Western Conference Final Game 1

WOOOO HOOOOO! After three terrible nights, the playoffs are back! We never would have thought we’d be so happy to see the VS studio guys again. Less surprising than that, though, is how happy we are to see Doc again. It looks like hockey… It sounds like hockey… Must be hockey!

Edzo really earns his paycheck when Doc asks him to pick players from each team who were key in the second round and he goes off the charts by picking Franzen and Morrow. Thanks for the hard-hitting analysis, Eddie. After a bit of time filler about those two and a short interview with Morrow, VS sends us to commercial with some of those HD studio close-ups of stars from both teams: Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Richards, and Ribiero. Ribs looks so much like Clifton Collins, Jr. in his shot that Pookie reaches for the timeworn Tigerland reference, “No really. I’m a butcher.” Don’t let your meat loaf, Ribs! (We say it every time we see him. And we laugh like it’s never been said before each time, too. Because we’re cool that way.)

Okay, those “Messin’ With Sasquatch” commercials didn’t have to come back.

When we come back from commercial, Doc informs us this game is available in HD, “the same shape as the surface this game is played on.” We love Doc more than anything, but… huh?

FIRST PERIOD

19:22 Pookie, slowly and stunned: “I don’t think I’ve really paid any attention to the Red Wings this season. I had completely forgotten they had Rafalski. And I had no idea he was wearing 28. He looks totally different.”

Conference Final Predictions: IPB’s Tale of the Tape (Part 2)

Yesterday we rolled out the Tale of the Tape for the West, and today we look closer to home. Everyone, break out your keystones! It’s the Battle of Pennsylvania! You’re got a friend in this series, because you’ve got a friend in Pennsylvania! (Yes, Gentle Reader, it’s true. Everything we know about the great state next door we learned from their license plates.)

EASTERN CONFERENCE

Pittsburgh (2) vs. Philadelphia (6)

Skaters:

Looking at the “forwards v. defense” breakdown for this series, we can’t help but notice the decisive mismatch of “Sid & Malkin v. Hatcher”. Which, of course, favors Philly hugely. Oh, wait — the point is to win the series? Huh. That changes everything. To be fair, we hardly look at Pittsburgh’s blue line and think, “How impenetrable!” either, so it’s probably not kind to poke too much fun at the Flyers just because they still have the misfortune of having to dress Derian Hatcher every night. The fact is that no one in the league has, on paper, the answer to the one-two punch of Sid and Malkin. Meanwhile, we don’t really have any idea yet who plays for the Flyers. We ignored them all year, but for the eight times the Devils played them (during which the Devils managed to score something like 20% of their total offense for the entire season, while still being shut out twice), and now that we’ve been enjoying them in the playoffs, it’s like a breath of fresh air — all these players we’ve never heard of before! Since this year’s Playoff Flyers are existing in a vacuum for us, how are we to know Umberger isn’t as awesome as Malkin? In reality, there is no question that the Pens are a better team, pound for pound, than the Flyers, but in our playoff vacuum, the Flyers were scoring at will against the Second Coming of Patrick Roy (what? He wasn’t the second coming of Roy? Get out!), and the Pens were outplayed at even strength by the Rangers. So as long as the Flyers don’t get into penalty trouble, they– wait, what? Huh. Okay, Advantage: Penguins

Goaltending:

Watching Fleury and Biron is like eating a store-bought cake at a employees-only birthday party. At first it seems like it’s the best cake you’ve ever had because it’s the middle of a long work-day and a sugar rush is just what the doctor ordered. Two or three bites later you start to have your doubts, but you’re like, “Hey, it’s still cake, right?” Then comes the fateful bite when you realize that underlying flavor of coconut oil can longer be denied, nor can you continue to ignore the fact that the amount of icing on the cake is obscene. The remaining half of the cake goes straight to the garbage can as you go on a desperate search for a can of soda to wash down the memory of that awful, awful birthday cake. Fleury and Biron are both riding that mid-day sugar rush as they both look more than serviceable, good even. Biron, in particular, has been making huge saves left and right. However, we have so little faith in both of them that we’re fairly confident that fateful bite of awfulness is just over the horizon. The only question is, will it be in this round or the next? Of course, this is Philly we’re talking about. It always comes down to goaltending for Philadelphia. Advantage: Penguins

Coaching:

For reasons we totally can’t verbalize, we have long labored under the perception that Michel Therrien is a hack. Maybe it’s because the guys on the national TV feeds (hint: his name rhymes with “Blierre Blcguire”) have been pulling “Look for Therrien to be fired by [X date]!” rumors out of their asses for the last two seasons. Of course, those same people were telling us John Stevens was going to lose his job this year, too. So if you believe everything you hear (which we certainly do), both of these guys are scrappy underdogs who also kind of suck as coaches. As Devils fans, we’re also more than willing to blame everything bad that happens with a team on the coach, so we’re doubly willing to think these guys are both coasting on the awesomeness of their players more than being brilliant bench bosses. Our assessment of them is going to have to come down to one thing: Therrien looks like a slightly less lumpen version of Brent Sutter, while Stevens looks like a guy who you’d have a huge office crush on if he worked in your cubicle sea. Advantage: Flyers

Uniforms:

While the Pittsburgh uniforms are hardly the Montreal “CH” or, even better, the Hartford Whalers “HW” (a vastly underappreciated logo) at least they don’t make the Penguins look like they’re wearing shrugs over their unis. That the Flyers look like they’re wearing shrugs in Flyers orange only makes our eyeballs projectile vomit that much more. Advantage: Penguins

Mascots:

Let’s see, Pittsburgh’s got Iceburgh the Penguin and the Flyers have Bobby Clarke. Iceburgh rocks the classic mascot tailoring (loose fitting fuzzy suit with eyeholes in the character’s mouth, or in this case, beak); Clarke is cut from the “classic” hockey player cloth (gap toothed smile and narrow-minded bombast). Iceburgh spends the duration of hockey games wandering the crowd, clapping his wings and googlying his googly eyes, and shaking his head sadly when fan after fan after fan can’t correctly identify a picture of Malkin covered in pizza slices on the Jumbotron (seriously, people, we saw this happen); Clarke passes hockey games sitting in a Barcalounger wondering why no one has hired him as GM and flinging darts at pictures of Eric Lindros and Roger Neilson. Iceburgh makes up for a rather uninspiring collection of mascot-tricks by adding an adorable “h” to the word “iceberg”; Clarke tries to fool people into thinking he wasn’t the crackpot “genius” responsible for the decline of the Flyers by dropping the potentially-soft-sounding “-by” from “Bobby”. When all is said and done, though, Clarke is the far more entertaining figure. Advantage: Flyers

Players We Love, In Spite Of Ourselves:

Every self-respecting contrarian Devils fan should hate all mega-super-duperstars, but we can’t deny it: we love Malkin and Sid. News flash: they’re just so awesome! There… aren’t a lot of other Pens we like. But Sid and Malkin! So awesome! On the other side of this matchup, there’s the Flyers. And the sad truth is that we know so little about them, and have been cheering for them anyway for the last two rounds, that we kinda, sorta, a little bit, just a skoch, like most of them. Even though we know we should hate them all. For starters, we decided to settle our random, Getzi-style playoff crush this year on Mike Richards, who looks so much like all the theater nerds we ran with in high school and college that it’s hard to believe he’s not a guy who makes Brecht jokes all the time. Pookie’s got a nascent playoff-goggle crush on Jeff Carter. We all love once and future Devil Jason Smith. Thanks to his curly hair and burly build, we’ve assigned an Intermission-inspired nickname on Scott Hartnell: “Hard As Nails Cunts”. How do you not love a guy called “Hard As Nails Cunts”? But still. Sid and Malkin! Advantage: Push. We’re going to have to wait and see how our hearts settle when this one starts.

Players Who Annoy The Living Crap Out Of Us:

This one pits Ryan Malone vs. Steve Downie. Every time Downie takes the ice Boomer hisses, “sociopath”. Every time Malone takes the ice, Schnookie shrieks like a banshee. Downie has a history of dirty, malicious, sickening play; the fact that he’s still in the league at all is a disgrace. Malone thinks he’s hotter than he actually is. That’s just wrong. Advantage: Flyers

Playoff History Against New Jersey:

Since we’ve been Devils fans, we’ve seen our fair share of memorable playoff series. One, in 1999, was a complete heartbreaker of a 7-game first-round choke job that ended in a Penguins win and the driving of the final nail into the coffin of our ability to stomach Jaromir Jagr. Another, in 2000, was the single most awesome 7-game ECF choke job that ended in the Devils going on to win the Cup and Schnookie experiencing the unbridled joy that is listening to a Flyers fan say, “Yeah, well, you guys might have won three in a row, but we had you up 3-1. We won three in a row, too.” Other series that don’t figure as prominently in the forefront of our hockey consciousness include a five-game ECF in 2001 that ended in the Devils going on to lose the SCF, and included the wheels falling off a young phenom of a Pens goalie and the infamous (and delicious) “Hey Ace” goal. Another was a five-game first-round mercy-killing that put an end to the Devils’ miserable 2004 while launching the Flyers run to… whatever it is they accomplished in 2004. So there’s good and there’s bad on both sides. We’ll toss in the 1995 ECF that predated our fandom, though, and say Advantage: Flyers

City Claims To Fame:

We’ll kick this off with a little free association.

Narrator: Philadelphia!
Schnookie: Independence Hall! It kicks ass!
Pookie: PSFS building, the first office building to have air conditioning!

Narrator: Pittsburgh!
Schnookie: [crickets chirp]
Pookie: [crickets chirp]

Okay, okay, that’s not really fair. Pittsburgh treated IPB very well on our visit there in October. We were pleasantly surprised by the stunning approach to the city skyline. We were also extremely pleasantly surprised to find ourselves smack dab in front of the Allegheny Courthouse Jail (designed by IPB favorite H. H. Richardson) while trying to drive out of the city. In short, Pittsburgh is the Arron Asham of cities. Philly, on the other hand, is the closest major city to stately IPB Manor. How many times have we ventured into the city proper in almost 20 years of living less than an hour from the City of Brotherly Love? Well, Pookie twice got lost in Center City driving to and from a job interview she didn’t get, and… that’s about it. This is a really tough one because we truly love both of their airports. But since Philadelphia is a day trip from here, we’ll say Advantage: Flyers

Conclusion:

The numbers don’t lie, Gentle Reader: 5-3 Philadelphia. We fully expect the Pens to be able to overcome this numerical disadvantage, though. Meanwhile, we’re going to let go and let Playoff Goggle. We simultaneously really loathe and really like both these teams. It should be fun.

Conference Final Predictions: IPB’s Tale of the Tape (Part 1)

It hardly feels like a year since our last Conference Finals Tale of the Tape, but it’s time to break out IPB’s highly scientific approach to determining who should win. Today we’ll address the Western Conference. You know, that conference we know we sooooo much about. Tune in tomorrow for the Eastern Conference.

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Detroit (1) vs. Dallas (5)

Skaters:

We are really well-informed about this series. What can we say? We’re bloggers. That makes us experts. We’ve been paying very close attention to the Stars in the early rounds of the playoffs, and have watched a grand total of maybe 40 minutes of all the Red Wings games so far. But they were a very convincing 40 minutes. If the Stars decide to look at all like the Avalanche did in Game 4 of the second round, it’s going to be a quick and bleak series for them. Apparently, when their opponent is utterly incompetent at the sport of hockey, the Red Wings are really good. But are they as good when their opponent is, like the Stars, not utterly incompetent? Probably. But don’t go trying to burst our bubble of newfound Stars fandom. We love how confident both of these teams look, and the fact is that while we know a lot of the names of the players on both rosters, we wouldn’t be able to pick more than three guys from either team out of a police lineup. Advantage: Red Wings

Goaltending:

This is a head-to-head battle between two guys who’ve long struggled with a terribly unfair, burdensome label — no, we’re not talking about the whole “playoff choker” or “underrated” thing, we’re talking about us thinking they’re douches. As it turns out, we were just projecting our dislike of their teams, when in reality, they’re both adorable in their own unique ways. First up, there’s Marty Turco, who won us over completely with his charming mic’d up turn during last year’s All-Star Game. Who knew he could be so personable? And he blazed a trail by doing in-game play-by-play that made the way for Manny Legace’s star-making hilariousness during this season’s ASG, and Pretty Ricky’s magnificent slip-up when he declared over an open mic that he’d just “fucked up” his hip during the Superskills. On the other side of the coin is Chris Osgood, who, for some inexplicable reason, has prompted us for years to shout, “Yo yo yo! Ozzie in da house!” every time we see him on TV. Seriously, we have no idea why we do this. But look at this picture! He’s too cute for words! Advantage: Push, unless Hasek gets back in net. Then decided advantage Stars

Coaching:

This one’s a no-brainer. Dave Tippet is freakin’ adorable. Bored during the lock-out he took up motorcycle building to pass the time! Following the 8th longest game in NHL history he wrote on the dressing room white-board that every player had given “195%”! We’re fairly certain he spends his weekends volunteering at the animal shelter, delivering food to shut-ins, and planting flowers in downtrodden neighborhoods. Mike Babcock, on the other hand, is a monster. He once said IPB’s beloved Mike Commodore “never should have been drafted”. He held hockey fans everywhere hostage in 2003 with his overuse of the word “greasy”. We’d be surprised if he doesn’t spend his weekends releasing kittens into the wild to repopulate feral cat colonies, boxing in Meals on Wheels trucks, and planting invasive weeds on every corner. Advantage: Stars

Uniforms:

As Devils fans we have to salute the Red Wings for making as few changes to their uniform as was possible for this season of the Sexy Slimfit Look. The winged wheel is hands-down one of the greatest logos in all of sports, maybe even of all logo-dom. That logo alone more than makes up for the fact that the Wings wear red pants, which is almost always a terrible idea. The Stars, meanwhile, took the makeover opportunity and ran with it, completely revamping their look. Since the previous look included the mooterus and those dopey star ponchos, it should leave us without complaint. But… We’re just not sure about the “Dallas” baseball-style design. It’s a little too sparse for us. We’re not “sparse” people. Advantage: Red Wings

Mascots:

While both teams’ media guides might tell you they don’t actually have mascots, that’s a load of bunk. The only reason the Stars don’t have an official mascot is because they promoted him to co-GM after firing Doug Armstrong. And we’re not talking about Les Jackson! ZING! Meanwhile, Detroit acts like they’re all “too Original Six” for a mascot, but if Toronto, Montreal, Boston and Chicago can have them, then really all you’re doing by refusing to have a giant plush dude wearing team colors and running around your arena is aligning yourself with the Rangers. The Wings seem to be hedging their bets by having that insipid purple polystyrene octopus that descends from the rafters, a half-measure that fails worse than not trying at all. So the tale of the tape for the mascots in this series come down to the unofficial mascots Brett Hull and Octopussy — Advantage: Stars

Players We Love, In Spite Of Ourselves:

Remember how we mentioned earlier that we don’t really know anything about these teams? Yeah. That means we don’t know which guys we shouldn’t like. There’s really no “in spite of ourselves” when we say we’ve fallen in playoff love with Brenden Morrow, is there? Schnookie has strangely set her playoff goggles on Tomas Holmstrom, but really, that’s not really very “in spite of ourselves” either. We’re not sure if the problem is us, or if it’s that neither one of these teams is particularly ugsome if you don’t play in the Western Conference. Advantage: Push

Players Who Annoy The Living Crap Out Of Us:

Relevance is no issue here, as in one corner we have Darren McCarty, washed-up ex-grinder, and in the other we have Willa Ford, who we think was on some network reality show we don’t watch (if it ain’t ANTM, it’s a waste of airtime). Darren McCarty was the cherry on the sundae of the Wings-’Lanche Turn The Clock Back To 1996 fiasco this post-season. ‘96 was the first playoffs we watched as truly crazed hockey fans, but even then, when we were jumping on any and every bandwagon we could, we hated McCarty. Willa Ford reminds us why we’re glad we don’t care about celebrity gossip anymore. Advantage: Stars

Playoff History Against New Jersey:

Mwa-ha-ha-ha! Advantage: Push

City Claims To Fame:

In 2003 we packed up trusty Pando the Prius and headed out from Arizona to New Jersey. The best part of the drive, by far, went through North Texas. North Texas? Is stunningly beautiful. (The 80 mph speed limit is also beautiful.) The worst part of the drive, by far, went through Dallas. Our driving directions from AAA involved merging into the far left lane of an 8,000-lane highway and then taking an off-ramp on the right-hand side of the highway 10 feet later. We still have the white knuckles to show for it. After a long day of being in the car and after braving and barely surviving the famous Death Merge, we arrived at our hotel, desperate for room service. Gentle Reader, there was no room service. We dragged our sorry asses to the front desk and begged for directions to the foodstuffs that would require the least amount of driving on our parts. The concierge directed us to the one place that didn’t require getting back on the highway — some chain restaurant industrial park. Whatevs, said we, as long as there’s no death merge. In place of a death merge we got a series of shadowier and shadowier back service roads littered with billboards for strip clubs and gun shows. Now when we think of Dallas we think of the Famed Stripper-Gun-Show District. Good times, good times. The only time we’ve been to Detroit, we sat on the tarmac at the Detroit airport in a non-deplaning layover while waiting to fly to Vancouver for the ‘98 All-Star Game. Advantage: Detroit

Conclusion:

This one’s almost too close to call, Gentle Reader. At first glance, it looks like a 3-3 tie, but if Hasek gets in net, the Stars eke out the win in the Tale of the Tape.

IPB Hour Episode Six

It’s time again, Gentle Listener, for another episode of the IPB Hour. In this week’s installment we stretch our metaphors for how we feel about the Flyers to ridiculous lengths, review the four second-round series that have just concluded, and spin our wheels while trying to convince ourselves that we don’t care about the Rangers.

You can download this episode or subscribe to the podcast here.

IPB Hour Episode Six; 29 min.

Sharks vs. Stars, Game 6

Gentle Reader, we promised that as soon as the Rangers were out, we’d start diarizing again. Why did we need the Rangers to vacate the playoff premises before getting back in the saddle again? Because they were the only Atlantic Division team our schedules permitted us to diarize all eight regular-season games, and then had five playoff games to boot. We couldn’t handle it anymore. But sweet merciful Hockey Gods! The Rangers are gone! Thank you, Penguins, for finishing them off in OT today; we spent this evening enjoying a playoff goggle toast to a happy playoff future:

And now that we’re lightly toasted, we’re ready to enjoy the Stars/Sharks game in full diary form. Stay tuned during intermissions as we update.

Ahhh. There’s nothing better than settling in for a night of hockey on Blersus that we know will not feature any talking-up or highlights lauding a team we hate. It’s so freeing! Of course, less freeing is the highlights package setting us up for Game 6 of the Sharks goals from Game 5. The fact that they still haven’t given us an angle that conclusively proves Soupy’s “goal” actually went into the net has us highly doubtful. Pookie puts it best when she says, “I’m going to go to my grave believing that didn’t go in.” (To be fair, we’re fairly confident it did go in, since if it hadn’t, we’d be hearing about it, but really Blersus. Would it kill you to give us the overhead? It’s the principle of the thing.)

Wherein IPB Picks Itself Up By Its Gogglestraps

Gentle Reader, we owe you an apology. A big, fat, Donut-Marty-sized apology. We’ve been letting IPB go. Since the Devils’ loss we’ve let ourselves be overwhelmed by the overall sucktitude of the teams and storylines left in the playoffs, and we’ve allowed ourselves to wallow in bitter misery, bitter boredom, and bitter depression. Did we mention we’re bitter? We’ve been doing the blog equivalent of sitting in our pajamas all day on the couch, eating ice cream out of the carton and watching made-for-TV movies on Lifetime. We’re in a downward spiral that simply has to stop. For our sakes and for IPB’s.

The good news is that we know what it is we need to do to break this cycle of despair. That’s right, Gentle Reader — we need to strap on our playoff goggles…

… Get liquored up…

… And learn to love these playoffs.

This means as soon as the Rangers are out, we’ll be back in the saddle with game diaries.

This means we’re not ashamed that we’re cheering for the Flyers in the East.

This means we’re nurturing that nascent playoff-goggles crush on Tomas Holmstrom.

This means we’re going to try to figure out what some of the Stars actually look like. (Except Robidas. There ain’t goggles enough in the world for him.)

This means we’re looking for the good stories even in the teams we’ve decided we don’t like, just in case. (Except the Rangers. There ain’t goggles enough in the world for them, either.)

This means we’re not going to respond to the “wrong” teams winning by immediately whining about how much everything sucks. (Unless the Rangers win. That would suck.)

This means we’re going to fight “this sucks” with, “Yeah, well, let’s talk about the ‘95, ‘00, and ‘03 playoffs instead, shall we?”

This means we’ll be mindful that after June there will be no hockey on TV until October and that in the meantime we should be like Native Americans and use all of the proverbial meat, sinew, and skin the Hockey Gods have provided us.

This means we’ll be having fun.*

*We reserve the right to renege on all these promises if the Rangers win. But that was a given anyway.

Open Thread: Sharks-Stars Round 2 Game 5

It feels like the first weekend night of summer (mostly thanks to the fact that we’ve had to resort to cleaning out our TiVo backlog to kill time until the game started) so we’re taking the lazy summer approach to blogging tonight. Enjoy this open thread, Gentle Reader!