* Results *
Well, that was your 2010-2011 NHL Regular Season. Sunday answered the question of who would be the last team to join the Western Conference playoff mix. For many, with their teams eliminated, hockey is five to six months away from returning unless they pick an adoptive team to follow. Others, myself included, will be waiting for the playoff schedule to be released so we know when to tune in next to watch our respective teams. The NHL Playoffs are always fun to watch. It means more to the players and fans that losing could bring your season to an end very soon. You have a day to tune any mistakes rather than weeks and months. The skill and intensity are amped up when compared to the regular season. I can't wait to watch some playoff hockey.
With the obligatory introduction out of the way, let's cover the results for Sunday. We start in Chicago where fans of the Dallas Stars were surely tuned in. If Chicago gained even just a point from this game, the Dallas Stars would be eliminated. It was a very physical game between the two teams with plenty of scoring considering. Detroit would not be beat though, as Chicago's last minute bids couldn't find the net. The Blackhawks were still alive so long as the Dallas Stars lost or won their game in a shootout. As the Dallas and Minnesota game was the last of the night, I can imagine the nerves in Chicago were on edge.
In New Jersey, the Devils were able to beat the Boston Bruins at home for their final game of the season. I don't think Boston was pushing themselves this game as they were already slated to play Montreal in the first round of the playoffs. The Devils had an amazing finish to what was looking to be an absolute mess in New Jersey. It was commendable how they managed to crawl back into the NHL Playoff talks nearing the end of the season.
In Colorado, Avalanche fans were able to bid farewell to Adam Foote who was playing his final NHL game. The game featured the league's worst teams in the league in the Oilers (the worst) and Avalanche (second worst). The game went to overtime which almost seems fitting given the previously mentioned circumstances. In the end, Colorado was able to end Foote's career on a high note and end a losing streak. Both Edmonton and Colorado end the season with the the worst records in the NHL but with the highest probability of landing the top pick in the lottery drawing for the first pick in the draft. If Edmonton lands that pick, it will be their second consecutive year of drafting first overall.
In Atlanta, the Thrashers finished their mediocre season with a loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-2. Atlanta was already eliminated from the playoffs and was just capping off yet another season with no playoffs. There were positive strides in Atlanta, but I imagine fans are getting tired of the same old results by their Thrashers. For the Penguins, there wasn't much to play for. The Philadelphia Flyers locked down the Atlantic Division yesterday, which in turn locked the Penguins into the fourth seed of the Eastern Conference. Pittsburgh will face the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the playoffs.
Finally, the final game of the night was between the Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild. The Stars only had to win this game in either regulation or in overtime so that they could claim the final seed in the Western Conference. Detroit did them a huge favor by beating the Chicago Blackhawks. Though Dallas remained competitive in the game, the Wild pulled ahead 4-3 in the third period. This was eventually padded by an empty net goal making the final 5-3 for the Wild. The Stars and their fans have to be disappointed to blow a huge opportunity. In Chicago, a collective sigh of relief had to have been hard when the Minnesota Wild hit the empty net for a 5-3 Wild lead.
My night was fairly terrible but I suppose I'm in a pretty good mood knowing the playoffs are right around the corner. I finished the night 1-4 which makes my season total 245-190. I was able to keep a 55 game margin between my wins and losses which is pretty impressive to me. If you've been reading this, thanks for doing so. The page has more hits than I would expected to receive for a project that was really aimed to take advantage of the NHL Center Ice package that I was subscribed to. That I followed through for over two months amazes me. I hope to try an entire season. Anyway, the results for Sunday are below. For my grand total stats (from when I began this up until today) and my plans for the playoffs, keep reading further.
4/10/2011 - Sunday
Red Wings at Blackhawks : Pick - Blackhawks : Result -- 4-3 Red Wings : Wrong : 244-187
Bruins at Devils : Pick - Devils : Result -- 3-2 Devils : Correct : 245-187
Oilers at Avalanche : Pick - Oilers : Result -- 4-3 Avalanche : Wrong (OT/L) : 245-188
Penguins at Thrashers : Pick - Thrashers : Result -- 5-2 Thrashers : Wrong : 245-189
Stars at Wild : Pick - Stars : Result -- 5-3 Wild : Wrong : 245-190
-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=
Penguins at Thrashers : Not surprised I lost this one. It all depended if Pittsburgh was going to rest their players. It would have been wise to go with Pittsburgh though as they're clearly a better team. One team is going to the playoffs (Pittsburgh), while the other is just finishing their season. Pittsburgh is still a good team even if they did rest their players. Should have put a little more thought into the pick.
=Easiest Pick of the Night=
None. I only won one game and it wasn't really an easy pick.
=Hardest Pick of the Night=
Red Wings at Blackhawks : Detroit had nothing to gain by winning, but I still expected them to play a tough game. They could help make it harder for Chicago to gain entry into the playoffs. Chicago really wanted to win this game since it would have saved them the nerves of waiting to see if the Dallas Stars won later on or not. I originally went with Detroit but scratched them out to place the Blackhawks as the winning team. A lot of those games that could go either way have scribbles in my pick area. This was one of them.
=Shoulda, Coulda, Didn't Game of the Night=
Stars at Wild : The Dallas Stars were thrown a giant bone when Detroit beat Chicago in regulation. All Dallas had to do was win in regulation or in overtime (a Dallas shootout victory would have given the tie breaker to Chicago). The Stars weren't able to do that against a team they probably should have beaten. The should and could parts of the equation were definitely there against a team like the Wild. The loss sent Dallas home two points short with plenty of questions regarding next season unanswered (like where Brad Richards will go). Tough loss for Dallas.
* Final Stats *
I began this blog officially on February 9th but had started my idea of picking the winners of NHL hockey games every night on February 7th. My stats cover February 7th until the last day of the regular season which would be today April 10th. You'll see all the numbers below, but my grand total of games that I picked was 435 which spanned 64 nights. I ended up winning 245 of those 435 games which is about 56.3%. The perfectionist in me was hoping for something closer like 60 to 70%, but really I'm proud of that figure. Out of those 64 nights, I had six nights where I made all the right picks for the night. I'm proud to also say that I only picked all the games incorrectly just once which was a night that had only three games played. I guess what makes me feel happy about my season is that if I was betting on these games, I would have won money. Not much, but at least I didn't go under .500 for the season. I do plan on keeping this blog together for next season. I want to make a run to get a whole season under my belt. I'll keep new stats for next season and compare them to this season's stats. It'll be fun to see if I get any better or if luck just varies. I'll also be sure to keep a "career" set of my stats. With all of that said, here is my stats for the part of the 2010-2011 season that I covered.
Game Nights : 64
Games Picked : 435
Wins : 235
Losses : 190
Win % : 56.3%
OT/W's : 31 (The amount of my wins that were via overtime. So in this case 31 out of 235 were in overtime.)
OT/L's : 28 (Same as above, except losses that were via overtime.)
SO/W's : 24 (Think you get the point now.)
SO/L's : 28
Perfect Nights : 6 (Nights where I picked the games correctly.) High : 5 games Low : 2 games
All-Wrong Nights : 1 (Where I picked all the game incorrectly.) High/low : 3 games
* Playoffs *
Below you'll see the top eight teams of each conference that made the playoffs with their points and opponent listed beside them. I'm not making prediction in this edition of my blog. As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm not going to make predictions for each individual game. I think it would get a little redundant (as if what I did for the last two months wasn't) rather than just picking the team I felt was going to win the series. I'll keep track of the games in similar fashion to what I do now by updating scores and how my picks are coming along. I probably won't write every night, but might go with every other night instead. As far as my stats, I'll keep track of the how many series I pick, how many I get right, how many I get wrong, my winning percentage, how many rounds I was perfect (similar to picking all the games right on one night), and how many rounds I wasn't (guessed wrong on all series of a round). Same concept, just a little consolidated.
As far as picking the series in the playoff, I'll make an overall pick of the playoffs. I'll release a post with my picks from the quarter finals all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals. This won't be official. In other words, it'll just be a cool thing to look back on. I'll make my official picks as each round progresses so that I can at least make educated picks. If my overall pick of the NHL Playoffs is correct, I'll obviously proclaim myself a genius and delete the previous sentence from the post. Lol. Anyway, that's really what I've figured out thus far. I'll update with my picks very soon. Here are those NHL Conference Standings as promised.
Eastern Conference
1. Washington Capitals - 107 points - play #8 New York Rangers
2. Philadelphia Flyers - 106 points - play #7 Buffalo Sabres
3. Boston Bruins - 103 points - play #6 Montreal Canadiens
4. Pittsburgh Penguins - 106 points - play #5 Tampa Bay Lightning
5. Tampa Bay Lightning - 103 points - play #4 Pittsburgh Penguins
6. Montreal Canadiens - 96 points - play #3 Boston Bruins
7. Buffalo Sabres - 96 points - play #2 Philadelphia Flyers
8. New York Rangers - 93 points - play #1 Washington Capitals
Western Conference
1. Vancouver Canucks - 117 points - play #8 Chicago Blackhawks
2. San Jose Sharks - 105 points - play #7 Los Angeles Kings
3. Detroit Red Wings - 104 points - play #6 Phoenix Coyotes
4. Anaheim Ducks - 99 points - play #5 Nashville Predators
5. Nashville Predators - 99 points - play #4 Anaheim Ducks
6. Phoenix Coyotes - 99 points - play #3 Detroit Red Wings
7. Los Angeles Kings - 98 points - play #2 San Jose Sharks
8. Chicago Blackhawks - 97 points - play #1 Vancouver Canucks
I'll have my picks and season history between teams and their opponents coming up. This will likely be on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, so be sure to keep an eye out if you read this. Again, if you do read this, thanks a bunch for reading or even just checking this out. It's been an awesome two months.
Night!
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