Anyone check out ESPN’s “10 Burning Questions” online yet? While the questions are great, and they are questions I think any hockey fan has asked herself (or himself) in the few games since the All-Star break, I’ve got burning question number 11: anyone see a trend in these answers? Scott Burnside and E.J. Hradek are quite clearly taking the easy way out and answering these questions with what they’d like to see happen.
For the first question, Burnside and Hradek both agree that the Pens will advance into the playoffs. While I don’t necessarily disagree with that, Burnside’s genius reasoning is “any team with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin shouldn’t miss the playoffs.” Wow, he really studied the stats there, didn’t he? Now it’s true that any team with Crosby and Malkin shouldn’t miss the playoffs, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t. Any team with those two skaters should never be shut out – but that’s happened a few times this year, hasn’t it?
And that’s just the East. In the West, we learn that Wild and the Stars will advance. Burnside’s reasoning here? “…just because I picked Dallas to win the Stanley Cup during the preseason.” Again, nice. Thanks for answering my burning question, Burnside. I very much doubt Turco is going anywhere past the first round.
Even more disturbing in the NHL today, the Red Wings are expected to announce their new deal with Henrik Zetterberg. Ready for this one? Twelve years, $72 million total. While I can make my peace with the $72 mil (coming out to $6 mil a season) would anyone really want to commit to twelve more years of Zetterberg? Everyone who knows me knows I hate the Red Wings, but I can admit Zetterberg is a key player. But the man is 28, and in this day and age we are seeing less players get to age 40 on the ice (take the hint Chelios). They better hope in Detroit they don’t end up having a Rick-DiPietro-type-situation up north.
Most upsetting of all, with last night’s loss to San Jose, our beloved Avalanche now have a losing record. Sitting in 5th place in the Northwest conference and four spots out of 8th in the West, the Avs are 23-24-1 for a sad, sad 47 points. Just how sad is 47 points? We are still behind Vancouver by 4 points and Vancouver is on a 6 game losing streak which could be extended to 7 if they don’t shape up against Nashville tonight. Not that I care if Vancouver doesn’t shape up – they are right behind Vancouver on my list of most annoying clubs. The only good news is that the West is still looking remarkably competitive. If the Avs manage to catch up to Vancouver with just three wins, we could potentially swing back into the playoff picture as the 8th seed.
What do the Avs need to do to ensure we see the first round? Consistency. Granato should put Raycroft in the net and stick with him; no more of this Raycroft-for-a-few-Budaj-for-a-few line up. It just isn’t working. It’s definitely been hard with us managing to catch the injury bug again, but we could be coming to the end of that stretch. The bad news is Sakic and Stastny will be out at least a few more weeks, and Foote is still out as well. The good news is Laperriere has been activated off IR, and we’ve still got strong scoring skaters like Hejduk, Arnason and Svatos. While I’m betting that the Avs make it up to 6th or 7th for a post-season run, it could be anyone’s guess what’s next in Colorado… but that’s another day and another blog entry.
See you next time hockey fans!
