without Andrew getting to spend some time with his dream car, a Jaguar XJ.

And I had to take one more parting shot of my own new dream car.

After the auto show, we all headed to Dalton’s Bar and Grill for a happy hour.  I was immediately discouraged, as their promised display of the NHL playoff games was a no-go, as they didn’t actually have the Center Ice package (what the hell kind of sports bar doesn’t have all the sports channels?).  Also, I was looking forward to trying some Magic Hat and McSorley’s draught; both of those were also no-gos.  Fortunately, there was plentiful Brooklyn Lager, which was surprisingly good, and after the ten minutes it took me to actually get my first beer, I never had an empty glass in front of me without a full one waiting.  The appetizers were also pretty tasty, though as there were about a dozen starving consultants, rather short-lived.  Still, if I were going to go into Manhattan for a sports bar, I’d rather go to Down the Hatch, a sports bar that appreciates some good hockey.

So a few hours later, it was time to take a nice long walk in the pleasant evening air and head home.  All in all, a pretty good evening; the auto show was impressive, and just about every company had at least something interesting to look at.  The bar would have been disappointing had I been paying for it, but for a company event it wasn’t bad.

Filed under: Life in NYC
No Comments

Slow couple of days due to exams, research papers, and saving every spare moment to watch the NHL playoffs or listen to the Nationals on the radio, so nothing terribly interesting and activity-related until the weekend (I’m heading to the New York International Auto Show and Dalton’s Bar and Grill tonight, so I hope to have something interesting to say about those tomorrow).

So here’s what I’ve got for you today, inspired by my forgetful nature; I forgot to bring a book to read on the subway on the way home from work on Wednesday, and my iPod didn’t quite have the juice to make it, so I was forced to brave the city’s news stands to try and find some entertainment for myself.  I noticed while looking that navigating the variety of New York City’s finest broadsheets that I was following much the same process as I do when I’m deciding what delicious beverage to consume with my dinner.  Each has its own flavor, its own texture, and (just as important for public consumption) its own niche in the rich NYC social ecosystem.

The New York Times, of course, is the standard by which other New York newspapers are judged.  Like Guinness, it’s your basic dry stout; the typical news writing gives all the information dryly without the personality or lively writing of some of the other papers, and the sheer weight and depth of it gives a complexity and completeness to it that make it an experience that can be savored on its own.  Nobody can accuse a Guinness drinker of being entirely unsophisticated, though you suspect occasionally that some who order it would be happier with a lighter lager, just as some who conspicuously read the Times in public would rather be reading something else if they didn’t think other people noticed.  I skipped over it on Wednesday; I too was looking for something lighter, something to read on the move; had I been planning to sit in Bryant Park and read for a while, the Times would have been the obvious choice.

Of course, to quickly cover the spectrum of possible readers, many news stands place the New York Post right beside the Times, which is kind of like placing a tap for Budweiser next to the tap for Guinness.  The Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, is the obnoxiously promoted news rag possibly best known for the most opportunistically sensational headline to ever cover a paper, ‘HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR’.  It’s a light paper that has that unique flavor that can only come from being owned by a multi-billion dollar corporation; still, it’s occasionally all that one can find in some places, much like Budweiser is the standard for so many sporting events (need I mention the Post’s extensive sports coverage?).  Fortunately, they had more options at the nearest news stand, so I quickly moved on from the Post.

The Onion is always an option for a little light reading,  but it’s hardly substantive.  Much like a Mike’s beverage (I know I’m cheating, they’re not beer), The Onion is a funny little satire paper that tastes very little like news.  Two problems: much as it’s impossible to actually get drunk off of Mike’s, it’s impossible to actually read The Onion and feel like you’ve taken anything away from it.  If a serious person is to consume it, they do it in the privacy of their own home where other people won’t see.

I work in midtown Manhattan, so another ubiquitous choice is the Wall Street Journal; this is an interesting case.  By and large, nobody who can’t actually stomach the unique flavor of the Journal even tries; in this way, it’s like Hop Devil Ale, a Victory Brewing Company concoction that is appropriately described by their website as ‘menacingly delicious’; beer for people who know exactly what they want from beer.  An astonishing number of people think highly of the Journal that don’t (and couldn’t) read it; the idea of it is more interesting to most than the execution.  Sounds like an appropriate likeness for a beer that won ‘Champion American Beer’ at the 2002 Great British Beer Festival.

I finally settled on the New York Daily News, the news rag opposing the New York Post.  While I call it a rag, it is in fact a reputable newspaper in tabloid layout; it has 9 Pulitzer Prizes to its name, though it sometimes tries to outdo its lesser-respected little brother in sensationalism (as when it dubbed Queens Boulevard the ‘Boulevard of Death‘).  Of course, one of my favorite domestic beers is Yuengling, which many don’t realize comes from one of the United States’ oldest breweries (established 1829).  The traditional lager is quite flavorful but still has a good, complex taste when compared to your better-known domestic beers.

Anyway, there’s as many New York news sheets as there are beers in the city’s bars (except for McSorley’s), so I must have missed some.  What sort of beer would you compare your favorite newspaper to?

Filed under: Life in NYC
No Comments

I consider these picks substantially less well-informed than my Eastern Conference picks (here and here), just because of the vastly greater number of games I watch in the East. But I’m going to take a shot anyway, based on what I have seen.

(1) Red Wings vs. (8) Flames

The Red Wings have gone for team toughness during the last half of this season with the pickup of Bertuzzi. Unfortunately, injuries are putting a lot of pressure on them to display their depth. This will almost certainly be Hasek’s last chance to shine, and he’s going to make or break the series for them.

I think Calgary has the guns to pull this one out, but whoever wins, just like Penguins versus Senators, they’re going to be exhausted, and struggle in the second round.

Calgary in 7 Games

(2) Ducks vs. (7) Wild

The Wild are a great team this year, and seem to be on a roll; that said, they’ve got a mountain to climb against the Ducks, who have Pronger and Niedermayer on defense (tough to beat for consistency), and a fantastic system. The Wild will either come out strong and fade, or fight bravely from behind, but I think the Ducks just have to step up and take it if they want it.

Anaheim in 6 Games

(3) Canucks vs. (6) Stars

I think the Canucks are a little too one-dimensional this year; they have a fantastic set of top scorers, and little to back that up with the exception of fantastic netminding. The Stars are going to be relying too heavily on their own keeper Turco, who has got to be feeling the heat now that he’s built a solid reputation as a playoff choke artist.

The Stars are the better-built, more solid team here, but Turco’s confidence will be shot after the first rally by Vancouver’s top line, and that’s going to open up the door for the more mediocre shooters to build on leads. The question is how early they can do that; I think Turco rides the better team to a couple of wins before going four straight losses.

Vancouver in 6 Games

(4) Predators vs. (5) Sharks

Another tough call here. Unlike the big goalie battles, I think this one is going to come down to whether Thornton or Forsberg finally step up and take the reins; Forsberg was an outstanding leader for the Flyers over the first half when he was on the ice, even when things were dismal. The question is whether his foot is still nagging him (like anyone associated with him would admit otherwise at this point), and how that will affect both his play and his leadership.

I think the Sharks just are the better-coached team. I’ve gotten to watch more of them than most Western teams, and I’ve liked what I’ve seen. They have the team toughness to battle in any situation, and they do a good job of making the other team react when they should taking the initiative.

San Jose in 5 Games

The first playoff pucks drop tonight, so we’ll see how I’ve done pretty soon.

Filed under: Column
No Comments

Continuing from yesterday’s predictions, we now get into the fun games that are a little harder to call.

(3) Thrashers vs. (6) Rangers

Disclaimer: The Rangers, due to proximity and being in their network area, are the team I get to watch the most, and the team I know best in terms of what they do off the ice (besides the Caps, of course). So I probably have a little favoritism going into this, although I think my pick will be fair.

The Thrashers are a perfect example of how to build a team to make Round 1 of the playoffs exciting, and make Round 2 someone else’s problem. Given, that’s not a terrible knock on them; they’re an expansion team, and it was about time for both the management and the fans to experience it. Their building formula seemed to be to wait for a good opening part of the season, and then trade, trade, trade their way to experience, which isn’t a bad way to do it depending on how much of your future you mortgage, although I think the Thrashers might have gone in a bit too hard (unless management really does think they have a good shot at the Cup). Still, it’s difficult to fault anyone for picking up Tkachuk if they have the chance, and I think Pascal Dupuis is unfairly characterized as a one-dimensional speed guy when he has so much more potential than that (if he could only stay on a team for more than a few months at a time).

Unfortunately, they still have weaknesses with their system of play, and nothing emphasizes this more than than their play against the Capitals. They won a majority of those games, but they did it through offense (every single game had 5 or more goals), and Alexander Ovechkin had free reign to hammer them for the entire season series, including a late-game hat trick that stole a win and resulted in an OT goal that just made the Thrashers look outmatched.

As I said yesterday, consistency is the key to winning in the playoffs; they obviously lack the defensive consistency to shut down a marquis player, although Lehtonen is a godsend for them in goal, keeping those lapses from hitting crisis level most of the time. The question then becomes whether they can force a fast-moving, high-scoring game upon their opponents.

And this is where they run into trouble. The Rangers are the very definition of a hot team since they picked up Sean Avery, who was really the last missing piece in their gameplan. This time last year they were a fragile team that melted down late in the season, suffering from a missing marquis player in Jaromir Jagr and a total void of leadership. Fan favorite goalie Henrik Lundqvist was brave in net, but couldn’t shut down the opposition on his own. The team was strong-armed into playing anyone else’s style of hockey within a period, and suffered a humiliating four-and-out in the first round.

This is where us D.C. sports fans scratch our heads in confusion. Doesn’t a humiliating finish to a season mean a fire-sale, or more of the same next season? Not so! The Rangers had an absolutely stellar off-season; their biggest preseason pickup was veteran Brendan Shanahan, who walked in and took the burden of command off of Jagr’s shaky shoulders (not maligning him as a player, but as a captain or leader of any sort he is, to put it mildly, lacking), though he has yet to get the ‘C’ he deserves for his efforts at leading this team. The coaching staff put together a game plan at the beginning of the season, and then, something unusual again for us D.C. sports fans to see, the front office looked at what was working at the trade deadline and what wasn’t and fixed every single problem. Paul Mara has been outstanding at fitting in, and Avery has been the key to this team’s end-of-season run; when Shanahan went out with a lengthy injury, something that would have crippled last year’s Rangers, Avery was ready to step up and lead by example. They’ve also been helped by outstanding mid-season call-ups Ryan Callahan and Dan Girardi, as well as an energy line that took it upon themselves to start scoring goals while out there shutting down the opponent’s top line.

The most important thing about the Rangers is that, since the trade deadline, they’ve been stellar because they’ve forced every single opponent to play their game. They’re controlling the clock, the puck, and the scoreboard, and turning every trip into the offensive zone into a nightmare for the other team. They know exactly what they want to do, they’re getting healthier after plenty of mid-season scares, they’re backed by a goalie who’s on a tear, and they have outstanding coaching. Not to spoil my late-round picks too early, but I’d be shocked if these Rangers weren’t being talked about as living up to the ‘94 tradition, between their rapport with the fans (observe the center-ice stick salute after home wins, a new MSG tradition), their outstanding run just to make the playoffs, and the still-watching visage of Mark Messier, ‘The Captain’, who has really stepped up this year in his off-the-ice efforts to help build the sport of hockey.

New York in 5 Games

(4) Senators vs. (5) Penguins

I think here we have what might be the most exciting matchup in the opening round. These are teams that had the same number of points in the regular season, and both will be hungry to taste the second round this year; the Penguins will want to harden their youth corps with some playoff experience next to grizzled veterans Recchi and Roberts, and the Senators will want to make a good showing for a team that lacks anyone of that much experience.

The Senators have the edge in goaltending, and a reasonable backup should disaster strike; the Penguins have some veteran leadership among their ranks. The Sens have been labeled ‘chokers’, the Pens have been inconsistent on defense. The Senators score more goals and allow less than the Penguins.

It’s tough to pick a winner here; I do think that whoever takes it, it’s going to be an exhasting seven-game series that goes to overtime more than once, and I think that’s going to hurt either team later in the running with every other matchup in the early going having a clear winner. It’s a long campaign, playoff games are even more draining than regular-season ones, and there are a lot of young guys on both teams that have to be dragging at this point in the season. In the end, I think veteran leadership is going to carry the Pens through, but I think both teams will play the other’s game far more than they want to.

Pittsburgh in 7 Games

Tomorrow: The Western Conference!

Filed under: Column
No Comments

Well, it’s playoff time again, and that means time for more bracket prognostication; hopefully I do better with these picks than with my NCAA brackets.

(1) Sabres vs. (8) Islanders

The Islanders have been playing their hottest hockey of the year in the last week, but it’s not going to save them against the juggernaut that is the Sabres. I know they had to hope for more, but with starting goalie DiPietro out for the foreseeable future with post-concussive syndrome, they’re relying on a third-string goalie (Dubielewicz, Wade) who, despite being hot for the last week, has shown some worrying tendencies to choke in clutch situations (namely, twice with 4:00 left in the final, playoff-clinching game of the season). Given, neither of those goals was particularly pretty, nor did either beat him in any way that makes him look unfit to start, but there’s a huge difference between a starting goalie and a playoff goalie. Ryan Smyth could provide some much-needed help up front, but the jury is still out on how much of his day he’s spending thinking about the playoffs and how much he’s spending thinking about getting back to Edmonton; for their part, the fans have to be wishing they’d started this push a little sooner so that Smyth could help them against opposition that looks a little easier.

On the other hand, Buffalo has little to worry about. They have a vast array of guns up front, spearheaded by a pair of talented centers who can both score and move the puck in Briere and Drury. They have a pair of playoff-ready goalies in Conklin and the stellar Miller (40-16-6). Moreover, they also have a flowing, creative style that minimizes their weaknesses and maximizes their strengths; this is a team that, from the day they took the ice, knew what they wanted to be and worked towards pulling together the game plan. They also have the desire; there’s almost no way they’re going to keep this group of guys together next year, considering the cap and the way they’ve played, so this is the time for them to push hard if they want to lift the Cup.

The Isles might make it exciting every game, but I don’t see them making it exciting as a series except for a possible steal of the first game if they play as hot as they have been lately and Dubie can pull it out in the clutch.

Buffalo in 5 Games

(2) Devils vs. (7) Lightning

This series is going to be determined by three little words: Brodeur, Brodeur, Brodeur.

The reason that people so often claim that defense and goaltending win playoffs is consistency; it’s easier for a defensive corps or a goalie to play consistently well day in and day out than it is for your scorers to turn on the red light game after game. Buffalo decided to test this by having more than enough big guns to suit its needs, and a system that uses them all, and so far they’ve been remarkable at proving its consistency, not narrow-minded strategic thinking, that wins games in the regular season; the Lightning can only hope that Buffalo is being too careful, because they’re staking their playoff hopes on two of the game’s best players, Lecavalier and St. Louis, being able to consistently do their heavy lifting. Against many other teams in the playoffs this year, I’d give them the edge.

But then they run into Brodeur.

He’s the eternal rock, the immovable wall. He is the icon of consistency in the NHL, and judging from his play this year, experience is more than making up for age. He can shut down offenses so effectively that I think he’s going to drive a stake right through the heart of Tampa Bay’s game-plan; after that it’s a question of the Devils offense versus the Lightning defense, and I have no doubt that someone is going to be able to slam the puck home past Holmqvist a few times; having each of your goalies start almost half of your games is not the ticket to consistency that the Lightning has been looking for all season. And if they haven’t found a winning formula yet, I find it ever more doubtful that they will.

New Jersey in 4 Games

Come back tomorrow to read my picks for the other two Eastern Conference matchups!

Filed under: Column
2 Comments

Just a little something while I watch the end of the Nationals-Diamondbacks game.

First of all, the Kasten family should be ashamed of the job they’re doing with the Nationals so far. We finally get a real owner for the Nats, and they drop the ball time after time; from what I hear, the offenses range from terribly botched parking and transit, to food-court failures of epic proportions (aside from, incidentally, what I hear may be the best brisket served at any sports venue, ever), and most importantly, production problems that plague the broadcasts from end-to-end. I’ve heard stories of 6-inning blackouts for people who are paying to watch the team on DirecTV. I’m watching the game right now on MASN2 (a more obscure sports network may never be found) via the Time Warner free preview of MLB Extra Innings, and I have to say; what a terrible, terrible broadcast.

Oh, and how about that team you’re fielding, guys? 0-for-25 with runners in scoring position. That’s beyond terrible. There is not a single hitter in the league who, if you put him up for 25 at-bats, would whiff so badly as the team does. Not even pitchers. They actually managed to assemble a team that is far, far worse than the sum of its parts, which are themselves scraps the rest of the league wouldn’t even put on a AAA payroll. We have a pitcher in the rotation who hasn’t even seen a game above the AA level before this season (and I assure you from his stat line over his first start, he is NOT a prodigy).

As I say this, of course, Kearns hammers a high breaking ball into the gap to drive Zimmerman in. So we begin the long climb towards respectability and a win percentage of over .200 for the season. Which, saving a whole lot more inexplicable Ryan Church home runs (one of which, incidentally, won us last Easter’s game), looks unlikely enough.

Of more interest to me is the NHL season that wraps today. I have to give credit to the league, it’s been a barn-burner of a playoff race for all involved, and sometimes it’s seemed like ‘all involved’ was everyone but the Caps, Flyers, and Coyotes. I sometimes want to begin every conversation about the Caps with a Garrison Keillor monologue: “It’s been a frustrating week here for the Washington Capitals, my home team, out here on the edge of the NHL.” We haven’t played particularly well, and if you want to hear the truth, we haven’t even built the team particularly well; GM George McPhee and owner Ted Leonsis still seemed paralyzed by the Jagr fiasco, with no ability to make a big move for a marquis player, something which we need (Ovechkin is practically begging for a veteran star to pull the team together in his media interviews), and which we ought to be able to do so much more easily in this salary-cap era. Ted is an enigma these days; when directly cornered, he promises to be more aggressive in the offseason, but if you read Ted’s Take, he seemed to be spending the last part of the season pointing out failed free-agency pickups.

I’m hopeful, as I always have to be when the Caps are concerned, but I have a sneaking suspicion the only new look we sport next season is going to be the new team branding; we’re dropping the ‘Eagle Streaking Downwards’ logo (which I hated), and the Capitol Dome logo (which it sometimes seems the rest of the free world hates), along with the black and bronze and blue and white color schemes. It’ll be back to red, white, and blue for the Capitals, along with a brand-new logo, both to be revealed when we have a major offseason pickup to model them for us.

Of course, I’m relying here on Leonsis and McPhee to recognize the team’s weaknesses and fix them, something I’m not confident about. We need a #1 center and a top-2 defenseman; I’m afraid they’re going to stick with our too-young defensive corps (average age 23.5), consider Niklas Backstrom our center help (he’s needed, but he’s not suited to play first-line center), and instead pick up a #2 right-wing for far too much money. It doesn’t help that Pavel Datsyuk, the Great Russian Hope for Caps fans in the latter half of the season, resigned with the Devils instead of (as expected) making the jump to Washington (although with the contract they offered him, I can’t blame him).

The regular season finishes out today with one more important game between the Isles and Devils (currently 1-0 Isles), with a win letting the Islanders into the playoffs, although it looks like even if they get in they’ll be stuck with a third-string backup goaltender. It can’t be the end of the season that the Islanders wanted, especially after the marquis Ryan Smyth trade, and I’m sure Smyth is furious (although how much of that is directed at the woeful Oilers instead of in its rightful direction at his agent nobody but him will ever know). Still, in the playoffs anyone can beat anyone else, so we’ll have to see if the Isles can hang in and represent Long Island for a round or two.

The Rangers, on the other hand, have to be ecstatic with the end of their season. They climbed from first-half mediocrity to second-half spectacle on the shoulders of their fan-favorite goalie Henrik Lundqvist. It’s been refreshing to watch the Rangers this season (being the local team, they’re normally all I get to watch from the dorms, a situation that will be rectified when I move into a place with all the human decencies, namely Center Ice). Unlike the Capitals, the Rangers are a team that’s managed right in all the right ways: outstanding free-agent acquisitions (in this season’s new NYC star Brendan Shanahan, a star veteran that brought much-needed leadership to a team that imploded at the end of the last season and will certainly return next season), incredible scouting (in picking up Henrik Lundqvist a few years ago, as well as a fantastic crop of young players), and a fantastic development system (in a minor-league affiliate that actually prepares players to play in the NHL; they may not win the Calder Cup, but every single call-up they’ve had this year has shined at the next level), all things the Caps lack. If you look at the contrasts, the Caps have, to put it kindly, stunk up the place in free agency (marquis signings the last two years: Cassels, Pothier), terrible scouting and drafting in general (they have HOW MANY first-round picks languishing in their system, having hit the peak of their abilities too early), and a minor-league team that, despite amazing success in its own rights (on their way to a second consecutive Calder Cup), is totally unable to develop players who are ready to play immediately at the NHL level. As it is, the Caps have been using the NHL itself as their developmental league, which is unfair to the fans, the young prospects (don’t tank a kid’s career by throwing him in the deep end too soon, guys!), and the stars (Kolzig deserves a shot at a Cup, and Ovechkin deserves an early-career legacy better than ‘amazing player on terrible team’.

Well, Shawn Hill, the Nationals’ de facto ace now that Patterson has completely imploded, is done earning the L despite his second strong outing, so I guess that means it’s time for me to wrap up here and concentrate on the more important things in life, such as enjoying a beer and a hockey game on Easter Sunday. I leave you, as I know you are history buffs one and all, with this fascinating 1915 tale of the emery ball’s rise and fall in baseball.

Filed under: Column
1 Comment

We finished off the evening’s festivities with a trip home on the F express, the proper usage of which is demonstrated here by Russo.

Despite the potential for massive gastric discomfort from the night’s festivities, I actually came through just fine. I gulped down a Vitamin Water (a product of Queens, by the way) from the local 7-11 on the way home, caught some sleep, and woke up feeling just fine.

0407070119.jpg

Originally uploaded by StudentNYC.

Filed under: Life in NYC
No Comments

After our automat adventure, we decided we still had one more hazardous food experience in us for the evening. We walked down 2nd Avenue and looked for the first big crowd of people, which happened to be gathered not far away from us at Pommes Frites, the most upscale of all fry shacks. What you see here are two ‘Regulars’ (as opposed to the other three dishes there; the Large, the Double, and poutine), with a side of vinegar for Russo and a cup of wasabi mayo for me. The frites are fantastic, and the sauces here are famous; with a selection of about two dozen, you could spend some time stopping in here and trying things out and still not get bored.

The Wasabi Mayo was even better than expected, although keep in mind that at this point my stomach also contained jalapeño-drenched hot dog and Tabasco-drenched teriyaki burger. It had just the right amount of wasabi bite, and the ‘mayo’ was actually more of a honey-mustard consistency. The tables and bar both contain round holes to rest their cones of frites, and the sign on the menu says that patrons are welcome to bring in beer from the deli next door (a treat of which I did not partake; the PBR was acting as referee between the three kinds of heat in my stomach, and I didn’t want to distract it with a friend).
0407070050.jpg

Originally uploaded by StudentNYC.

Filed under: Life in NYC
1 Comment