Daily Update March 21

Have to be happy with the model winning big, because pretty much everything else went wrong. Games which included amusing things:

Cory Conacher (come back we love you really) had a three-point night for Buffalo who opened their "points-after-elimination" account with a win at edmonton. At one point he wound up in the penalty box without his helmet and somehow was given John Scott's. Scott outweighs Conacher by eighty pounds (yes really) and is a foot taller, so the results were a little silly.

Detroit beat Pittsburgh with 0.4 seconds to go in overtime, on a Daniel Alfredsson (come back we love you really) goal which was the *second* of the night to go in off of a penguin. Those of you who watch afl may be familiar with the "hard tag" which is what happens when an opposing player is so good and so important to shut down that a tagger is told to be immediately next to him at all times for an entire game. Make no attempt at offence, ever, just lock down on this one guy. Buddy Franklin routinely gets hard tags, Gary Ablett, those types of players. It's an extraordinarily thankless task for both people involved but it makes for compelling tv. Hockey has much more frequent changing and so hard tagging (as opposed to your common-or-garden line matching) is pretty much impossible, but you see it now and again, especially from the better coaches. Mike Babcock had Legwand hard-tag Malkin about as tightly as hockey permits, and, let me tell you, it didn't work. Malkin was about 75% corsi on the night, and at one point Legwand got so frustrated with being outmuscled and outplayed that he did this. That is a penalty, kids, and "butt-ending" is, in fact, its name. You may wonder why you've never seen a butt-ending minor, and that's because they don't exist: five minutes if you get the guy, four if you try and miss; just like spearing. Sometimes I have a hard time explaining to non-hockey types what is and what is not a penalty (you can smoke a guy like *this* but not like *that*? Yes) but this is not one of those times. "Are you allowed to do that?" "No. That is not allowed." But it's ok, David, you won!

But but but but really really the highlight of the night was this ridiculous goal from Ales Hemsky (re-sign we love you really): That may be the goal of the year. Just extraordinary. Obviously the senators lost anyway and their playoff chances are now infinitesimal.

Nothing at all surprising here. Boston the no-respect favourites, Carolina the unlikely-but-delicious-odds. Nashville-Calgary may be the most boring matchup possible.

Playoff Chances

East

Only two spots here; Columbus have been over 75% for ten straight days and so "graduated" into "uninteresting" class. Flyers beat another good team; but the notable thing is how far the maple leafs fell. The drop itself is not that dramatic, except that the leafs *didn't play*.

West

The stars lose again, as they do so very, very often these days, so now the Coyotes have (slightly) leapfrogged them for the 8th spot. This makes me sad. The coyotes should not make the playoffs. Ever.

Points after elimination

Team	Points	Games
Buffalo	2	2

Only very outlandish scenarios stand between Edmonton being eliminated and St Louis clinching; if neither are true by Monday it already be remarkable.