Sunday, April 15, 2007
The Most Over-rated 7 Seed Ever
In all of my many years of watching hockey, I have rarely seen a 7 seed over-rated. I've seen them under-rated many, many times. There are even stories about the 7-2 upset that get shown every once in a while. But, pundits on TV in the US and Canada, as well as scribes in many cities, were all about the Minnesota Wild.
Larry Brooks picked them to come out of the west.
And now they are on the verge of being swept. In most years, no one would notice--they're the 7 seed after all.
But, they have shown almost zero grit. They haven't played poorly, but they don't act like they're actually playing in the playoffs, or that they couldn't afford to go down 3-0, and they sure seemed very nonplussed about the prospect of going down 2-0.
I like the Wild--I have tons of respect for Jacques Lemaire, whose name really should be on the Cup for each of the three Devils' cups, and there are a number of quality players on the team, too. Backstrom was a great story. When Brian Rolston--one of the Wild's best offensive and best defensive forwards--was traded in late 1999 by the Devils for Claude Lemieux, Devils GM Lou Lamoriello said that he thought Rolston was a great player, but the Devils had too many of that one kind of player. This is the same situation with the Wild now. Demitra, Gaborik, Rolston, et al. are all the same kind of player--and the Wild need to address that to be a serious playoff team.
Everyone thought Niedermayer and Pronger would be the difference in this series. In reality, it's been a surprising combo of Randy Carlisle outcoaching (!) Jacques Lemaire by completely stopping the Wild attack, brilliant goaltending by Ilya Bryzgalov, and the penalty kill unit of the Ducks -- without Todd Marchant.
If the Wild had Rod Brind'Amour, they could win the Cup.
Larry Brooks picked them to come out of the west.
And now they are on the verge of being swept. In most years, no one would notice--they're the 7 seed after all.
But, they have shown almost zero grit. They haven't played poorly, but they don't act like they're actually playing in the playoffs, or that they couldn't afford to go down 3-0, and they sure seemed very nonplussed about the prospect of going down 2-0.
I like the Wild--I have tons of respect for Jacques Lemaire, whose name really should be on the Cup for each of the three Devils' cups, and there are a number of quality players on the team, too. Backstrom was a great story. When Brian Rolston--one of the Wild's best offensive and best defensive forwards--was traded in late 1999 by the Devils for Claude Lemieux, Devils GM Lou Lamoriello said that he thought Rolston was a great player, but the Devils had too many of that one kind of player. This is the same situation with the Wild now. Demitra, Gaborik, Rolston, et al. are all the same kind of player--and the Wild need to address that to be a serious playoff team.
Everyone thought Niedermayer and Pronger would be the difference in this series. In reality, it's been a surprising combo of Randy Carlisle outcoaching (!) Jacques Lemaire by completely stopping the Wild attack, brilliant goaltending by Ilya Bryzgalov, and the penalty kill unit of the Ducks -- without Todd Marchant.
If the Wild had Rod Brind'Amour, they could win the Cup.
// posted by Rick @ 8:14 PM 
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]