NHL Games to watch 2/10/12-2/12/12

Here's some of the more interesting match-ups to watch this weekend

Friday's Game

Chicago Blackhawks at San Jose Sharks
This is one of the bigger games of the season. Antti Niemi will be facing the team he took to the Stanley Cup two years ago. The Blackhawks currently sit in sixth behind the Blues and Predators in their own division and need this win to keep up pace with them. On the other hand, the Sharks are two points ahead of the Kings in the Pacific and need this win to put some breathing space between them. Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau have been on fire the past four games. Marleau has 3 goals and 3 assists while Thornton has 3 goals and 5 assists. Logan Couture is on a 7 game point streak with 5 goals and 5 assists. The Blackhawks have been on a miserable road stretch of late with six straight losses including getting lit up in Western Canada. They've been getting poor goaltending from both Corey Crawford and Ray Emery and the return of Patrick Sharp has not helped them. They really need a win if they want to retain any shot of winning the Central, much less, leapfrogging the Blues and Predators ahead of them.

Saturday's Games

Nashville Predators vs Boston Bruins
This essentially turns into Pekka Rinne vs Tim Thomas. Boston has been playing poorly of late with losses in three of their past four games and getting shut-out twice (once by Cam Ward, and once by Ryan Miller). They really need a big win to rebound from their losses. Nashville is also losers of three of their past four, but the problem is more of keeping the lead than a lack of scoring. They've blown chances against Ottawa and the Canucks the past two games and need a strong game to rebound. The good news is, that when you have Martin Erat playing well, the rest will follow. Look for Suter and Weber to also try and get goals for this Predators team that is looking to catch up to St. Louis in the standings.

Florida Panthers at New Jersey Devils
Florida is currently sitting on top of the Southeast division. New Jersey is currently in 5th in the East, 3rd in the Atlantic. Both team will be fighting for points. For Florida, this is a chance to get two clear of the Washington Capitals as a loss in regulation would have them swap spots with the Caps who are currently in 9th. For the Devils, they need to stay ahead of Pittsburgh and keep trying to catch-up with the Flyers. The Devils have been on fire as of late and it can be attributed to three guys. Ilya Kovalchuk, Zach Parise, and David Clarkson. In the past 6 games, Kovalchuk has 12 points and Parise and Clarkson both have 8 points. The real question will be who the Panthers put in net as neither Clemmensen nor Theodore have made a case to be #1.

New York Rangers at Philadelphia Flyers
This is the biggest match-up of the weekend. The top seed Rangers who are 4 points ahead of the Flyers will look to extend their lead while the Flyers look to shorten it. If you thought the Devils and Rangers fighting was big, wait til you see this one. I don't think we're going to go past 3 seconds after the puck drops before these two go at it. King Henrik will be looking to continue the Rangers winning ways while Ilya Bryzgalov will try to match him on the other end. The Flyers came off a big win with Brayden Schenn scoring the game winner against the Maple Leafs. These teams last met on Super Bowl Sunday when the Rangers beat the Flyers 5-2 in MSG. The Flyers look to return the favor in the Wachovia Center.

Winnipeg Jets at Pittsburgh Penguins
Winnipeg was very fortunate to get two points against the Caps on Thursday night, but Saturday will be a different story as the Penguins look to gain points on the Devils. The Jets need two points to get within one of division leading Florida, but they're going to need players to start scoring and their goaltending to bring it against Marc-Andre Fleury and the Pens. Should be a good game to watch.

Colorado Avalanche vs St. Louis Blues
The Avs are one point behind the 8th seed Coyotes while the Blues look to catch up with the Red Wings. Both teams come in on two game win streaks although the Blues haven't lost much recently as evidenced by their 7-2-1 record in their past 10 games. The real story is going to be the goaltending. Can the Blues continue to roll with both Halak and Elliott? Elliott will get the start, but expect the Avalanche to try and at least get a point out of this.

NHL Games to watch 2/6/12

There's only one game to really watch tonight, unless you wanna see if James Reimer will continue his shutout streak, then go watch the Oilers play the Maple Leafs

Detroit Red Wings vs Phoenix Coyotes
This is probably the only game where both teams are jockeying for playoff position. The Red Wings come in with a huge goaltending problem now that Jimmy Howard will miss the next two weeks and the Coyotes have a chance to get within two points of the 8th and final playoff spot out in the West. The Red Wings aren't even going to their back-up, they're going to their call-up Joey MacDonald. The Coyotes will counter with Mike Smith who will be looking for his first win against Detroit this season. This is the final match-up between the two teams and the Coyotes would like to end it on a high note.

NHL Games to watch 2/4/12

There's a ton of games today and several of them to watch

1. Pittsburgh Penguins vs Boston Bruins
Both teams have over sixty points and both teams are trying to catch the Rangers. This should be a good game, although, there's a lot of bad blood between the teams, so expect a lot of fireworks. Boston will be starting Tim Thomas and Pittsburgh will counter with Marc-Andre Fleury.

2. New Jersey Devils vs Philadelphia Flyers
The Devils are 7 points back of the Flyers in the standings, but if the season ended today, both would be in. New Jersey will be looking to continue their 2 game winning streak while the Flyers will not be looking to lose position to the Pens and Rangers.

3. Toronto Maple Leafs vs Ottawa Senators
The Maple Leafs are holding onto the 8th spot by 2 points and the Senators are 3 points ahead of the Leafs. This will be a tough game between 2 Canadian teams. Craig Anderson and James Reimer will face-off in net and Mikhail Grabovski has been on a tear as of late, so expect him to have a monster game

4. Minnesota Wild vs Dallas Stars
Minnesota is ahead of Dallas by 3 points for the 8th and final playoff spot. This game could contribute to determining that final spot at the end of the season. The Wild are once again facing a team directly behind them in the standings, after disposing of Colorado in their previous game. The Stars barely missed out on the playoffs last season, and they don't want to do so again this year

5. St. Louis Blues vs Nashville Predators
This is going to be the biggest game of the night. St. Louis is holding onto fourth place by 1 point over Nashville. The Blues also have two games in hand, so Nashville will need to play to win 2 points in regulation. The Blues have great goaltending in Halak and the Predators will counter with Rinne, expect this to be a low-scoring game as both goalies know what's at stake in this game. The Predators have won the first three match-ups, but two were in the SO, so if St. Louis can win in regulation, it'll go a long way towards helping them win the tie-breaker against the Predators.

Thursday Afternoon Goalies - Week 9

As I look at the most recent rankings, one thing really jumps out at me. The Predators are overworking Pekka Rinne, and as a result, his performance has started to slip. I really feel as though he's still an elite goalie, but now, he's returned to be a top-5 goalie and not far and away the best goalie in the league. That being said, let's look at the newest rankings....

Saturday Night Forwards - Week 8

This is the first week of comparing forwards. A couple of guys have made some really big jumps, Sidney Crosby hasn't cracked the top forwards rankings yet. However the top line of the Oilers have gone nuts and forced their way into the rankings. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle combined for 23 points this past week, although most of them came from the monster game against the Chicago Blackhawks.

Projecting Defensemen

With the first quarter of the season completed, a lot of defensemen are looking like they can put up some monster years. Below are the players listed in terms of Goals, Assists, and Points, and it includes previous years for comparision. As you will notice, the spreadsheet's not pretty, but it gets the job done.

Friday Evening Defensemen - Week 8

I typed up the rankings after I finished the goalie rankings, but I couldn't figure out what I wanted to put in this piece up top. I spent today experimenting with the goalie ranking a bit, anyways, here's some projection numbers I pulled out:

Jason Garrison - 31 goals (proj)
Erik Karlsson and Brian Campbell - 66 assists (proj)
Brian Campbell - 74 points (proj)
Theo Peckham - 172 PIMs (proj)
Dustin Byfuglien - 301 Shots on goal (proj)
Jason Garrison - 16 PPG (proj)
Brian Campbell - 43 PPA (proj)

Anyways... to the rankings...

Thursday Afternoon Goalies - Week 8

So, Happy Thanksgiving, I hope ya'll had a wonderful time. Anyways, I'm late with the rankings no thanks to Black Friday. Good new is though, that the FEDs are done, so that'll be up for sure tomrorow. Also, had to deal with the picks and thanksgiving stuff... long story short, we all got a turkey and sides. Going back to the goalies, you've got your main dish (generally the turkey), you sides (second-tier), the sides you hate (bottom-tier), throw some cider there (fourth-tier, unfortunately, there was no alcohol in my household), and finish off with the pie (third-tier) and "boom" you've got your meal. Putting that in terms of goalies...

Saturday Night Forwards - Week 7

Here's the first edition of Saturday Night Forwards. Here's the top 75 forwards.

1.   Thomas Vanek
2.   Phil Kessel
3.   James Neal
4.   Steven Stamkos
5.   Claude Giroux
6.   Marian Gaborik
7.   Tyler Seguin
8.   Daniel Sedin
9.   Joe Pavelski
10. Marian Hossa
11. Kris Versteeg
12. Joffrey Lupul
13. Patrick Kane
14. Jason Pominville
15. Jamie Benn
16. Patrick Sharp
17. Ryan Smyth
18. John Tavares
19. Anze Kopitar
20. Corey Perry
21. Teemu Selanne
22. Johan Franzen
23. Brad Marchand
24. Jonathan Toews
25. Max Pacioretty
26. Vincent Lecavalier
27. Nicklas Backstrom
28. Ryan Callahan
29. Loui Eriksson
30. Alex Ovechkin
31. Henrik Sedin
32. Ryane Clowe
33. Tomas Fleischmann
34. Tomas Plekanec
35. Patrick Marleau
36. Jaromir Jagr
37. Jeff Skinner
38. Jason Spezza
39. Milan Lucic
40. Milan Michalek
41. Patrik Elias
42. Evander Kane
43. Stephen Weiss
44. Craig Smith
45. Scott Hartnell
46. Radim Vrbata
47. David Clarkson
48. Milan Hejduk
49. James van Riemsdyk
50. Joe Thornton
51. Logan Couture
52. Patrice Bergeron
53. Alexander Steen
54. Ray Whitney
55. Evgeni Malkin
56. Mike Richards
57. Jordan Staal
58. Shane Doan
59. Martin St. Louis
60. Brandon Dubinsky
61. Zach Parise
62. Dustin Brown
63. Vaclav Prospal
64. Danny Briere
65. Simon Gagne
66. David Backes
67. Derek Roy
68. Patric Hornqvist
69. Brad Richards
70. Olli Jokinen
71. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins
72. Dany Heatley
73. Rick Nash
74. Matt Duchene
75. Justin Williams

More to come next week, expect to see better players move in next week

Friday Evening Defensemen - Week 7

Here we are again, the first ranking of Defensmen for this hockey season. Although this was released on a Saturday, I'll try better to release it on Fridays in the coming weeks... anyways, here's the top 50 defensemen projected for the rest of the season.

1.   Zdeno Chara
2.   Sheldon Souray
3.   Shea Weber
4.   Erik Karlsson
5.   Dustin Byfuglien
6.   Nicklas Lidstrom
7.   Dan Boyle
8.   Kris Letang
9.   Kyle Quincey
10. Alexander Edler
11. Ryan Suter
12. Dion Phaneuf
13. Marc-Andre Bergeron
14. Jason Garrison
15. Brian Campbell
16. Dennis Wideman
17. P.K. Subban
18. Kevin Shattenkirk
19. Mark Streit
20. Dmitry Kulikov
21. Keith Yandle
22. Sami Salo
23. Jack Johnson
24. Ian White
25. John-Michael Liles
26. Duncan Keith
27. Sergei Gonchar
28. Niklas Kronwall
29. Dan Hamhuis
30. John Carlson
31. Mark Giordano
32. Grant Clitsome
33. Brent Burns
34. Christian Ehrhoff
35. Johnny Boychuk
36. Alex Pietrangelo
37. Kimmo Timonen
38. Yannick Weber
39. Ryan McDonagh
40. Matt Carle
41. Chris Progner
42. Joe Corvo
43. Kevin Bieksa
44. Dan Girardi
45. Marc-Edouard Vlasic
46. Ryan Wilson
47. Jay Harrison
48. Nick Leddy
49. Steve Montador
50. Shane O'Brien

These are the initial rankings, but expect the bottom 8 to be consistently changing as players go up and down, I don't expect much change on top unless some injured players come back and play well. Expect the Forward Rankings to be out in a couple of hours!

Thursday Afternoon Goalies - Week 7

A quick heads-up, I recently started working a day job and that has really cut into my hours for the website, add on top of that I have some school work to take care of and things really start piling up. Anyways, I wasn't able to do the picks the last couple of weeks unfortunately, but I will this week. Anyways, here's your TAGs, I've also inserted comments on why they are ranked where they are.

1.   Pekka Rinne
2.   Kari Lehtonen
3.   Mike Smith (a true sleeper, he has performed phenomenal for a very underrated Phoenix team)
4.   Jonathan Quick
5.   Henrik Lundqvist
6.   Jimmy Howard
7.   Marc-Andre Fleury (looks like he might not even play 60 games this season)
8.   Tomas Vokoun (may be on the best team in hockey, but the team is not performing)
9.   Nikolai Khabibulin (still might be ranked too high)
10. Miikka Kiprusoff
11. Carey Price
12. Tim Thomas (Rask is taking too many games, Thomas won't even hit 60 GP this season)
13. Niklas Backstrom (Harding was on a nice run, but Backstrom is back to being #1)
14. Corey Crawford
15. Cam Ward
16. Jose Theodore
17. Jonas Hiller (Ducks might be overworking him)
18. Craig Anderson
19. Brian Elliott (the more games he plays, the higher he will be ranked)
20. Ondrej Pavelec
21. Ilya Bryzgalov (SV% and GAA have not been good)
22. Johan Hedberg (looks better than Brodeur)
23. Semyon Varlamov (hot start, but has performed terribly since)
24. Antti Niemi (started off the season injured, expect his ranking to climb)
25. Ryan Miller (poor start to the season, concussion, and Enroth is looking really good)

Just to give you an idea of how the rankings work, the main thing I really look at is how many games they are projected to play this season and then I look at all the other stuff, Wins, GAA, SV%, etc. So a guy that is projected to play 62 games who's stats are slightly worse than a guy who's projected to play 52 games. Why do I do this? Because goalies that play more games for you are better than goalies that don't play as much. I will compare two site's rankings to give you an idea.

ESPN's top 5 goalies according to their PRK
1. Nikolai Khabibulin
2. Brian Elliott
3. Jimmy Howard
4. Jonathan Quick
5. Marc-Andre Fleury

The problem should be very apparent, the only goalies up there that are worthy of a top 5 ranking are Quick and maybe Howard. Khabibulin's ranking is strictly based off his performance thus far this season which may or may not be a fluke. Elliott's ranking is a joke because he's a back-up in St. Louis, he hasn't even started half of his team's games. Fleury's ranking is debatable because while he has been a good goalie, the fact that ESPN has neglected both Rinne and Lehtonen should tell you how intelligent they are.

Yahoo! Rankings
1. Jimmy Howard
2. Nikolai Khabibulin
3. Jonathan Quick
4. Brian Elliott
5. Pekka Rinne

Again, the problem is with Khabibulin and Elliott being ranked too high. At least they inserted Rinne into the top 5, but Rinne will obviously be better than all those guys at the end of the season.

Thursday Afternoon Goalies - Week 5

To be quite literal, exactly four weeks have passed since the start of the NHL season, and today would mark the start of the fifth week, although, for many fantasy hockey owners going by a week-to-week lineup, this is also considered Week 5. Anyways, we've seen some goalies change homes this off-season, some goalies get promoted, and some goalies have come out of nowhere to perform amazingly well to start the season. Anyways, here's my first set of rankings.

1.   Kari Lehtonen
2.   Jonathan Quick
3.   Pekka Rinne
4.   Tomas Vokoun
5.   Mike Smith
6.   Cam Ward
7.   Nikolai Khabibulin
8.   Johan Hedberg
9.   Marc-Andre Fleury
10. Semyon Varlamov
11. Henrik Lundqvist
12. Ryan Miller
13. Corey Crawford
14. Jimmy Howard
15. Tim Thomas
16. Jose Theodore
17. Miikka Kiprusoff
18. Carey Price
19. Jonas Hiller
20. Craig Anderson
21. Brian Elliott
22. Ilya Bryzgalov
23. Niklas Backstrom
24. Mathieu Garon
25. Antti Niemi

Players will go up and down the rankings as the season proceeds, but I am hopefully not expecting too much change in the future. Some of these goalies are on some ridiculous paces to start the season, but as the back-ups start taking away starts, expect to see changes that reflect in the overall rankings. You'll notice that Hedberg is ranked at #8, that's because I believe he will be splitting starts with Brodeur and still end up with a majority of the starts, also, the way he's started the season is phenomenal and if he can keep it up, he'll be a top 10 goalie before the end of the season. The rankings will be out every Thursday afternoon, feel free to discuss, debate, etc.

An Interesting Night of Hockey...

This is the first of several occasions where hockey fans will have a slate of 10+ games to choose from on Saturday Night. But tonight, almost every game will have a story to share, a rivalry, a former player coming back, or even a repeat playoff match-up. Here's a breakdown of all the games...

NHL Divisional realignment

So the Atlanta Thrashers are now officially the Winnipeg Jets. The NHL has decided not to re-align the divisions this year, which will result in three trips to Winnipeg for the Caps. However, should the NHL decide to re-align, how would it look? Here's some potential ideas being thrown around.

Stanley Cup Preview

 vs

Boston Bruins vs Vancouver Canucks

I could throw out numbers and stats for all of you to look at, but I'd rather do this qualitatively than quantitatively.

So long ATL, hello Winnipeg!

It's finally happened, Winnipeg tentatively has a team once again. The move is not official until the sale and relocation has been approved by the owners, but I'm pretty sure it's going to happen. They will most likely be renamed the Jets since the NHL owns the name and would probably give it to them if they asked. In this case, the Phoenix Coyotes and relocated Atlanta Thrashers would share the history, much like how the present day Baltimore Ravens pay tribute to the Colts who left the city as well as several other teams in other sports. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I'll probably come back tomorrow and post some. In any case, right now the division alignments are screwed. The NHL is not going to change the divisions for the upcoming season, and as a result, my Washington Capitals are going to Winnipeg (about 1500 miles) 3 times a year, while the Jets are going to be traveling into the Southeast division for a total of 12 games. Now, obviously, this doesn't make any sense. Why won't the NHL re-align? Well, the problem is that the Phoenix Coyotes are also at risk to be moved out of the south. As a result, re-aligning the divisions in back to back years would be a mess and make the NHL look bad. Although our fans might be upset, it actually looks kind of ridiculous if teams are swapping divisions every year. With Winnipeg taking the Coyotes, odds are Phoenix might end up moving to Ontario or Quebec or some random city that used to have a hockey team (Kansas City anyone?) Regardless, here's how it looks now and how it probably will look after the 2011-2012 season.

Bruins Lightning Game 7

The Boston Bruins defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 1-0 tonight to earn a spot in the Stanley Cup Finals, where they will face off against the Western Conference champion Vancouver Canucks. Game 7 definitely did not match the pace of the series, with only 1 goal scored and 0 penalties called on either team all night.

Both teams had their fare of chances in this one, with the Bruins outshooting the Bolts 38-24. Steven Stamkos had a scare in the second period when a Johnny Boychuck shot from the point was deflected and hit Stamkos directly in the mask. He would skate directly off the ice, only to return a few minutes later sporting a full cage and quite a nasty cut on his nose. My hat goes off to him for his toughness and ability to play the rest of the game.

Nathan Horton scored the only goal at 12:27 of the third period, sending the Bruins to their first Stanley Cup Finals since 1990, and giving them a chance to win the Cup for the first time since 1972.

After scoring a hat trick in a game 6 loss, David Krejci stepped up again for the B's, going 14-3 on the draw and assisting in Horton's game-winning goal. Claude Julien used home-ice advantage masterfully, putting Chara out on the ice nearly every time Lecavalier left the bench.

Bruins-Lightning Game 5

Well that was exciting. The Bruins beat the Lightning 3-1 on Monday night to take a 3-2 lead in the series, which heads back to Tampa Bay Wednesday night on Versus.

Tampa Bay got off to an early lead when Simon Gagne capitalized on a David Krejci turnover to make it 1-0 just 70 seconds into the game. Outschot 14-4 in the first period, the Bruins were able to pull ahead to a 2-1 lead in the second off goals from Nathan Horton and Brad Marchand.

Tim Thomas made 33 shots and the Bruins added an empty-netter by Rich Peverley to take home a 3-1 win over Tampa Bay.

Just hours before the game, Tampa Bay announced that it would go with its back-up goaltender, Mike Smith, over starter Dwayne Roloson posted a 4.44 GAA against the Bruins.

Stay tuned for updates following game 6 Wednesday night.

Bruins-Lightning Game 3

Hey folks, this is my first blog entry for GTFOS and I'll make it brief.

Last night the Boston Bruins defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-0 in Tampa to take a 2-1 lead in the Eastern Conference Finals. Game four will be played in Tampa Bay tomorrow, Saturday May 21 at 1:30 p.m.

Sharks Survive - Advance to Western Conference Finals

Phew. What a series. After taking a commanding 3-0 series lead, the Sharks let the Red Wings climb back in and tie the series 3-3, with the decisive game 7 in San Jose. The series ended up being the closest NHL playoff series of all time, with 6 of the 7 games being decided by 1 goal.
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