You know what's scary? Looking at the Western Conference
Every team in the West is playoff worthy the way they're playing right now.
Nashville and Minnesota have been consistent low seeds the past few years with a drop-off recently. Nashville is in 4th while Minnesota is 4 points out of 8th place, currently in 11th. Those are the 2 worst teams (in my opinion) in the West.
The teams behind Minnesota? In this order: Anaheim (35 points), Columbus (35 points), Edmonton (34 points), St. Louis (33 points). 3 of those 4 teams were in the playoffs last year, with Edmonton getting beat out by Anaheim in the last couple of days of the season. With Hemsky out for the season, maybe the Oilers are not playoff bound this year either. But it really is surprising to see the other teams rounding out the bottom of the barrel.
Just a year ago, the Predators, Kings, and Coyotes were pretty much free wins. Today, they are 4th, 5th, and 7th respectively. Nashville has one of the best road records in the NHL, the Kings have finally played to their potential, and the Coyotes have the 2nd fewest goals against in the Conference, behind Chicago with an astounding 71 GA (the Yotes have 83).
Honestly, every single team in the West can be argued for deserving a playoff spot this year.
Looking out East... Carolina is dead last with 24, and the Flyers are surprisingly 2nd to last with 32 points. Outside of them, the standings aren't too surprising, with the Islanders, Maple Leafs, and Lightning all tied for 13th place with 33 points. Those teams are pretty much free wins on any given night (unless they're playing each other).
The West is pretty freaking crazy.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Update LOOOOOOOOOOONG Past Due
Wow I haven't written in this blog in months. Actually, given that hockey started in October, it's only been 2 months. But it seems like forever.
Here's a quick rundown of what I've been doing that have simply been handcuffing me in terms of availability.
-First and foremost, working on various stories for journalism class. Primarily with professional gamers in Southern California. Although I've already submitted it as a final, still doing finishing touches on a profile on Alex Valle. May post it on this blog, because Valle is a cool guy and at least one other person besides me and my professor should read about it. Random free time project currently working on: Ryan "Gootecks" Gutierrez. Very excited. Waiting in the wings is who I think is the future of Southern California Street Fighter: Jason Nghe. 15 years old and placed 5th at a recent tournament with all the top SoCal players participating.
-Finally got a job. Retail sucks. Co-workers are awesome though, and Best Buy pays well (and not commission based either). But damn, customers need some common sense. Same with drivers.
-Modern Warfare 2 is my new free time game. Still haven't hit prestige 1 yet, although it may be for the best. That game needs a patch badly, for a multitude of reasons.
-Keeping up with as many hocke... Sharks games as possible. Already missed 5-6 recent ones because of school/work. And lo and behold, they're in a losing streak. Thankfully, most of them have been OT/SO losses. Still going strong in the standings, although the rest of the league has or is catching up. The second line looks more like the playoff line than the dominant 08-09 season version. McLellon needs to decide right now whether he keeps the #1 scoring line in the league in tact (which has only been together for less than a month, and they're already over 20 points higher than the second place line), or if he wants to spark more offensive balance by moving Marleau to the second line and bumping Setoguchi back up. He's been moving Seto back and forth between games. Created good scoring chances, but has yet to translate to a point since he returned from injury.
-BlazBlue: Continuum Shift reached the shores of California last last Tuesday, with Arcade Infinity in Fullerton being the first arcade in California and one of four in America to get have it up and running that day. I think it's still one of the only ones. That or nobody is updating arcade locations on dustloop. Anyways, got my new Rachel game down. 2 of her links have been destroyed, another is much more restricted. Litchi, Ragna and Bang are front runners for top tier, since they didn't change much and if anything were buffed. Makes sense for the last two, but Litchi made 2 of the top 8 positions in SBO. She obviously was A/S tier, but she's still just as good and even has a NEW combo. Clearly having ONE bad match-up against V-13 means she should be buffed. Rachel seems pretty weak right now; none of the Japanese are winning and a lot have changed mains. Haven't seen MSY though. Rachel may be restricted, but I still say she's a character that hasn't been tapped to her full potential. I'm excited to see CS Rachel in 3-4 months. Arakune seems to be built to be 5/5 against everyone. Want to learn Arakune and Tao in CS, since they have the longest juggles. 84 hit untechable combo? Good times.
That's it for now. Hopefully by next week all the kinks in my Valle story will be worked out. I'll try to post it on this blog in sections... it turned out to be a 17 page story. Free time and finances permitting, I'll be attending a lot more tournaments, although not necessarily participating.
Check out http://www.gootecks.com/bar-fights/bar-fights-hooters-wrap-up-results-pics-videos/ to see the tournament I was at this past weekend. That Jason kid is crazy.
*edit*
Just watched Arcade Infinity's youtube channel for some top 8 action of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift tournament they held this weekend. To nobody's surprise, Mike_Z is there. Also to nobody's surprise, we don't have an Arakune, Lamda, or Rachel player, but they have been conveniently replaced by Bang, Litchi, and Ragna. My suspicions have been confirmed. Although like I said, it is still the infant stages of the game and those 3 characters (Tager isn't included because he'll still be B tier at the most) were the easiest to transition to.
Here's a quick rundown of what I've been doing that have simply been handcuffing me in terms of availability.
-First and foremost, working on various stories for journalism class. Primarily with professional gamers in Southern California. Although I've already submitted it as a final, still doing finishing touches on a profile on Alex Valle. May post it on this blog, because Valle is a cool guy and at least one other person besides me and my professor should read about it. Random free time project currently working on: Ryan "Gootecks" Gutierrez. Very excited. Waiting in the wings is who I think is the future of Southern California Street Fighter: Jason Nghe. 15 years old and placed 5th at a recent tournament with all the top SoCal players participating.
-Finally got a job. Retail sucks. Co-workers are awesome though, and Best Buy pays well (and not commission based either). But damn, customers need some common sense. Same with drivers.
-Modern Warfare 2 is my new free time game. Still haven't hit prestige 1 yet, although it may be for the best. That game needs a patch badly, for a multitude of reasons.
-Keeping up with as many hocke... Sharks games as possible. Already missed 5-6 recent ones because of school/work. And lo and behold, they're in a losing streak. Thankfully, most of them have been OT/SO losses. Still going strong in the standings, although the rest of the league has or is catching up. The second line looks more like the playoff line than the dominant 08-09 season version. McLellon needs to decide right now whether he keeps the #1 scoring line in the league in tact (which has only been together for less than a month, and they're already over 20 points higher than the second place line), or if he wants to spark more offensive balance by moving Marleau to the second line and bumping Setoguchi back up. He's been moving Seto back and forth between games. Created good scoring chances, but has yet to translate to a point since he returned from injury.
-BlazBlue: Continuum Shift reached the shores of California last last Tuesday, with Arcade Infinity in Fullerton being the first arcade in California and one of four in America to get have it up and running that day. I think it's still one of the only ones. That or nobody is updating arcade locations on dustloop. Anyways, got my new Rachel game down. 2 of her links have been destroyed, another is much more restricted. Litchi, Ragna and Bang are front runners for top tier, since they didn't change much and if anything were buffed. Makes sense for the last two, but Litchi made 2 of the top 8 positions in SBO. She obviously was A/S tier, but she's still just as good and even has a NEW combo. Clearly having ONE bad match-up against V-13 means she should be buffed. Rachel seems pretty weak right now; none of the Japanese are winning and a lot have changed mains. Haven't seen MSY though. Rachel may be restricted, but I still say she's a character that hasn't been tapped to her full potential. I'm excited to see CS Rachel in 3-4 months. Arakune seems to be built to be 5/5 against everyone. Want to learn Arakune and Tao in CS, since they have the longest juggles. 84 hit untechable combo? Good times.
That's it for now. Hopefully by next week all the kinks in my Valle story will be worked out. I'll try to post it on this blog in sections... it turned out to be a 17 page story. Free time and finances permitting, I'll be attending a lot more tournaments, although not necessarily participating.
Check out http://www.gootecks.com/bar-fights/bar-fights-hooters-wrap-up-results-pics-videos/ to see the tournament I was at this past weekend. That Jason kid is crazy.
*edit*
Just watched Arcade Infinity's youtube channel for some top 8 action of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift tournament they held this weekend. To nobody's surprise, Mike_Z is there. Also to nobody's surprise, we don't have an Arakune, Lamda, or Rachel player, but they have been conveniently replaced by Bang, Litchi, and Ragna. My suspicions have been confirmed. Although like I said, it is still the infant stages of the game and those 3 characters (Tager isn't included because he'll still be B tier at the most) were the easiest to transition to.
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