Schedule issues

My apologies for the hiatus; winter break, 4 jobs, 3 classes, and constant travel have kept me from doing this. Anyways, update: since the shootout loss to the Rangers the Devs have gone 8-1-1 (3 SO for Brodeur in the span) and though they looked weak heading into the break, narrowly beating the Flyers in a shootout, they blanked the Lightning. Not only is it a relief to beat a team that beat you a mere week or two before, but to do it after a 6-day break (which is always bad for the Devils) is even better.

During the All-Star break, the league's higher ups met to discuss the schedule. The two points of view here are the West, who have been complaining that they can't showcase the NHL's stars, and the East, who like the fact that they don't have to spend so much on travelling from one arena to the next. While there are gray areas, I do think most people are right to dislike the schedule, but unfortunately, most dislike it for the wrong reasons.

Inter-Conference, Intra-Divisional, and Intra-Conference Play
Personally, I like the fact that rivalries are emphasized; while you can have a Devils-Red Wings game that oozes with subplots, you'll have to deal with sterile matches with the LA Kings and Columbus Blue Jackets. Who cares about those games? Even analyzing it from the perspective of making sure you don't let the other team get points, it's lose-lose. When the Devs lost to the Wings, everyone shrugged it off and said, "at least they're not in our conference." If you want to ensure that the games mean something, you'd have to only schedule matchups where there's a history, but that still leads to West teams complaining they won't see the East stars. Even the fans want to see only interesting matchups. The Devils were booed any time they set up from behind their net when they went to San Jose. All the Sharks fans must've been saying, this game's a snorefest, why can't the Penguins come instead?

The meaning behind the game combined with giving away points philosophy make intra-divisional games that more tense. There's more at stake if you let a game go into OT against a division rival, worse if you lose to them. 8 games over a 7 month season may seem like a lot, but that's a result of poor scheduling. If the Devils faced the Rangers once a month with one home-and-home series on a weekend, nobody would complain. The problem is that they play each other twice in January and three times in February and won't see each other until the playoffs (assuming the Rangers don't blow it). If the games are spread out over the course of the season, 8 games would be fine.

Intra-Conference play suffers the same fate as the Intra-Division games. Each team plays out of division teams only 4 times. The fact that these 4 games are clumped together makes the games redundant and uninteresting. If you look at the Bruins series, the Devils played in Boston twice in the span of 5 days. As a Devils fan, my two games in Boston during the whole regular season were over in a flash; not cool. The Devils played the Thrashers twice in January and will do the same in February. Spread it out and the games wouldn't be boring.

Spreading the Stars Around
Let's face it, the majority of young stars of the NHL are in the East, but that doesn't mean the West has nothing to offer fans. The YoungStars game was pretty even and the West even won the All-Star game. Fans and Presidents are complaining that they can't see the Eastern teams' stars, that the East is stockpiling talent for itself. This is ridiculous however you want to word it. Before the lockout, the East played the West once or twice a season and not every team faced each other. When the big names were in the West (Sakic, Forsberg, Iginla, Giguere, Nash), nobody heard these complaints. The West was happy with their star power and the East didn't throw hissy fits about it. While you can say that there was a lot of star power in the East, the focus was more on the strength of the teams (think Ottawa in 2003 and Tampa in 2004).

If the West's fans want to see these young stars so much, then they'll have to be willing to take the good with the bad. San Jose will have to watch the Devils play a defensive game in order to see Sidney Crosby. Detroit will have to host the Panthers in order to see Alex Ovechkin. Minnesota will have to go through the Bruins to watch Dany Heatley. To the West's fans, I have three words: QUIT YER BITCHIN'!

Mostly everyone agrees that something's wrong with the schedule, but you have to weed out the childish tantrums to get to the meat of the dilemma and that's clumping. Spread the games out, you'll get more anticipation and excitement. Sending the East's stars to play the West means sending the "boring" teams out there too. You can't have everything.

Devs-Rangers

New year, clean slate. This game has left me in disbelief. Both sides were even; all four goals were tricky shots. Madden's goal hit Ward's foot, Nylander's goal was immediately off the dribble (apologies for lack of a better term) and through a screen, Prucha's goal was set up by a skate deflection from Jagr (on purpose), and Langenbrunner's goal was a 1,000th shot on Lundqvist on the backdoor. No score in OT, time for a shootout.

Marty has looked more than human in the recent shootouts, making the first move and getting roofed often. Tonight was no different and Matt Cullen's goal showed how badly he could get burned. On the Devil end, Gionta cranked a slapper into Lundqvist's pads and he didn't even have to move to stop it. Gomez and Brylin insisted on hitting the 5-hole on a butterfly goalie and made no moves to stretch him out. Parise did his move (emphasis on one) and got it in and Patty FINALLY scored, but barely. Which brings me to a new feature:

Phrase of the day:
Pulling a Rollie - v - the act of being stopped when sliding the puck into an open net.
Origin - Brian Rolston in his days with the Devils did this so often, he earned the namesake. Time and time again, he'd slide the puck on the ice instead of lifting it that vital 1 foot and could have been a 30 or 40 goal scorer if he learned from his mistakes. A perfect example is Elias being stopped by Brian Boucher's glove (which was on the ice) in the 2000 ECF. Patrice Bergeron has also been known to pull Rollies, but could not beat Rolston for the honor.
Example sentence - Langenbrunner sure pulled a Rollie against Lundqvist tonight. Why didn't he just lift the puck?

Granted, a lot of oportunities must be rushed and wobly or spinning pucks make it harder, but this is what it takes to be a pro. Even if the puck's not in the sweet spot, you have to get it up. Langenbrunner's goal proved this point; if he didn't lift it, it would've been stopped. Skip ahead to the shootout.

Elias gets Lundqvist down and sliding the wrong way, but gently slides the puck on goal. Lundqvist (a name I'm tired of typing) stretched out and got a piece of the puck, but luckily it still went it. Langenbrunner stepped up with a chance to win the game and did the same thing Elias did. Lundqvist had nothing, but still stretched his glove out in hopes of touching the puck and that he did. Langenbrunner emphatically pushed the puck to the goal only to be stopped by the glove. Firstly, he's on his forehand and snapping a puck a foot off the ice shouldn't be that hard regardless of where it is. Secondly, the puck was in the sweet spot, making it easier to lift it. This is the worst time to do something like this and now, the Rangers are a point closer and are in high spirits.