Saturday, November 30, 2013

Week 9 Picks



1) Another week, another chance to continue our mastery.  For the record we take a 57-31 .648 winning % into today's action.

NY Rangers VS Vancouver: Rangers

 Boston VS Columbus: Bruins

 Montreal VS Toronto: Habitants

 Pittsburgh VS Florida: Penguins (Lock of the Week)

 New Jersey VS Buffalo: Devils

 Washington VS NY Islanders : Capitals

 Philadelphia VS Nashville: Flyers

 Chicago VS Phoenix: BlackHawks

 Colorado VS Minnesota: Avalanche

 Calgary VS Los Angeles: Kings

 San Jose VS Anaheim: Ducks

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Edmonton: Same Old, Getting old Fast!!



1)Who cares about draft picks anymore? Honestly. If you are an Oilers fan, you have seen enough of highly touted draft picks. You have had your share of hearing about Hope, ie (Hall Omark Paajarvi Eberle) OK, Omark is having a fantastic season in Oklahoma City, but is still not helping the NHL when he’s there. Paajarvi is struggling to crack the St. Luis Blues team, so who cares.  Hall has been off to a slow start, and Jordan Eberle leads the team in points… with a mere 15 points in 20 games.
 
2) Firstly Who on this Oilers’ team could GM Craig MacTavish feel are the core. The players to build around? You would have to think that it would be  Hall,  Eberle,  Nugent-Hopkins, Yakupov,  Schultz, Devan Dubnyk but then who else? That’s 6 players. Perhaps he also meant Sam Gagner, whom he often speaks so highly of, maybe even Ales Hemsky, but MacT explicitly said that he was looking to move Hemsky. But ultimately, these 8 forwards are far too similar, there is not enough diversity amongst those players, they are all too much the same.

3)  If MacT thinks that he needs to keep all 8 or 9 players that he has identified as essential, he has to be joking. But of course, having a fire sale and trading off everyone won’t help much either. Setting the team back on this never ending rebuild won’t be the answer. Moving one or two players along with a pick or two, may help to round out the team, allowing MacT to obtain some missing complementary pieces. But in order to do that, MacT can’t say all 8 or 9 players as essential.
The fans in Edmonton are demanding playoffs, not the draft lottery. Who can blame them?

4) Knowing how desperate the Oilers’ front office is to get better, the Oilers have a difficult task in trading their top pick, one of their stars and in return gaining key pieces, pieces that are highly coveted around the league. There are not a lot of top line players or top 4 defencemen traded because few if any are available, and there are no guarantees that any moves will help the team. But MacT feels the team is only 3 or 4 pieces away??  Reall??

5) Ultimately the Oilers are in a terrible position. They look worse this year than ever, partly due to injury and partly due to bad goaltending to start the year. They are getting booed off of their home ice, they can’t buy a goal, and they have just traded their biggest and best shot blocking defenceman. To the Calgary Flames.“There is a lot of optimism around the league in terms of our ability to turn things around” MacTavish remarked, but the problem is that the optimism is disappearing in Edmonton. Especially when any players who are mentioned in possible trades are quick to speak up and say that Edmonton is on their no trade list, Edmonton is a city they will not go to. Optimism is running out. Perhaps McTavishs time is running out too?


Sunday, November 24, 2013

Week 8 Results

Wow, what a turn around!  We went from the outhouse to the Penthouse. Back to our winning ways.  On the day we went an awesome 8-2 for a   57-31 .648 winning %. We also got our 'Lock' correct to go 7-1 on the season.
We of course will be back here next week when 11 games will be played.
As always, keep it here for all the latest

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Week 8 Picks



1) Two months into the NHL season. A quarter of the season done.  We hope to improve on last weeks debacle. Thus far, despite last week we are a very solid 49-29 a .628 winning %.

Boston VS Carolina : Bruins (Lock of the Week)

Minnesota VS Winnipeg : Wild

Toronto VS Washington : Capitals

Montreal VS Pittsburgh: Penguins

Ottawa VS Detroit : Red Wings

Philadelphia VS NY Islanders: Flyers

 St. Louis VS Dallas: Blues

NY Rangers VS Nashville : Rangers

 Anaheim VS Phoenix: Ducks

 Chicago VS Vancouver: BlackHawks

 Colorado VS Los Angeles: Kings

 San Jose VS New Jersey: Sharks

Thursday, November 21, 2013

At The Quarter Pole!



1) With nearly all teams having now played 20% of their schedules  we decided as we usually do when there is a full NHL season to project  (NOT predict) the finals standings. Obviously there is plenty of time for teams outside of the playoffs to get back in, but some trends are clearly becoming evident. This is NOT a Prediction!! We merely are projecting an 82 game season point total based upon each teams current point total/games played. Although we delineated the top 8, with the new playoff structure, its not a done deal that he 8th seeded team would qualify if the season ended today

2) First in the East:

Boston-113
Tampa Bay-109
Toronto-105
Pittsburgh-104
Detroit-93
Washington-93
Montreal- 89
New Jersey-82
______________
NY Rangers-78
Carolina-78
Ottawa-74
Philadelphia-74
Colorado- 70
NY Islanders-70
Florida-60
Buffalo- 39

3) Next the West:

St. Louis- 127
Colorado- 123
Chicago-119
San Jose-121
Phoenix-121
LA- 116
Dallas- 98
Vancouver-93
Nashville 86
Winnipeg- 82
Calgary-67
Edmonton-50

4) Again this is a PROJECTION not prediction. Some interesting story lines  seeing teams like Tampa, Colorado and Phoenix off to better than expected starts, while teams like Philadelphia, Rangers, Nashville, surprisingly struggling after a quarter of the season completed.  As always occurs many of these same teams will either go back down or upwards to their expected positions by season's end.  We will do a post like this at the half way mark.  Look for that in late December and compare.
As always, keep it here for all the latest!

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Week 7 Results

Week 7 results are in and its NOT pretty.  I guess we were due to have a week like this. WE had a horrendous night going 2-7 on the day to go 49-29 a .628 winning %.  We also had our first blemish on our locks to now be 6-1 after 7 weeks.  We will get right back on the horse next week when a big 12 games are scheduled.
As always keep it here for all the latest

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Week 7 Picks




1) The pressure is on.  We can't possibly continue to do this well can we?  For the record after 6 full weeks of picks we are 47-22 for a .681 winning %

 Toronto VS Buffalo: Maple Leafs
 
NY Rangers VS Montreal : Habitants

 New Jersey VS Pittsburgh: Penguins

NY Islanders VS Detroit : Redwings

St. Louis VS Carolina: Blues

 Nashville VS Chicago: BlackHawks

 Phoenix VS Tampa Bay: Lightning

 Florida VS Colorado: Avalanche (Lock of the Week)

Edmonton VS Calgary: Flames

Monday, November 11, 2013

Free To Blog? Thank a Vet!




1) As we like to remind readers: "Besides:


  • Ending Communism

  • Ending Slavery

  • Saving the world from Totalitarianism Fascism and Terrorism


War never solved a thing?!?"

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Week 6 Results

Week 6 is completed.  For the week we went an incredible 8-2 to elevate our season long totals to 47-22 for a .681 winning %.  We also continued our 'Lock' mastery by winning that choice to now be 6-0.  We will be back here next week (7) when 9 games are on the schedule.
As always keep it here for all the latest

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Week 6 Picks



 1) Wow, we're already into week 6 of the season.  Ten big games to pick.  We bring our impressive 39-20, for a  .661 winning %.into the day hoping to at least maintain this unprecedented pace!

Philadelphia VS Edmonton: Flyers


Ottawa VS Florida : Senators


 Boston VS Toronto: Bruins (Lock of the week)


Tampa Bay VS Detroit: Redwings


 Minnesota VS Carolina: Wild

 Columbus VS NY Islanders: Islanders

 St. Louis VS Pittsburgh: Blues

 Chicago VS Dallas: BlackHawks

 Phoenix VS Washington: Coyotes

 Los Angeles Vs Vancouver: Kings

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Why Have a Rookie salary cap?


1) In the old days it could be argued that the league needed to reign in the salaries of entry level players.  Else we'd see NFL-like hold outs where players, especially top line talent, would either demand outrageous money or demand their rights be traded (Lindros).  However these days with their being a hard salary cap in place for ALL players it seems there is little need to have yet another cap for entry level players.  Teams are already limited on what they can pay so a new player wouldn't have unlimited leverage like before.

2) Now, we can understand the limit on allowing players to become UFA until they have played a number of seasons within an organization.  However the NHL will soon have to wake up to the fact that the burgeoning rival European league, the KHL can give these same youngsters higher salaries, tax free.  We don't anticipate your average Canadian junior star to bolt for Eastern Europe, but you can bet your bottom ruble that the same won't be said for young Euros.

3) An already slow drain of Euro talent could hasten. While some jingoistic types might like this, we at Fauxrumors want the NHL to continue to be The best hockey league in the world. To do that they need to attract/retain the best players. We feel the rookie salary cap is now duplicitous and no longer necessary.  What do you think?

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Week 5 Results

1) Another pretty dam good night for us.  On the balance we went 9-4 on the busy day to bring the 5 week total to 39-20, for an impressive .661 winning %.  We also elevated our Locks to 5-0!  Look for us again next Saturday when 10 games will be played.
As always keep it here for all the latest!!

Saturday, November 2, 2013

WEEK 5 PICKS



1) Big day here for week 5 of the NHL season where we have an allotment of 13 games slated for later today/night.  We bring our formidable 4 week record of  30-16, a .652 winning percentage into the following contests.

Chicago VS Winnipeg : BlackHawks

 Anaheim VS Buffalo : Ducks

Tampa Bay VS St. Louis: Blues

Philadelphia VS New Jersey: Flyers

 NY Islanders VS Boston : Bruins

NY Rangers VS Carolina: Rangers

Washington VS Florida : Capitals

Pittsburgh VS Columbus : Penguins

Vancouver VS Toronto : Canucks

Colorado VS Montreal: Avalanche

 Detroit VS Edmonton : RedWings (Lock of the Week)

Nashville VS  Los Angeles  : Kings

 Phoenix VS San Jose: Sharks
 
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