GAME TWO
The second game of the Stanley Cup Finals is tonight, approximately six weeks after game one. The common reason I hear for the NHL's weird scheduling is TV. If that were true, I would understand, but I don't think that is the case.
I think it is just ineptness.
If TV were the true determining factor, then why would games four and seven be scheduled a week apart, both on a Wednesday? Why would they have made the Montreal Canadiens,who traditionally play every single Saturday night, host an afternoon game on a Saturday? (A game they were incidentally and probably not coincidentally destroyed in, and a game in which cost them Carey Price).
The NHL obviously does not care how long this thing called the playoffs drags on for, so why not schedule it so that the the two most likely days for awarding the Cup on are the traditional day of watching hockey? It is like if the NFL decided next year to have Super Bowl Tuesday Afternoon.
Why not make sure games are played at least every other night? Maybe throw in some back to backs? It's ridiculous for the playoffs to take so long. In the NHL, the playoffs are very strange: the first round is like Christmas - it's the best time of year, there are double-headers every night and if you're a hockey fan, it's the best time to be alive.
Strangely, and especially if your team goes out early or does not make it, the playoffs turn into a nearly three month grind in which you end up looking forward longingly to the draft.
This is especially compounded by the fact that the Kings are playing a team that is not as good as their first round opponent. Apologies to the Rangers, but the Sharks would be the favorite in any game or series the two teams played.
Anyways, the NHL scheduling is so poorly orchestrated that I suspect that Gary Bettman has a losery brother-in-law that the politics of marriage force him to find employment for. This dud has no skills or critical thinking abilities and just to keep him out of the way, Gary has put him in charge of scheduling. That's my theory anyways.
Dan Girardi
By all accounts Dan Girardi is one of the best defenseman in the NHL. He's a shot-blocking maniac who kills penalties and is among the best at what he does.
What happened to Girardi on Monday (or whenever the game was) is one of the worst things about the modern game: the penchant for blaming somebody, all the time, on every play.
One of the biggest, and worst, components of Social Media is the "gotcha" component. Any kind of mistake, whether it be an innocuous one like a spelling mistake, a slightly more serious factual error, or, God Forbid, something politically incorrect, and people jump all over the offending party as if he has done something inexcusable.
Sports take this now normalized explosion of collective minor criticisms to new levels of ridiculousness. On every single goal, from the preseason to the Finals, the announcers (and then later, the commentators, the Tweeters, the columnists, everyone who cares, basically) will find the need to place blame.
It doesn't matter that Dan Girardi plays a ton of minutes, that he's played a ton of games in the last two months, that he is on the ice constantly in important situations, against the best players on the other team, when he screws up, we have to rip him to shreds.
Look, obviously the guy made a bad play and it unfortunately lead to a goal, but what is so frustrating is that hockey is a fast game, played on ice, with excessive hitting in which players have roughly one second to make a decision. I just wish we could realize that the nature of the game is such that mistakes, even by the best of the best, are inevitable.
Girardi wasn't the reason the Rangers lost. They lost because they were out-shot 100-3 in the third period and they never should have even made it to overtime. To blame Girardi for the loss is a childish way of looking at the game: for all the advanced stats available, you would think people would start to do the most basic of "advanced" things: look at the game in the aggregate.
The point is, mistakes occur throughout a game and more often than not, they are not capitalized on and quickly forgotten. Girardi's play was bad, but the way we have gotten is much worse: we shouldn't need to blame and punish guys for each mistake, on each goal.
The Penguins
I applaud bold moves. Even when they are dumb, I at least appreciate when someone has the balls to go against the grain and do what they think is right. So good for the Penguins.
Jim Rutherford is 65, his recent moves include giving bizarre amounts of money to Jordan Staal and Alexander Semin. The team he has been in charge of for 20 years has been mostly garbage with the exception of a couple completely flukey and unearned trips to the Final, and even a Cup that comes with an unspoken asterisk whenever people bring it up. (Usually only to point out that just making the playoffs means anything can happen.)
It's as if the Penguins saw that Glen Sather was suddenly successful again and said "What the Hell!" So, I like this move from the perspective that it runs counter to everything anyone even remotely interested thinks is a good move, but, and maybe it's just my youthful exuberance talking, hiring a man who's retirement would be forced in many other industries and who has been relatively unsuccessful in recent times seems idiotic.
Blue Jays
I know its a hockey blog and a lengthy on at that, but I just wanted to mention that there is at least one team I cheer for that is not totally and completely inept. The Jays are six games up already, which is great, but I want to talk about is this: Last night, in a single game, Jose Bautista hit a home run, threw a guy out at home, hit into a triple play and then dropped a ball because of fan interference. Whether or not you are baseball fan, that is a crazy combo of rare plays in a single game.
The Leafs
Just one comment here because the rumours are getting out of control: Trading your best defenseman to move up on the draft to select a defenseman who likely will never be as good as the one you just traded for is the epitome of stupid. If it was anyone else but the Leafs, I would write it off as a preposterous rumour, but who knows with these guys anymore?
If anyone can explain to me how trading your #1 defenseman, who is in his prime and who does everything - literally - on your team, to move up seven spots to select a guy who plays the same position but who is younger and not likely to help for several seasons is a good idea? It seems to me that if they are going to this trade, that they should also trade Kessel, JVR and Lupul in an attempt to bottom out for next year when supposed Franchise Altering Player Connor McDavid will be available.
Come to think about it, that might not be such a horrible sequence of events.
Thanks for reading.