Stingy D = Playoff Success

Let the real hockey begin!

So now it's time to figure out who's going to go deep or go home. First of all, toss out looking at the seedings and focus in on the goals against.

In each of the past three seasons in the 1st round, the team with lowest GA has won seven of the eight series. The three lone exceptions (Los Angeles Kings '13, Chicago Blackhawks '14 and Anaheim Ducks '15) to this all went on to the Conference Finals.

Going a bit farther back in 2011 and '12 the lower GA teams went 5-3 each season in rd. 1.

Now here are how the 2015 NHL playoffs rd. 1 match up GA-wise:

Panthers 208 GA vs. Islanders 216 GA
Lightning 201 GA vs. Red Wings 224 GA
Capitals 193 GA vs. Flyers 219 GA
Penguins 203 GA vs. Rangers 217 GA

Ducks 192 GA vs. Predators 215 GA
Kings 195 GA vs. Sharks 210 GA
Stars 230 GA vs. Wild 206 GA
Blues 201 GA vs. Blackhawks 209 GA

Now, if you had run the table the last five seasons and picked just the lower GA teams each round as the playoffs progressed, you'd have been 54-20 overall. You'd have picked the Stanley Cup winner 4 out of 5 times correctly.

That's picking after each round knowing who is playing who.

For argument's sake, let's say you had to do the bracket straight through to the Final from the start of the playoffs and used this lower GA standard to make your picks.

So you'd have gone as follows:

'15 Chicago over NY Rangers in Final (actual: Chicago over Tampa)
(11 out of 15 overall to advance correct)

'14 LA over Boston (actual: LA over Rangers)
(11 out of 15 to advance correct)

'13 Chicago over Ottawa (actual:Chicago over Boston)
(again 11 out of 15)

'12 St. Louis over NY Rangers (actual:LA over New Jersey)
(just 6 out of 15)

'11 Vancouver over Boston (actual: Boston over Vancouver)
(9 out of 15)

I'd take those returns any day.

Now how about our old favorite the defending Stanley Cup Champion?
There was a run from 2004 thru 2012 where out of eight playoff seasons, five times the defending champs lost in the 1st rd. and once even missed the playoffs altogether (hello, '07 Carolina Hurricanes meet the '15 LA Kings and '95 New Jersey Devils).

Prior to 2004, you'd be hardpressed to see the defending Cup winners flop so badly. The past three seasons has seen a sort of righting of the old ship with the '13 Kings and '14 Blackhawks both getting to the Conference Finals before bowing out.

Anyway, the teams that tended to flop out all have one thing is common. They either fell in the overall standings or stayed right where they were. The Blackhawks, although not as good defensively in the '15/16 season jumped from 7th overall to 5th so, after losing Game 1 in OT despite outplaying the Blues by a mile, maybe don't count them out in rd. 1 yet.

Then we have the famous losing Finalist failings. Maybe because going all the way to the Final and coming up empty drains your team, or the whole NHL sees how you can be beat, the losing Finalists don't have a lot of success come the following playoff year.

Since after the '94 lockout and starting from that shortened '95 playoff season to '15, the losing Finalists have done the following:

Missed the playoffs five times.
Lost in the 1st rd. seven times.

Won a rd. and got to the Conference Semi-Finals five times.
Got to the Conference Finals but lost there twice.

Got back to the Finals...and won it! Just the 2009 Pittsburgh Penguins.

So, how about the '15 Cup runner-up Tampa Bay Lightning (without Steven Stamkos and Anton Stralman) in the 2016 NHL playoffs? Well, they dropped from 5th overall to 12th so that's not a good sign.

Of the playoff teams that had fallen off in the standings from the previous season their record is just 3W-4L in the 1st rd, and only those '09 Pens who fell from 4th to 8th won more than one round.

In other words, don't put any money on the 'Ning getting back to the Final even if you think they can knock off the Datsyuk Retirement Run in rd. 1.

Since the '04 lockout, there's also been this huge push from the teams that lose in the Conference Finals returning at least to that stage the following season and sometimes to the Final and winning it. Check this out:

Teams that made consecutive Conference Finals
'04 & '05 Buffalo Sabres
'10 & '11 San Jose Sharks

Teams that lost in Conference Final and then went to Final and won!
'09 & '10 and '14 & '15 Chicago Blackhawks
'13 & '14 LA Kings

Teams that took it two steps further...and beyond.
'07, '08 & '09 Detroit Red Wings

Wings lost in '07 in the Western Conference Final, won the Cup in '08 and got back to the Final in '09 to lose to the Penguins...who also made two Finals in a row in those '08 & '09 years.

Now is '15 Conference Finalist Anaheim taking the next step because we know the '15 Eastern rep New York Rangers are hardly a good pick to do that in 2016?

I'll let all this sink in until we have a look at teams who get shutout and/or thumped early in series.

Until then, I'd suggest stick with the Cats and Isles and forget the hype even about the Kings and Sharks unless you enjoy tremendous hits that lead to non-scoring chances and very few shots on goal. Is anyone coaching either teams? All that hitting in the first period in Game 1 is doing the Ducks a world of good for round two. Keep at it, boys!

Top 10 MiLB Logos 2016

Since a gauntlet (where exactly can I buy one as I do need a new gauntlet) has been thrown down by @AMSTS (All My Sports Teams Suck--a Tweety sports account set in Berlin yet doesn't really deal with Hertha Berlin) and @Real_DJ_Swizzle (who apparently is at college studying to long snap shepherds) on Twitter to put my monkey where my logo is, here is my totally biased Top 10 Minor League Baseball Logos for 2016. 

Just to give you a baseline that some of you can relate to, on the Major League level I'm talking anything from a Gothic D to the Swingin' A's. I'm also partial to cartoon birds and even racist co-opting of Louis Sockalexis' Tribe but no Sox of any kind and certainly no "team name + baseball" is anyone's idea of "cool" let alone worthy of any "best of" logo lists. In other words: If it's gaudy, I don't want to party. If it's easy on the eyes, Borat high fives. 

So let's logo-a-go-go...minor league style.

10. Albuquerque Isotopes

Not a huge fan of the color scheme but Homer J. Simpson's Southwest cousin to the Springfield Isotopes is well balanced and gets an A...for should've turned left at this city. 

These directions are really starting to bug me

9. 

What can I say? I'm a sucker for black and yellow (black and yellow, black and yellow) from the Pittsburgh Pirates and the other Iron City Beer city's teams as well as bees ever since the days of Karl-Heinz Granitza and the Chicago Sting.

Still I wish the Bees went back to this Little Rascals-looking bee. 

8. Carolina Mudcats

Mudcat Grant would be proud.

7. 

Usually not a big fan of sticking a baseball as your logo, but love that the sun raises its eyebrow and winks when it's game time. Then again a huge fan of this guy with a baseball as his head so maybe as long as the baseball is "a head" of everything else, I'm good logo-wise with that.  

"Nothing to see here. Move along, people."

6. 

Animals swinging bats. Never a bad move. Plus this Bison knows the home run porch at Coca-Cola Field is in left. 

5. Durham Bulls

Hit Bull! Win Steak!

Need I say more? 

A Nuke LaLoosh classic with no BS in this design.

4. 

Yes, in 2016, the name should be changed but until that day this smallpox blanket meets Native American ninja throwing star gets the heave-ho, I'm all onboard. Although it does also remind me of a certain group of aliens. 

One small vertical leap for the Moon-inites

3. 

Maybe a tad boring for some but with MLB teams now going for the ring around the logo (with team name in that ring road), I dig one of the early adopters. Also, horses in silhouette just work. 

Hi Ho, Mustangs . . . Away!

2.

So it's an apple with a cooking pot on its head? That's what you're going with? Hey, I have no idea what tin-cap sort of town Fort Wayne is or if Bruce Wayne or Wayne Gretzky now lives there. All I know is I would wear this on a T-shirt anyday.

1. 

An oldie but still a goodie. How can you not love a confused lugnut just trying to fit into this wacky world of minor league baseball? 

There you have it, folks, enjoy and check out the two guys' Twitter feeds at the top I mentioned for inspiring me to get off the bench and do this. 

Enjoy the season. 

Check out a minor league baseball game in 2016. Who knows? 

You just might find a team and a logo you'll love. 

Please Move The Red Wings Back West

Maybe it's just me but have the Detroit Red Wings lost more than they think they've gained by switching to the Eastern Conference? We're now in the third season since the switchover, and do the Wings have any rivalries with any teams in the East at all?

Gordie Howe does not have Lou Fontinato to destroy even if the Habs are now decent again. Maybe the Wings will develop a 1950s-like rivalry, but the Habs-Bruins rivalry is still going to trump that no matter what.

Even vs. Boston, the Wings went out meekly in five games in the 1st round in 2014. 

The Wings went seven with the Tampa Bay Lightning in round one in 
last season's playoffs. Did any of the games jump out and stick with you as classics? Do you feel a Stamkos vs. Datsyuk rivalry building?

Then there's their old Snorris Division rivals--the team from the Centre of the Universe.

Sure, they played the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Winter Classic in 2014--the  first season the Wings were in the East. Yet did that conjure up any of those old Western Conference matchups of yore such as this?:

Or this?

Maybe it's going to take until the Leafs actually get half decent to fuel a Mike Babcock vs. his old team feud, but even so, Babs, left the Wings on good terms. Jeff Blashill, the current Wings' coach, was an assistant also under Babcock and has nothing but praise for the man who took the money over, ya know, maybe coaching another Cup contending team.

West Is Best

The Wings' most-storied rivalries, when they got good again from the mid-'90s, were against the Colorado Avalanche and the Chicago Blackhawks. Now, obviously, the Avs' rivalry began to fade once Patrick Roy retired and the one with the current Toews-Kane-Keith et al Blackhawks era took center stage.

So again I ask: Was the switch of conferences to have more games played in their own Eastern Time Zone for television's sake really worth sucking the life out of these rivalries?

The NHL On NBC has Rivalry Night every Wednesday. The league itself recently had "rival" teams playing back-to-back since the last lockout to build up interest.

Detroit's other teams in football, basketball and baseball are all in divisions with teams mainly from the Midwest. The NFL's Lions have been in NFC Central since 1970 with the Chicago Bears, Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers.
The Lions have been in the same freakin' division with the Bears and Packers since 1934!

The NBA's Detroit Pistons were the Chicago Bulls' main rivals during the Michael Jordan era and that carries over at least when both teams get good at the same time. The Pistons are also now in a revamped Central Division with the very same Bulls, Indiana Pacers and Milwaukee Bucks with only the Cleveland Cavaliers in their time zone. OK, the NBA has a far better geographical balance than the NHL such that the Pistons play in the Eastern Conference meaning the 11 of the other 14 teams are in the Eastern Time Zone, but even so, if you named the Pistons' biggest rival, it's the team in the City Of Broad Shoulders.

Baseball's Detroit Tigers, much like the Pistons, are in, yes, a Central Division. Their American League division mates bar the Cleveland Indians are in the central Time Zone (the Kansas City Royals, Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins).

Throw in the history of Detroit as Motown both musically and with the Big Three automakers, the Motor City on the whole has a lot more in common with the industrial cities of the Midwest than the Eastern Seaboard.

Since there is much handwringing about the NHL's expansion plans and this seemingly endless wait for Seattle to get its arena act together and hope they find some rich person who wants to put an NHL team there, why not just entice (monetarily. if need be) the Red Wings back to the West? Then you can put a team in Las Vegas now rather than later.

You'd then have your 16 teams in the West. Add an expansion team in Quebec City to the East to replace Detroit. Then forget about Seattle until another day as, let's face facts, the city really prefers to get an NBA team first and foremost to bring back the glory days of the SuperSonics.

The Red Wings would slot in well in (here it is again) the Central Division and we can look forward to more Game 7 craziness vs. the Blackhawks like this:

Or Game 7 Stevie Y vs. the St. Louis Blues flashbacks

 

Then there's Shea Weber cozying up to Henrik Zetterberg

Finally, there's the Avs with Patrick Roy as coach. All the Avs would need to ratchet this up to Defcon Draper is hiring Claude Lemieux as an assistant coach.
Who wouldn't want to see what Avs' beat writer Adrian Dater turned into a book appropriately titled Blood Feud begin anew?

After all, the dumb staged fights between designated goons is going the way of the "Jon Scott leading the All-Star vote" dinosaur, but who doesn't love the looney tunes' aspect of a full-on line brawl involving goalies (and I might add two terrific 6-5 hockey regular season [yep, not even playoff] games as well)?

  Round One--1997

Round Two--1998

Let's just give you the Top 10

 

I rest my case. Move the Detroit Red Wings back to the West, Mr. Bettman.