A Pretty Fantastic Night : 3/26 Results, 3/27 Picks

* Pre-Skate *

 

I'm closely approaching the 200 wins mark for the season (I started doing this blog in February). The most impressive thing to me, though, is how I've kept up with this blog. I remember a few times when I wanted to give up because I made a lot of horrible picks on a particular night and didn't have much to say otherwise. Other nights I felt like my efforts were worthless. This blog mostly goes unread and the concept is a bit personal. I'd imagine it's a dull read. The 200 win mark is actually less impressive to me than the 50 blog mark I'm approaching. I've kept up with this thing daily for nearly 50 days. Just amazing. I've failed to blog about my thoughts, life, and other things in the past. Even after I've tried to make it a point to have something as a journal of sorts. I'm just in awe at how I've kept this going longer than any of those things. My priorities are obviously my family and my life, but this has become a great hobby for me. I look forward to keeping this thing chugging as long as I can. When I do hit the big 200 mark, I'll be including a lot of stats. Maybe some like winning percentage and how many games I've won and lost through overtime and shootouts. I've always been fascinated by stats and numbers, so it'll be fun to see where I'm at when I hit the milestone. Hoping I'll hit it by Tuesday!

 

* Results *

 

I would rate Saturday in my top five as far as picking games. I won ten today. 10-2. That's really awesome. The two games that I lost were fairly tough games so I don't feel any regret on those. I made one last minute change to my picks last night before I submitted them to the blog and it totally worked out. I had the Hurricanes beating the Lightning until I saw the final of yesterday's match between the two. I didn't feel like the Hurricanes could do it twice. I was thankfully right. My Flyers looked pretty decent tonight beating the Islanders 4-1. James van Reimsdyk had an incredibly game in particular, netting his first three goal game of the season. Way to go, man! I was really amazed that the "gut" pick that I made of the Blues beating the Wild turned out so well. The Blues beat the Wild 6-3 in a very convincing manner. Niklas Backstrom faced 47 shots in that game. Incredible for a team like the Wild to have spiraled downward so badly. I lost a good game between the Ducks and Blackhawks that came down to the very end of the third to decide. Corey Perry scored his second goal of the night to beat the Hawks behind some strong Ray Emery goaltending. Finally, Calgary barely beat the Oilers, winning in a shootout 5-4. They nearly made my "Shoulda, Coulda, Didn't Game of the Night". I almost feel like I should have some sort of award for escaping a team you should have beaten easily. Regardless, 10-2. Beautiful that sees me only one win from 190 and eleven from 200. Almost there! Here are the results for Saturday.

 

3/26/2011 - Saturday

 

Rangers at Bruins : Pick - Bruins : Result -- 1-0 Rangers : Wrong : 179-142

Avalanche at Kings : Pick - Kings : Result -- 4-1 Kings : Correct : 180-142

Devils at Sabres : Pick - Sabres : Result -- 2-0 Sabres : Correct : 181-142

Maple Leafs at Red Wings : Pick - Red Wings : Result -- 4-2 Red Wings : Correct : 182-142

Lightning at Hurricanes : Pick - Lightning : Result -- 4-2 Lightning : Correct : 183-142

Capitals at Canadiens : Pick - Capitals : Result -- 2-0 Capitals : Correct : 184-142

Flyers at Islanders : Pick - Flyers : Result -- 4-1 Flyers : Correct : 185-142

Stars at Predators : Pick - Predators : Result -- 4-2 Predators : Correct : 186-142

Blues at Wild : Pick - Blues : Result -- 6-3 Blues : Correct : 187-142

Ducks at Blackhawks : Pick - Blackhawks : Result -- 2-1 Ducks : Wrong : 187-143

Sharks at Coyotes : Pick - Sharks : Result -- 4-1 Sharks : Correct : 188-143

Flames at Oilers : Pick - Flames : Result -- 5-4 Flames : Correct (SO/W) : 189-143

 

-Results Format-
Game : Pick : Result : Pick Result (OT or SO W or L based on my pick) : My Season Record
OT/W or OT/L - My pick won or lost in OT.
SO/W or SO/L - My pick won or lost in a shootout.

 

=Dumbest Pick of the Night=

None for tonight. Even the games I lost weren't too horribly made.

 

=Hardest Pick of the Night=

Ducks at Blackhawks : This may not have been the most obvious pick, but as I thought about it, I think it was a tougher pick than I thought. Anaheim and Chicago were only separated by one point. After this game they still are, except Anaheim has jumped ahead of Chicago in the Western Conference playoff race. Ray Emery's return to the NHL has been absolutely stellar and he was just that tonight. It helps when his team is playing pretty well in front of him. Anaheim has such a great line with Perry, Getzlaf, and Ryan skating together. Perry scored two goals assisted by both Getzlaf and Ryan on both goals. Would love to have one of those guys (or all) on the Flyers. To counter, Chicago can never be ignored so long as Kane and Toews are skating. It wasn't easy deciding which team would pull ahead tonight. Anaheim has had the better record lately and came through with a huge 2-1 victory.

 

=Easiest Pick of the Night=

Avalanche at Kings : As always, I'm going to pick on Colorado, but I'll keep it simple. Los Angeles needs to win to maintain their playoff spot. Colorado just wants the season to be over with as they have already been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. The Kings are the better team and the Avalanche are one of the worst teams in the NHL currently.

 

=Got Owned Game of the Night=

Blues at Wild : The St. Louis Blues scored six times on 47 shots tonight. This GOGotN isn't a jab at Nicklas Backstrom whatsoever. No team should surrender 47 shots in one game and expect to win. Minnesota was once in the mix for that eight spot in the playoffs but has long since kissed it goodbye. St. Louis has been very impressive considering they're out of the playoffs. I won't say that Minnesota should have won this game, but it most definitely should have been closer. The Wild were owned tonight.

 

=Most Impressive Pick of the Night=

Lightning at Hurricanes : I almost put the Blues at Wild here because I had a gut feeling the Blues would beat the statistically better team in the Wild. Then I realized I had scratched out the Hurricanes to win this game and placed the Lightning here after the Canes beat the Lightning on Friday night. I felt Tampa Bay would shake off their four game losing streak and that Carolina wouldn't be able to sweep the home-and-home series. I'm impressed with my rational thinking here and glad I made the swap before placing my picks on the blog.

 

* Picks *

 

After a day filled with twelve games, we'll only see four on Sunday. There are some easy picks, one that is a little bit of an underdog, and a difficult one. The easy games are Florida at Pittsburgh and Vancouver at Columbus. I think the Penguins easily handle the lowly Panthers and the Canucks do the same to the uninspiring Blue Jackets. When it comes to the Senators and Thrashers, I'm banking on Ottawa's recent binge of beating up clubs that take them for granted. Seeing as this is Atlanta, that might be a mistake. I recently remember picking Ottawa to beat a mediocre team and it didn't pan out. When I picked them to lose against two playoff caliber teams, they came through. We'll see how this one pans out. Finally, the difficult game of the night belongs to the Bruins visiting the Flyers. Philadelphia had a great showing against the Atlantic Division basement dwelling New York Islanders on Saturday. Whether this is Philadelphia coming out of it's shell or just merely playing one solid game amidst many ugly ones is where the problem lies. Boston has been back and forth. They beat the crap out of Canadiens last Thursday night 7-0 but were shutout against the New York Rangers on Saturday. Should be a great game between the two teams though. Here are my picks for Sunday.

 

3/27/2011 - Sunday

 

Panthers at Penguins ==> Penguins

Senators at Thrashers ==> Senators

Canucks at Blue Jackets ==> Canucks

Bruins at Flyers ==> Flyers

 

Night!