Sens at Land’s End

On New Year’s Eve I said I’d write a ballad about the exploits of Jordan Eberle. I have not followed through, but I think his performance tonight at least deserves a terrible ode. It is also certainly worth a post in my sadly neglected blog. So:

Eberle

by Meaghan

I think that I shall never see
A man as clutch as Eberle.

A teen whose stick is clearly blessed,
Who when behind does never rest,
But miracles at will performs,
He nations, teams, and fans transforms.

He lifts them all in hope and joy!
Who is this awesome prairie boy?
Can he also outrun trains?
Does blood of gods run in his veins?

Although sixth gold was not to be,
They’ll never stop young Eberle.

*     *     *

Oh yeah, and I think the Sens probably lost, at least I assume they did since they were down 4-0 last time I checked.

The results of my first round predictions were pretty good. While I only picked one series (Anaheim vs. San Jose) exactly correctly, I managed to pick the winners of six of the eight series. The only ones I missed were Detroit and Pittsburgh, and those didn’t surprise me. Radiohead correctly predicted every winner in the Eastern Conference but were somewhat less impressive in the West: they picked San Jose and were non-committal on the Columbus vs. Detroit series.

I will now put my record on the line by attempting to guess which teams will move on to the Conference Finals. Rather than predicting a number of games for each series, I’m going to make the potentially daring move of declaring here that all these series will go six games and predicting some other random details about the series below.

I’ve given Radiohead a holiday for this one. Instead, I chose a random yet sort of related song to represent each team and paired the songs to create series playlists on my trusty psychic iPod. I then played each playlist up to seven times on shuffle, counting the first song picked as a win for the team the song represents. I continued this for each series until one team’s song had been picked four times, indicating that the team in question would win four games and therefore the series.

Eastern Conference

(1) Boston Bruins vs. (6) Carolina Hurricanes: The Hurricanes have some momentum from their crazy game seven victory against New Jersey — which I hope you all watched, because it was pretty incredible — but I doubt they have enough energy to carry them through an entire series against the well-rested Bruins, who I believe are simply the superior team

My Prediction: The teams will split the first two games in Boston, but the Bruins will pick up steam as it goes and eventually take the series. Carolina will fail to score a single power play goal.

iPod Prediction: Bruins in 6. We have “The Bear” by The Tragically Hip to represent the Bruins, and “Wild is the Wind” by Nina Simone to represent the Canes. The iPod has the Bruins winning games 1, 3, 4, and 6.

(2) Washington Capitals vs. (4) Pittsburgh Penguins: The Caps’ rookie goaltender Simeon Varlamov looked pretty good against the Rangers, which was good news for Washington. The bad news is that New York’s offence is pathetic and the Penguins will be a whole new kind of test for him. As much as I hate to say so, I think the Pens will win this without too much trouble. By the way, the NHL would like you to note that this series features a couple of pretty good players.

My Prediction: Evgeni Malkin will use his wizard powers to triumph in the battle of the superstars and lead both teams in scoring as the Pens take out the Caps. It will be impossible for TV stations to go more than six minutes without showing one or both of Crosby and Ovechkin on camera.

iPod Prediction: The Penguins (Manhattan Rhythm Kings, “Happy Feet”) beat the Capitals (Mogwai, “Ratts of the Capital”) in 6. The Pens take games 1, 2, 4, and 6.

Western Conference

(2) Detroit Red Wings vs. (8) Anaheim Ducks: Clearly, I was wrong to think Detroit’s experience wouldn’t be a huge factor against the Jackets in the first round. But that was Columbus, and Anaheim may be the only team that can match the Red Wings for playoff experience. They did to San Jose what Detroit did to Columbus. Their victory in that series was impressive and, despite the Sharks’ habit of choking, I’d have to say it was a bigger accomplishment than the Red Wings beating the Blue Jackets. One thing that will be interesting to keep an eye on in this series is the penalties. Both teams have great power plays, but they don’t appear to be as evenly matched on the penalty kill. The Ducks, who were the second most penalized team in the regular season, did a great job of shutting down the Sharks’ power play (with help from the Sharks). The Red Wings, who generally don’t take a huge number of penalties, managed only a 76.9% penalty kill against the Jackets — the Jackets, team of the league worst 12.7% regular season power play — in round one. Goaltending is obviously another thing to watch. Chris Osgood was much less sucktacular against Columbus than he was during the regular season, but can he keep it up against Anaheim’s stronger offence? What about Jonas Hiller? Is he for real? How does he feel about having Tomas Holmstrom’s big hockey butt (TM Kelly Hrudey) in his face for 20 minutes a night?

My Prediction: Hiller won’t feel great about the Holmstrom thing, but he’ll feel good enough to keep the Wings’ offensive production fairly low (with help from Anaheim’s deep defence). Osgood will return to form in the bad way. Teemu Selanne will flash back to 2007 and pick up his game enough to ensure that he haunts the Wings’ dreams for another year. The Ducks advance to the Western Final.

iPod Prediction: “The Big Three Killed My Baby” by Detroit natives The White Stripes represents the Red Wings; “Rubber Ducky” by Ernie from Sesame Street is the Ducks’ song. My iPod sees the Wings losing games 1 and 4, but coming back for victories in games 2, 3, 5, and 6 to win this series in 6 games.

(3) Vancouver Canucks vs. (4) Chicago Blackhawks: Roberto Luongo played exceptionally well in round one against St. Louis. Nikolai Khabibulin had a great first round series too, but he’s very very old. Advantage: Luongo. He seems like a man on a mission right now, as do Canucks players like Alex Burrows and the Sedin twins. As good as the Blackhawks looked against Calgary, it must be said that the Flames looked equally bad and were already kinda defeated going in.

My Prediction: Luongo will have two shutouts as Vancouver wins the series. The Canucks will play a very physical type of game, and the series will feature at least one brawl brought on by a big hit on one of Chicago’s star players.

iPod Prediction: For Chicago, it’s Sufjan Stevens’ “The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You’re Going to Have to Leave Now, or, ‘I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!’” For Vancouver, “Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe” by Whale (because their logo is a whale, mmkay). The Canucks will lose the first two games, but win games 3, 4, and 5 en route to a (presumably dramatic) 7 game series win.

Sens Watch

Let’s all take a moment to mentally punch Christoph Schubert in the face for allegedly breaking Anton Volchenkov. SCHUBERT!! WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?

Now that we’ve got that out of our system, let’s pat Jason Spezza on the head: he’s currently third in tournament scoring with seven points in Canada’s first three games. Keep it up, Spezz. I hear there might be an opening on the Olympic team.

Who says there’s no fighting in the playoffs? This was a very entertaining series to watch, though if I were a Sharks fan I’d no doubt think differently. San Jose was pretty much owned in every way here by a Ducks team that obviously just has a better handle on what you have to do to win in the playoffs. I direct fellow Sens fans to the caption on this post at nhLOL, and hope that those “International Sign for Choking” jokes with the Sens logo will maybe feature the Sharks logo from now on.

One consequence of the Ducks’ domination of this series: Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau should probably hold off on booking tickets to any Canadian Olympic Team-related events. It seems like the Sharks are going to have to get rid of one or both of these guys at this point. I can’t imagine it being a very happy offseason in San Jose.

Ryan Getzlaf, on the other hand, can plan on a trip to Vancouver next February (if there was any doubt).

The Ducks’ win has set up interesting second round matchups in the Western Conference. Chicago will face Roberto Luongo Vancouver, while Anaheim takes on Detroit. The Ducks-Wings series, of course, pits the last two Stanley Cup champions against each other, and I’m sure we all remember that the Ducks beat the Wings en route to their Cup win in 2007. The Wings were able to handle the Blue Jackets so easily in round one partly because they simply have a better roster, and partly because their past playoff experience prepared them for the higher level of play required in the postseason. The Ducks, having pulled the same feat on a Sharks team with a much deeper roster than the Jackets have, are one of the few teams that might actually be able to counter the Wings’ experience.

It’s also interesting to reflect on the way the Ducks handled their team this season. At the trade deadline, Anaheim sent Travis Moen and Sammy Pahlsson, two key figures from their Cup win, to the Sharks and Blackhawks respectively. Chris Kunitz was also traded away in February of this year. (We should note that all of these trades took place after Brian Burke had left for Toronto.) I was shocked to see those players, particularly the first two, sent away given that they appeared to me, at least, to be quite important pieces of the Ducks’ roster. Certainly, I think winning the Cup in 2007 would have been much more difficult without that line of Moen, Pahlsson, and Rob Niedermayer (just ask Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley’s therapists). But clearly the moves, perhaps designed to shake up the team, worked out: the Ducks, who were out of the playoffs at the deadline, came together and played well enough to squeak into the last playoff spot and build a fair bit of momentum going forward.

This has me thinking about 2007, and where that year’s two Cup finalists find themselves two years later. By my count, there are only 11 players on the current Ducks roster who were with the team when they won the Cup: Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Teemu Selanne, Rob and Scott Niedermayer, Francois Beauchemin, Chris Pronger, Todd Marchant, George Parros, Drew “Brother of Ryan” Miller (who only played in three playoff games in 2007), and Jean-Sebastien Giguere (who has played in zero playoff games in 2009 while a strangely calm playoff newbie named Jonas Hiller carries the Ducks in goal). The Sens have about the same number of players left from that year: Heatley, Spezza, Daniel Alfredsson, Mike Fisher, Chris Kelly, Chris Phillips, Anton Volchenkov, Christoph Schubert, Mike Comrie (on his return engagement), and Chris Neil. Both teams have maintained a core of key players while making significant changes to the rest of their rosters.

A major difference between the two teams is that no Ducks player has a cap hit as high as either Heatley or Spezza. Of the Ducks’ forwards, only Getzlaf and Perry make over $4 million per season, while the Sens have Heatley, Spezza, Alfredsson, and Fisher all above that level. The Ducks have spent their biggest money on defense and goaltending, with Pronger, Scott Niedermayer, and Giguere (maybe not the best investment at this point) all making over $6 million. They’ve benefited from the emergence of cheap young talent in the forms of Bobby Ryan, who produced 31 goals this season, and Hiller. The Sens have seen great potential from young players like Nick Foligno, but haven’t seen anyone have the type of breakout year that Ryan and Hiller are currently providing for the Ducks. Anaheim also hasn’t dealt with the same coaching turmoil that Ottawa has: Randy Carlyle is still behind the bench.

All this might help explain why, while the Ducks are waiting for round two to start, the Sens find themselves either golfing or playing in the World Championships — which, it must be said, some of them are doing rather well at. Jason Spezza is currently tied for Canada’s team lead in scoring with five points, and Dany Heatley and Mike Fisher each have two goals. Apparently, Anton Volchenkov has left Team Russia due to a leg injury he sustained against Germany, but I haven’t been able to find any detailed information about what happened or the severity of the injury.

In non-Sens World Championships news, Rick Nash will not be joining Team Canada: according to TSN’s Darren Dreger, Nash has a rotator cuff injury that will require several weeks of rehab. I’m disappointed — a line of Nash-Spezza-Heatley was sounding like a pretty heavenly concept to me, kind of a hockey dream come true — and I wish #61 a quick and full recovery.

The less said about the Ottawa Senators in 2008, the better. Though the team ended the year on an up note by beating the Oilers with a solid effort on Tuesday (despite my doom and gloom before the game), the positives were few and far between in 2008. It’s hard to say whether 2009 will be any better, but hopefully it at least won’t be a lot worse.

Next up for the Sens are the Leafs on Saturday, a game which unfortunately coincides with Team Canada’s semi-final matchup against either Russia or the Czech Republic in the World Junior Championship. If you watched the epic Canada-USA game last night, then you know that the Canadian kids have been providing some pretty ridiculously good entertainment and, like me, you will probably skip the battle of teams trying to out-suck each other in the Tavares sweepstakes (can there really be a “winner” in this game?) in favour of watching the actual Tavares, who is far more interesting.

Pensive Moment

I was reading the bloggers’ wishes for hockey in 2009 over at the New York Times’ Slap Shot blog, and I couldn’t help noticing that three of 14 bloggers wished for the NHL to try pleasing the fans it’s already got rather than constantly changing everything in (fruitless!) attempts to bring in new fans. This is definitely one of my personal issues with the league. In my opinion, trying to make hockey something it’s not only makes it look silly to non-fans, and is the last thing the league should be doing to bring in new people. There is a reason those of us who already love hockey love it so much. Other people would figure it out too, if the NHL would just let it be.

I emerge briefly from paper-writing hell to point out that Erik Karlsson and Andre Petersson have been named to Sweden’s roster for the World Junior Hockey Championships this year. Jim O’Brien will play for Team USA, and my favourite Sens prospect Patrick Wiercioch has been invited to Team Canada’s selection camp. With the tournament taking place in Ottawa, this will be a nice opportunity for local Sens fans to get a look at the future of the franchise.

Go little Sens go!

Oh, I think the big Sens are playing today. Or something. And there will be another live blog, if you like that sort of thing. I do like that sort of thing, but the aforementioned paper-writing HELL may dictate that I have to miss this one.