Hi all! After some encouragement and hang-wringing, I've decided to enter the world of blogging. More directly, on the topics of ice hockey, the NHL, and perhaps a few other random things in the world of sports.
My biggest goal is to talk about hockey, especially the NHL, but I'm open to chatting about anything in the realm of the sport (and perhaps a random thought or two).
Tonight, to get things kicked off, I've been watching Game 4 of the Sharks-Stars. Aside from Patrick Marleau's 2nd SHG in as many nights, I've been completely impressed with the desperation that San Jose has played with since the Dallas goal about midway through the 2nd period. An interesting statistic that Chris Cuthbert noted was Nabokov's poor 3rd period save percentage in the series. While he hasn't had to face a ton of shots, he's played pretty well tonight.
And as the horn sounds, San Jose hangs on for a big win, to stave off elimination. To be fair, Dallas has been quite good in the playoffs and surprisingly so. This team, which has really undergone a pretty large change in the makeup of the team since the lockout, particularly in the skill department has finally found some consistent offense and the much maligned Marty Turco has played quite well.
Speaking of Turco, the man received a fair amount of grief since taking the reigns from Ed Belfour a few years back, for not leading this team deeper in the playoffs. So, I decided to look up his playoff stats to see if my gut was right and ...
Courtesy of the NHLPA website:
http://www.nhlpa.com/WebStats/PlayerBiography.asp?ID=5710
Playoff GAA the last few years:
02-03 - 1.88 (2nd round)
03-04 - 3.32 (1st round)
04-05 - 3.39 (1st round)
06-07 - 1.30 (1st round)
07-08 - 2.38 (2nd round, up 3-1)
Career - 2.25
To me, the guy admittedly did struggle pre-lockout, but I still believe that the Stars really bit the bullet to adapt their team to the new NHL (and still made the playoffs during that time, unlike some other teams *cough* LEAFS *cough*) and finally are getting not only Turco's solid play, but consistent offense to help him out. In particular the core of guys from the 1998-2001 timeframe (Modano, Morrow, Lehtinen, Zubov) have mixed in well with the new guys either drafted or brought in (Ribero, Hagman, Miettinen, Robidas) and they've pieced together a nice run, so far.
With all that praise being said, I'm curious to see how Game 5 unfolds. The Sharks have been all over the map this postseason, showing flashes of dominance and alternating that with stretches of listless play. I truly believed that Ron Wilson was coaching for his job in Game 7 of the Calgary series (and it was kind of Mike Keenan to help him out there, with one of his patented goalie switches, tip of the hat to ya, Coach Keenan) and it probably will be no different Friday night. Ownership has molded this team over the last few years via both trades and free agency into a Cup contender, but Wilson, in my opinion, has massively underachieved in the post season, and at some point, the onus should fall on him for the team's failure.
Alright, through all the babbling, I hope I've kept someone's attention!
Here's hoping we're still going strong one year, heck, even one week from now!
