re: Unofficial NHL Season-Long Thread: Puckheads Unite!

Pens 6 Sabres 1 FINAL.

2 goals 4 pts for Letang 2 goals for Horny, 5 assists for Sid.

7 in a row for the Pens, 32-8 outscored opponents in those 7 wins.

The Pens light everyone up right now.

Solid, Neal with a goal I see.

Anyone ever sat row 1 right in front of the glass?

Catching the Wild at Pens game in January when I'm in Pitt and my buddy wants to sit front row.

Never sat any closer than about row 15 at the games I've been too.

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Anyone ever sat row 1 right in front of the glass?

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I did during the Islanders uber suck years where if you got a seat in the upper levels they would tell you to move down to the lower areas to make they place look like it had a crowd for the TV cameras. Man were those lean years.

I also did it for a few college hockey games. Its kinda fun to see the players smashing up against the glass, but I prefer being around 15-20 rows up. I can see everything from that point, but if you get the opportunity to sit by the glass you should do it at least once to experience it.

Kind of what I was thinking, might as well do it and experience it.

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Kind of what I was thinking, might as well do it and experience it.

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Only problem for the few times I did it was that one time I get stuck sitting next to this fine specimen of white trash. He has body oder than would peel the pain off of walls. Beyond obnoxious too boot.

Caps finally get some good results to go with good play. they are 5th in the NHL in FenClose, the leading indicator of team quality (no, seriously, I don't want to go through the math, but the top 5 in FenClose are usually your Cup contenders... the top 5 right now are the Wild, Pens, Bolts, Hawks, Caps). Caps have been dominating possession, but losing games. Mainly because they keep blowing leads, which they did this weekend too, but they at least rallied back to win.

What you don't want to see is a team that isn't getting results despite playing well to then just give in to bad habits. Then you have bad underlying play, which leads to even worse results. So, just getting results this weekend is huge.

The biggest issues? Turnovers and goaltending. I don't have a stat for it so I can't prove it, but it seems the Caps turn over the puck in their own end a disproportionate amount. And that's how an opposing team can score a lot of goals without much puck possession. You don't need a minute of cycle time to score off a turnover. And I think the turnovers feed the goaltending, as they are facing a lot of shots from guys all alone close in. Peters is just a backup, but he's let in a lot of softies, and Hotlby's gotten abused on some horrid turnovers.

Other than that, there are only two players with 100 minutes of total ice time who are underwater on possession: Chimera and Orpik. Chimmer's only under by 3 shots, so I don't really care, and he gets tough minutes anyway. Orpik, OTOH, is the player we thought he was. He's not getting the tough minutes Carlson and Schmidt are getting (but not sheltered like Green, the scoring machine). He better be the best damn gritty leader in the locker room or else he contributes nothing (actually, not true, he's a good penalty killer). When Orlov gets healthy, I'd rather send Orpik down than Schmidt, who has been pretty great. I know you can't do that, but it doesn't mean I don't want to.

Who cares the Habs are starting to roll. So what does that lead me to believe, they will falter in the Spring. I will blame CP31 for all the woes, wrongfully in everyone else's mind but mine.