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May. 1st, 2006
The Broadway Blueshirts came into the season with low expectations amongst many elements of hockey punditry. Conventional wisdom was that with the salary cap in place and an anti-obstructionist crackdown amongst the league's referees, the Rangers' past approach of attempting to buy a winner was simply no longer practical, now that they were limited to spending no more on payroll than other teams.
Surprisingly, the Rangers were not as horrible as had been predicted. Jaromir Jagr led the team in all offensive statistics, and the surprise of the year had to be rookie netminder Henrik Lundqvist. Heading into the last week of the season, the Rangers were atop the Atlantic Division. Unfortunately, with Lundqvist out with an injury, the team faded badly and fell to third, behind New Jersey and Philadelphia, each of which put up 101 points.
Drawing the New Jersey Devils to open the postseason would prove a diabolical quest. The Devils came into the playoffs as if the hounds of hell itself were snapping at their heels, with a skein of eleven victories, and arrived with a quest to stop Jagr and thus shut down the Rangers. Devils' forwards Jay Pandolfo, John Madden, Grant Marshall and defencemen Paul Martin, Colin White and Richard Matvichuk would draw the responsibility for controlling Jagr.
As it would turn out, Jagr and coach Tom Renney would make this task easier for the Rangers. With the Blueshirts trailing by four in the first game, Renney sent Jagr out on a penalty kill shift. In making an attempt to hit the Devils' Scott Gomez, Jagr missed and fell with his left arm extended awkwardly. The resulting 'upper body injury' — believed to be a sholder seperation or dislocation—would keep Jagr out of game two, similarly a Devils' victory.
Returning for game 3, Jagr was ineffective in seventeen minutes of ice time; and the Devils completed the sweep over a Rangers squad as sloppy and disorganized as they'd been throughout the series in the fourth.
Surprisingly, the Rangers were not as horrible as had been predicted. Jaromir Jagr led the team in all offensive statistics, and the surprise of the year had to be rookie netminder Henrik Lundqvist. Heading into the last week of the season, the Rangers were atop the Atlantic Division. Unfortunately, with Lundqvist out with an injury, the team faded badly and fell to third, behind New Jersey and Philadelphia, each of which put up 101 points.
Drawing the New Jersey Devils to open the postseason would prove a diabolical quest. The Devils came into the playoffs as if the hounds of hell itself were snapping at their heels, with a skein of eleven victories, and arrived with a quest to stop Jagr and thus shut down the Rangers. Devils' forwards Jay Pandolfo, John Madden, Grant Marshall and defencemen Paul Martin, Colin White and Richard Matvichuk would draw the responsibility for controlling Jagr.
As it would turn out, Jagr and coach Tom Renney would make this task easier for the Rangers. With the Blueshirts trailing by four in the first game, Renney sent Jagr out on a penalty kill shift. In making an attempt to hit the Devils' Scott Gomez, Jagr missed and fell with his left arm extended awkwardly. The resulting 'upper body injury' — believed to be a sholder seperation or dislocation—would keep Jagr out of game two, similarly a Devils' victory.
Returning for game 3, Jagr was ineffective in seventeen minutes of ice time; and the Devils completed the sweep over a Rangers squad as sloppy and disorganized as they'd been throughout the series in the fourth.
The defending Stanley Cup champions came into this years playoffs with a tall order to fill- control the potent offense of the Ottawa Senators. To do so would require disciplined play and capitalizing on every opportunity which presented itself.
Unfortunately for the Tampa Bay Lightning, they handed out twenty-four man-advantage opportunities to the Senators, who capitalized on a third of them; while they were only able to tally four on thirty-one opportunities. Statistically, this bacame an all-too-familiar refrain for the Bolts, who averaged 2.6 goals a game for the series, while yielding 4.6.
Coming into the series, the questions were about Senators' rookie goaltender Ray Emery- could he bear up to playoff pressure— while noting the experience of Tampa Bay's duo of John Grahame and Sean Burke. Much ado was made of very little, with the Senators' Emery putting together five strong performances while Grahame and Burke were the pair which crumpled under pressure.
The first game looked as if the Bolts' might have managed to catch some of their prior playoff success in a bottle, as they held a 1-0 lead heading into the third period. Unfortunately, Ottawa came out in the third and showed the offensive spark which had made the team so dangerous during the regular season, tallying four times to take the opener.
Game two, with Senators' defenceman Wade Redden back home in Lloydminster, Sasketchewan after the death of his mother, Ottawa played a disorganized game and sent the series to the St. Petersburg Times Arena in Tampa split. Encouraged by his family to return to the team, Redden rejoined the Sens in the Sunshine State as the team rebounded to light up Tampa goaltending for eight tallies- the first five yielded by Grahame in a period and a half, the last three by Burke.
Goaltending and the inability to deal with the Ottawa special teams showed themselves to be the Lightning's Achilles heel again in game four, as both Grahame and Burke again combining to bear the brunt of the Senators' attack.
With Grahame having demonstrated his ineffectiveness, Sean Burke drew the starting assignment for the fifth game, and fared slightly better, but still was outmatched by Emery, as the Lightning season ended on Martin Havlat's sixth goal of the playoffs.
Unfortunately for the Tampa Bay Lightning, they handed out twenty-four man-advantage opportunities to the Senators, who capitalized on a third of them; while they were only able to tally four on thirty-one opportunities. Statistically, this bacame an all-too-familiar refrain for the Bolts, who averaged 2.6 goals a game for the series, while yielding 4.6.
Coming into the series, the questions were about Senators' rookie goaltender Ray Emery- could he bear up to playoff pressure— while noting the experience of Tampa Bay's duo of John Grahame and Sean Burke. Much ado was made of very little, with the Senators' Emery putting together five strong performances while Grahame and Burke were the pair which crumpled under pressure.
The first game looked as if the Bolts' might have managed to catch some of their prior playoff success in a bottle, as they held a 1-0 lead heading into the third period. Unfortunately, Ottawa came out in the third and showed the offensive spark which had made the team so dangerous during the regular season, tallying four times to take the opener.
Game two, with Senators' defenceman Wade Redden back home in Lloydminster, Sasketchewan after the death of his mother, Ottawa played a disorganized game and sent the series to the St. Petersburg Times Arena in Tampa split. Encouraged by his family to return to the team, Redden rejoined the Sens in the Sunshine State as the team rebounded to light up Tampa goaltending for eight tallies- the first five yielded by Grahame in a period and a half, the last three by Burke.
Goaltending and the inability to deal with the Ottawa special teams showed themselves to be the Lightning's Achilles heel again in game four, as both Grahame and Burke again combining to bear the brunt of the Senators' attack.
With Grahame having demonstrated his ineffectiveness, Sean Burke drew the starting assignment for the fifth game, and fared slightly better, but still was outmatched by Emery, as the Lightning season ended on Martin Havlat's sixth goal of the playoffs.
The Dallas Stars set a franchise record for regular season victories this year, but would gladly trade that for the playoff success which eluded them, as the second-seeded Stars fell to the Colorado Avalanche in five games.
The Avs set the tone for the series in the second period of the first game, rallying from a 2-0 deficit late in the first to take a 3-2 lead to the locker room after forty minutes. The Stars only managed sixteen shots on Colorado netminder Jose Theodore in support of Marty Turco in the game.
It's possible to win a playoff series defensively, but the trick becomes still managing to generate enough offensive chances to prevail. The Stars bet their fate on taking low-scoring games against Theodore and the Avs, and had a good chance in the second game to even the series, riding a pair of Mike Modano goals into overtime, only to fall four and a half minutes in on Joe Sakic's tip in of a shot from the point, seconds after the Stars' Antti Miettinen hit the post behind Theodore at the other end.
Game three, shifting to Denver's Pepsi Center, also went into overtime, and again the Stars needed a late goal to draw even, only to lose in overtime, this time on an Alex Tanguay shot which deflected behind Turco off the skate of defenceman Willie Mitchell.
Backs to the wall, in the fourth game, the Stars opened up and gambled a bit. Managing to avoid the sweep, Turco rolled the dice and got lucky, scrambling out to beat Tanguay to a loose puck at the top of the right circle; and having blueliner Mitchell make a save on an ensuing shot from Colorado's Ian Laperriere as the Stars prevailed 4-1.
Unfortunately for Turco and company, the alignment of the planets dictated a demise of their season in game five, as they fell on yet another overtime marker, this one tallied by Andrew Brunette on another rebound as Turco kept his streak of playoff underachievements alive.
The Avs set the tone for the series in the second period of the first game, rallying from a 2-0 deficit late in the first to take a 3-2 lead to the locker room after forty minutes. The Stars only managed sixteen shots on Colorado netminder Jose Theodore in support of Marty Turco in the game.
It's possible to win a playoff series defensively, but the trick becomes still managing to generate enough offensive chances to prevail. The Stars bet their fate on taking low-scoring games against Theodore and the Avs, and had a good chance in the second game to even the series, riding a pair of Mike Modano goals into overtime, only to fall four and a half minutes in on Joe Sakic's tip in of a shot from the point, seconds after the Stars' Antti Miettinen hit the post behind Theodore at the other end.
Game three, shifting to Denver's Pepsi Center, also went into overtime, and again the Stars needed a late goal to draw even, only to lose in overtime, this time on an Alex Tanguay shot which deflected behind Turco off the skate of defenceman Willie Mitchell.
Backs to the wall, in the fourth game, the Stars opened up and gambled a bit. Managing to avoid the sweep, Turco rolled the dice and got lucky, scrambling out to beat Tanguay to a loose puck at the top of the right circle; and having blueliner Mitchell make a save on an ensuing shot from Colorado's Ian Laperriere as the Stars prevailed 4-1.
Unfortunately for Turco and company, the alignment of the planets dictated a demise of their season in game five, as they fell on yet another overtime marker, this one tallied by Andrew Brunette on another rebound as Turco kept his streak of playoff underachievements alive.
Losing your star goaltender in the last few weeks of the regular season will hurt going into the playoffs, especially when your backup is largely untried and untested. Such was the fate of the Nashville Predators at the hands of the San Jose Sharks.
That's not to take anything away from Chris Mason or his Preds teammates. Their playoff matchup was against a team featuring the Art Ross and Rocket Richard trophy winners (Joe Thornton and Jonathan Cheechoo) and one which had a meteoric rise from tenth in the Western Conference to fifth.
The Predators didn't quit, but got outclassed against the Sharks. It's not likely that Tomas Voukoun would have made a difference in the series had he been available, but without him, the series went to the Sharks in five games.
[note: you'll be able to tell fairly easily which series your intrepid reporter largely missed by length of report.]
That's not to take anything away from Chris Mason or his Preds teammates. Their playoff matchup was against a team featuring the Art Ross and Rocket Richard trophy winners (Joe Thornton and Jonathan Cheechoo) and one which had a meteoric rise from tenth in the Western Conference to fifth.
The Predators didn't quit, but got outclassed against the Sharks. It's not likely that Tomas Voukoun would have made a difference in the series had he been available, but without him, the series went to the Sharks in five games.
[note: you'll be able to tell fairly easily which series your intrepid reporter largely missed by length of report.]
Winning the President's Trophy for having the best regular season means absolutely nothing when it comes to the playoffs. Having some of your best players fail to show up and blowing leads against a hard working young team with a hot goaltender is a great way to take an early playoff exit.
It seemed that every defencive error the Wings made ended up behind Manny Legace, who deserved far better support than he got in this series.
The off season will be interesting to watch for the Wings- who won't be back next season. Is it time for the number nineteen to be raised to the rafters of the Joe Louis Arena as Steve Yzerman retires since desire and heart aren't enough to overcome two decades of injuries anymore? Does Chris Chelios hang up his skates?
[note: this one will probably be expanded upon, but right now, as a Wings fan, your reporter is too annoyed with the team's performance to write significantly more, other than to say in the quest for hockey's holy grail "Go Sens Go!"]
It seemed that every defencive error the Wings made ended up behind Manny Legace, who deserved far better support than he got in this series.
The off season will be interesting to watch for the Wings- who won't be back next season. Is it time for the number nineteen to be raised to the rafters of the Joe Louis Arena as Steve Yzerman retires since desire and heart aren't enough to overcome two decades of injuries anymore? Does Chris Chelios hang up his skates?
[note: this one will probably be expanded upon, but right now, as a Wings fan, your reporter is too annoyed with the team's performance to write significantly more, other than to say in the quest for hockey's holy grail "Go Sens Go!"]
Anniversary Review
May. 1st, 2006 08:47 pmYesterday was ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
damashita and my sixth and ninth anniversary. To clarify, we've been legally married for six years, that coming three days after making a committment before the Divine Ones to each other.
damashita's mom came down to keep an eye on the boys, which let us have a day just to ourselves. Unlike last year, where we had arranged an overnight stay at one of Seattle's tonier hotels, we planned to play this one by ear.
As it turned out, we had a day completely without agenda, and ended up doing some of the same things we'd have done on a standard Sunday, but without having to deal with kids- and the influences that their impatience and needs can impose.
So, morning drinks at Starbucks, wanders through the markets- including surprise gifts from some of our favourite vendors- then a visit to Half Price Books, capped off by dinner and a movie.
It was the best day we've had in quite a while.
damashita and my sixth and ninth anniversary. To clarify, we've been legally married for six years, that coming three days after making a committment before the Divine Ones to each other.damashita's mom came down to keep an eye on the boys, which let us have a day just to ourselves. Unlike last year, where we had arranged an overnight stay at one of Seattle's tonier hotels, we planned to play this one by ear.As it turned out, we had a day completely without agenda, and ended up doing some of the same things we'd have done on a standard Sunday, but without having to deal with kids- and the influences that their impatience and needs can impose.
So, morning drinks at Starbucks, wanders through the markets- including surprise gifts from some of our favourite vendors- then a visit to Half Price Books, capped off by dinner and a movie.
It was the best day we've had in quite a while.