Rite of Spring '14: Can you fall asleep with a panic switch?

[zpqmaowl]

[Alex Houston]

Whenever I start to see any of these playoff trends and weird stats coming up, I can't help but think of Homer.

[zpqmaowl]

There are three kinds of lies...

[Kramerica Industries]

Whenever I start to see any of these playoff trends and weird stats coming up, I can't help but think of Homer.

These same kind of weird trends and stats indicate that the Sharks will be in the Cup Final next season so I hope you don't completely disregard them as just happenstance of miniscule sample sizes.

[Alex Houston]

Whenever I start to see any of these playoff trends and weird stats coming up, I can't help but think of Homer.

These same kind of weird trends and stats indicate that the Sharks will be in the Cup Final next season so I hope you don't completely disregard them as just happenstance of miniscule sample sizes.

As a matter of fact, I do. McLellan was in Houston with the AHL prior to San Jose and lost in the first round and then the third before winning the Calder Cup in the third season. Upon joining the Sharks, he does the exact same thing, though this time, the third round appearance doesn't quite pan out.

Needless to say, I don't trust any trends. They're completely meaningless but if you want to find some to fulfill a self-fulfilling prophecy, they're certainly there.

[Still MIGHTY]

Hmm. Interesting. Especially because of how good you remember those teams as being.

[The_Admiral]

Last year's Blackhawks had a two-minute pratfall for a power play, though I don't remember any long droughts. It was more that they just got a surfeit of chances and squandered most of them.

[Kramerica Industries]

I remember the '11 Bruins got past Montreal in round one despite not scoring a single PPG. Their power play was a mess that year but their 5v5 play was so excellent they were able to get by.

Same thing with the '12 Kings, I guess. Does anyone even remember the Kings ever trailing in a game during that postseason? That was a machine of a hockey team. 10-1 record away from home and a 3-0 series lead in all four series they played.

[ninersdd]

2 goals in 3 games for the Rangers. At least there is another team that has been as inept on offense as the Sharks(also had 2 goals in their last 3 games).

[Kramerica Industries]

Martin St. Louis has three goals in 30 games with the New York Rangers. Not gonna lie; I'm rooting for their ultimate success but the schadenfreude is delicious.

[The_Admiral]

I remember the '11 Bruins got past Montreal in round one despite not scoring a single PPG. Their power play was a mess that year but their 5v5 play was so excellent they were able to get by.

Thanks to Playoff Officiating, a strong penalty kill is far more important than a strong power play. I don't think there's been a champion whose success was heavily predicated on the power play since the Hurricanes, back in that beta-test of a season where every restraining/obstruction foul was called, even in the playoffs. Detroit has always had a great power play, but they've never relied on it above all else; it's just been one of many things they do well.

[Sport]

There is just nothing fun about this Rangers team. It's like watching the 2011 Blue Jackets all over again.

[Kramerica Industries]

I remember the '11 Bruins got past Montreal in round one despite not scoring a single PPG. Their power play was a mess that year but their 5v5 play was so excellent they were able to get by.

Thanks to Playoff Officiating, a strong penalty kill is far more important than a strong power play. I don't think there's been a champion whose success was heavily predicated on the power play since the Hurricanes, back in that beta-test of a season where every restraining/obstruction foul was called, even in the playoffs. Detroit has always had a great power play, but they've never relied on it above all else; it's just been one of many things they do well.

I don't think that has ever rung more true than Game 7 of the ECF that year. Not a single penalty was called. I'm not the kind of person who will ever allege conspiracy theories or anything because those are rubbish and nonsense, but it was a tough break for a Lightning team that had just potted three PPG's in the previous game while having a PK that was, IIRC, sitting over 90% on the kill for the postseason. That was not the second best team in the East that year but they had gotten to the precipice of the SCF because of their special teams play and, well, doesn't help very much how good special teams are when all 60 minutes are played 5v5.

[dbadefense1990]

Is Anaheim even a real place?

I know the people there are fake

Take Disneyland and the sports teams out of the picture, and Anaheim is nothing more than Orange County's Van Nuys or Panorama City. It doesn't quite fit the stereotypical OC living community, as it's a sub-shady suburb containing strip outlets and mediocre housing developments. They've had their own problems with the police department, as evidenced by fatal civilian shootings on back-to-back nights a couple of years ago.

http://en.www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaheim_police_shooting_and_protests

Anaheim, in all honesty, can be the working-class city lots of other well-known cities in SoCal are. But all tourists and non-natives know about it is the whole Disney and "family-friendly" angle to Anaheim, just as those same people think everyone in Los Angeles is obsessed with surfing, Hollywood and plastic surgery.

[LMU]

If you think about it, Anaheim's almost a smaller version of Long Beach. Both have the really good areas (Anaheim Hills; Bixby Knolls/Belmont Shore/Naples) and the tourist areas, and both have some areas you wouldn't want to be caught dead in after dark (North Long Beach; Ball Road). Main difference though is that Long Beach has an actual downtown, whereas Anaheim kind of relies on Irvine for that.

[Still MIGHTY]

If you think about it, Anaheim's almost a smaller version of Long Beach. Both have the really good areas (Anaheim Hills; Bixby Knolls/Belmont Shore/Naples) and the tourist areas, and both have some areas you wouldn't want to be caught dead in after dark (North Long Beach; Ball Road). Main difference though is that Long Beach has an actual downtown, whereas Anaheim kind of relies on Irvine for that.

I'd say the "downtown" for Anaheim would be Fullerton or Orange, but hey. (Or within city limits there's Downtown Disney or the Gardenwalk in the resort/convention area. I mean, there's stuff there.)

[monkeypower]

I've been to Anaheim six times over the years and Anaheim and the area around (maybe most of the USA in general) always struck me as odd as how it's laid out.

Up here in Canada (at least where I live, parts of Ontario, BC and maybe Quebec are different) you know when you have left one city or town and gone into the next, it's more spread out. Here in Calgary, if you want to get to the closest city over, you still have stretches of highway with nothing but fields around. But if you go to LAX or John Wayne and drive to Anaheim, you go through what seems like 4 or 5 different towns in the same distance.

Also, where do people in Anaheim live? When I was there at the end of March it was the first time that I had really been outside of the "Anaheim Resort" area or whatever it's called for an extended period because my family and I went shopping. During this time I barely saw any houses or neighbourhoods until I thought we had left Anaheim and went into some other city/town/suburb, which we may or may not have.

Based on my experiences down there, if someone told me that Anaheim entirely consisted of the Honda Center, Angel Stadium, Disneyland and the hotels, shops and business in between, I would believe them.

[FiddySicks]

Orange, Garden Grove, Costa Mesa, Santa Ana, Fullerton, Fountain Valley, Westminister, Tustin, Irvine, ect. Just those handful of cities in northern Orange County account for a HUGE portion of the "working class" population of Orange County. I don't know a whole lot about the towns south of there, but they're mostly higher end. At least that's what I noticed when I lived there.

You're right though, there really isn't much of a gap in between each city, but that's because there are SO many people in that general area. There's a pretty large stretch of open nothingness in Orange County, but it tends to be concentrated towards the east heading out towards Moreno Valley, Menifee, Temecula, ect.

It's a great place to visit, but actually living in Orange County wore thin pretty quick for me because the population was so concentrated west center and everyone was packed in so tightly.

The thing people need to realize is that while it's sustainable to live near the coast in that part of Southern California and the weather is VERY nice, everything to the east of that is just an enormous swath of desert that stretches out to nowhere till you hit about Phoenix. The eastern end of Anaheim pretty much touches the start of that, and it's not a terribly desirable stretch of land.

[ninersdd]

Orange County is very nice, I've been there a few times recently. I went to Disneyland once when I was 11, and was disappointed thanks to

the huge crowds (I have a feeling its like this every day). Despite this I know will go back there one of these days.

UC Irvine has to be a well kept secret, since it's very close to Newport Beach and the ocean, etc, so you can go and check those places out. I have their logo in my sig, and that's cause my sister is gonna play soccer there next year.

[Still MIGHTY]

I mean... I like it.