PLAYOFF PREVIEW! part 2

So it's a couple of days late. Sue me.

Here's our preview for the Eastern Conference playoffs openning round! Today's extremely useless stat will be the shooting percentage of your top goal scorer! By looking at the shooting percentage of the top goal scorer on each team, I will magically predict who is going to win each series!

Let's look at the match-ups.

1. Buffalo Sabres (Thomas Vanek, 18.1%) vs. New York Islanders (Jason Blake, 13.1%). Not even the potential return of Ricky D is enough to save the Islanders in this series. Five percentage points higher is just as good as a sweep in my book, Sabres in four.

2. New Jersey (Zach Parise, 12.6%) vs. Tampa Bay (Vincent Lecavlier, 15.3%). Based on my extremely unscientific thought process, it looks like Tampa Bay will come back from their opening round loss and over take the Devils. Bolts in 6.

3. Atlanta Thrashers (Marian Hossa, 12.6%) vs. New York Rangers (Jaromir Jagr, 9.3%). 9.3%?!?!? How many millions of shots did he take? With Jagr playing like his old self (his self of 4 years ago, not his self of 12 years ago), it looks like Atlanta should be ok in the long haul of this series. Atlanta in 7.

4. Ottawa Senators (Dany Heatley, 16.1%) vs. Pittsburgh Penguins (Sidney Crosby, 14.4%). Secondary Sid doesn't have a terribly bad shooting percentage. Maybe he should shoot the puck more. Of course, I'm guessing if he did that, then his critics (people like me), would yell at him for shooting too much and not passing more. It's a hard knock life for Crosby. Senators in five.

Well, that's it for this round, it looks like some teams will wake up and come back, while other teams won't. Some teams of course, are just destined to be hated by me, but hey, I was pretty nice this time around.

I'm now off to offer congratulations to the Hershey Bears and their first division title in 13 years, not to mention clinching the best record in the AHL. LET'S GO BEARS! Oh yeah, and NHL stuff too. We've got games starting in a few hours!

Ask FS! 1/20/07

Welcome back loyal readers! It's time once again for the online column that seeks out the hard hitting answers, Ask FS! Today's question comes to us from Tom in Springfield, VA. Tom wonders

What's the most amount of hockey you've ever watched in one day?

Thanks for the question Tom! If you mean in terms of watching on TV, then the answer is related to some day when I sat around and watched playoff hockey until my eyes drooled out of my head around the fifth overtime. But if we are talking about in person, well then TODAY is the day!
On today's docket is a doubleheaders!
Caps/Panthers 1 pm
Bears/Soundtigers 7:30 pm

Oh yeah, it's time to watch some hockey! And get back at a reasonable hour so I can go to work!!!

Well that wraps up this edition! If you have a question you'd like to submit so we can get some funny answers, drop me a question via email or a comment down below.

Until next time, LET'S GO CAPS/BEARS!

Looking back at the Bears . . .

Well, we had a bunch of Hershey kids up over the weekend due to injury/illness, so I figured it'd be time to look back and see how they looked in development, as well as their stats:

Lawrence Nycholat: (still with the team)6g. 1-3-4. 2PIMs. +0. 20:33 per game. Nycholat has been inspired since he came up, to the point where one has to wonder why he was never given a preseason game the last two years? And whether or not Bryan Muir will be the one sent down when he comes back. If I may quote what he said in the District Chophouse the other night, "I'm just trying to play well enough to stay up."

Oh, that's right. I had an exclusive interview.

Dave Steckel: 3g. No points. -2. 11:14. Solid defensively, ok on the PP, but just not showing any offensive ability whatsoever. While he may be able to get it done on O at the AHL level, he hasn't really been able to develop it in the NHL, and there really isn't much of a spark there.

Jamie Hunt: 1g. -1. 6:01. He was minus one in 6 minutes of ice time. Imagine what would have happened if he'd been out there for more.

Timo Helbling: 2g. -1 11:59. He was out there four times as much as Jamie Hunt, but the most memorable experience was getting drilled by the Devils' Cam Janssen.

Jeff Schultz: 4g. -2. 16:03. Schultz looked like any guy in his first year as a professional would look. Solid at times, lost at others. He showed some potential, and he showed how important that big reach can be for a defenseman, but it might be another year or two until he's ready full time.

So what did we learn from the experience?
1. The NHL should never EVER have four games in five nights. Ever.
2. Nycholat should have been up here all along, and Muir might be unnecessary.
3. Jeff Schultz could be really really good one day.
4. The fact that Hershey could keep winning games despite the fact that all these players were called up, and starting goaltender Freddie Cassivi is hurt shows that this club has some organizational depth. Just not a lot of top end talent.

Ask FS! 12/30

Welcome loyal readers (boy I felt like I've typed that a lot the last few days) to the last "Ask FS!" of 2006! As always, I bring my fans more information about the hows and whys of the world than you'll ever find on the back of a cereal box. Today's timely question comes in from Lisa in Washington. Lisa wonders

What's your favorite Hershey product?

That's a great question Lisa, especially in light of all the recent call-ups from Chocolate town. But honestly, my favorite type of Hershey's candy product is a tie between Hershey's with almonds, and Reece's Peanut Butter cups. Since FS is in charge of purchasing snack products at his job, both items are fully stocked.

I hope everyone out there has a good year, and remember be it, 2006, 2007, or 1907 Let's Go Caps!

End of Weekend wrap-up.

In liue of actually having anything intelligent to say, let's see what other people are saying about what happened in the organization over the weekend.

The Caps lost on Friday night to the Ducks 6-1, in a game where the score really says all you need to know about what happened. It wasn't that the Caps as a whole were that bad, but they weren't that good, and Olie had a rough night.

"Win Streak Ends at 4" -The Washington Post
Ducks End Caps Streak -The Washington Times
The Caps Report -The Washington Times
Ducks Win This One for the Road -The LA Times

On Saturday, the Caps and Flyers played a back and forth game before Norris Trophy Candidate scored the game winner in the second half of the third period, while Princess Pettinger Put the icing on the cake in the last minute for a 5-3 victory.
The New Broad Street Bullies -The Washington Post
Capitals Find Hard Way To Win -The Washington Times
Caps Report -The Washington Times
For Flyers, A Losing Experience -The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News
Lack Of Firepower Dooms Flyers In Latest Loss -Camden Courrier Post


Down on the farm, Hershey knocked off the Norfolk Admirals in OT 3-2. The Game winner came from Eric Fehr. The two teams square of again this evening, once again in Hershey.
Bears Solve Admirals -The Harrisburg Patriot News

Down in Carolina, the Stingrays knocked off the Charleston Inferno twice over the weekend sweeping the home and home series with scores of 3-2 and 5-2.