Sorry, I figured something about the “Luck of the Irish” would be really corny, and all I could come up with is Cally-Can….
Anyways, What a remarkable display of putrid hockey by the Boston Bruins. The Rangers really didnt do anything special in the game that they havent done in previous games, its just the Bruins just let the Rangers do whatever they wanted. Its really a shocker because of how close the bruins were to the playoffs, but with tonights loss, I am officially dropping them from the projections and calling them “eliminated”. I was more impressed w/ Henrik getting the shutout, he deserved it as he saved their butts in the first, and then got to coast through much of the rest of the game. Henrik has been nothing short of marvelous, and if not for the putrid start to his season, he might be in the running for the Vezina AND the Hart.
On to Ryan Callahan….I must admit, I still have some questions about him, and heres been my thinking all along for the kid. He doesnt do ANYTHING at elite levels, but he does EVERYTHING really really well. Its strange because he isnt blazing with his speed, but he can skate with 95% of the NHL easy, hes not huge, but he isnt afraid to hit or be hit, and yet somehow he puts up amazing numbers. I still call him one of the most opportunistic players ive seen in a good long while. He takes his few opportunities and cashes in on them all the time. Hes not like Brandon Dubinsky who you notice out there (unless of course he is sent down to Hartford) nearly every second he is on the ice, but when Ryan has the puck, he does special things with it. I guess the best way to describe Ryans game is…Smart….and if youve read any of my posts this year, you know thats one thing I love beyond just about everything else. Smarts is something such a small % of the NHL has its mind boggling, but this kid definitely has it. So far that matter does Dan Girardi, but ill leave that for another blog entry…
Here are tonights Projections:
How this works:
Basically what I do, is to take the points a team has managed till now, divide it by the games played, then multiply it by 82. That should accurately project what the team should finish like, unless there is an extreme streak one way or the other. I will no longer be including the points per game column because lets face it, you don’t care how many points per game!
| Current Rank |
Team | Games Played | Points | Projected Final Points |
Projected Rank |
| 6 | Tampa Bay | 72 | 82 | 94 | 6 |
| 7 | Carolina | 73 | 80 | 90 | 8 |
| 8 | NY Rangers | 72 | 79 | 90 | 9 |
| 9 | NY Islanders | 71 | 78 | 91 | 7 |
| 10 | Toronto | 72 | 78 | 89 | 10 |
| 11 | Montreal | 73 | 78 | 88 | 11 |
As you can see,according to tonights calculations, I project the Rangers as NOT MAKING the playoffs. Despite the pojections showing the Rangers tying Carolina, right now the first tie breaker goes to Carolina as they have more wins. Therefore using these numbers we can project what the Rangers would have to go over the remaining 10 games in order to secure the projected 91 points needed to secure the final playoff spot:
6-4-0
5-3-2
4-2-4
3-1-6
2-0-8
-Inferno