I guess we really did make the playoffs this year guys! Phew, I was super worried around Thanksgiving when every single person I interacted with on Reddit made sure to let me know that the ‘Playoffs Spots are usually locked by Thanksgiving’ rule didn’t apply to our beloved underdogs.

I’m kidding, mostly. I haven’t left a Reddit comment since the dinosaurs went extinct, as far as anyone who doesn’t know my username is concerned.

Seriously though, this is an exciting time to be a Blue Jackets fan. If you’d told me this time last year that they’d be 3rd in the Metro at the end of the season I’d probably have dissolved. Although to be fair if you told me that in mid-December I, high on the win streak, might have dissolved as well.

On that note, we at Loose Cannons thought it might be a good time to put up a few words of encouragement, gentle admonishment, and general insult (for our use against the Pens, of course) in advance of Game 1 tomorrow. We’ll all try very hard to stay up for it and practice what we preach, even the Australians and the chronically early-to-bed (Loose Cannon Rosie).

Encouragement:

The #NHL draft lottery will be held … oh, nevermind. Not an issue this year. — Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) April 10, 2017

The Playoffs are here! No more obsessive tracking of 17 year olds’ advanced stats! No more arguments about Puljujärvi vs. Dubois… ok, actually, that one probably isn’t behind us yet. My point is that we get to worry about winning games instead of winning the lottery, which is statistically more likely to happen and also statistically less likely to cause knock down drag out fights on the Internet. Unless the Pens call us a dirty team again, but we’ll come back to that later.

My tenure as a Blue Jackets fan began in September of 2015, so as you can imagine the spectre of the Stanley Cup Playoffs barely entered my mind – beyond faint nightmares of the Blackhawks winning again – until, oh, about a month into the 2016-17 season. You may remember the specific date, but if not, allow me to refresh your memory with this delightful video.

I think we all ran away with ourselves a little bit that night, not least because in order to experience the entire game I had to stay up until nigh on 3am for the final score. But good goddamn was it worth it, and the seed of hope it planted among CBJ fans has only grown since then, through 16 straight wins and, eventually, 6 consecutive losses.

And while I’m sure we as Blue Jackets fans are intimately acquainted with their career playoffs record, I think there is a lot of reason for optimism! Mostly to do with “statistics” and “heart” which we won’t go into here, but also partly to do with this thing called a “winning mentality” which Coach Tortorella may have finally instilled in his players.

Thank you Torts! (October 2015: Loose Cannon Rosie feels a great disturbance in the force.)

The Penguins

Now, here’s a confession for anyone out there reading this fanblog: I like the Pittsburgh Penguins. Or, well, I used to like them. Now I just like Sidney Crosby.

Still, I think that’s enough to qualify me to say this: the Penguins suck! Look at them! Look at their logo! Who though gold and black would work as a colour combo? Definitely not anyone who knows about FASHION.

That’s definitely what I would say if I knew anything about fashion or, indeed, was any good at trash talking. As it is, though, all I have to offer to the ‘Who’s Better?’ debate is some statistics and some less concrete observations.

Statistically, the Blue Jackets have a 51.07% CF at 5v5 when adjusted for score, zone and venue, vs. the Penguins who have a 49.76% rating. This is the 8th ranked playing the 20th ranked, in league terms. Among playoff teams they are 7th and 14th. (Stats are from Corsica).

Getting back to my earlier note on dirty teams, this season Columbus and Pittsburgh were actually fairly low on PIM, taking 714 and 703 respectively. Columbus took 22 major penalties, all of them for fighting, while Pittsburgh took 12 and an instigator. Now, as anyone who’s spent any time in the hockey fansphere knows, the referees have been garbage this season and didn’t call ANY of the horrible penalties the Blue Jackets definitely committed on top of those 714 minutes, so I guess we’ll add another 50 PIM on there for parity’s sake.

Oh, what’s that? Even with 50 extra PIM they’d still only rank 15th in the league? Behind Colorado, Toronto and Arizona? Wow, that’s super weird. I heard they were the dirtiest team around from some very knowledgeable Leafs fans. I guess they’d know all about dirty plays, after that two game suspension one of their players got.

Seriously though, their Penalty Differential (Penalties drawn – Penalties taken) was -8 at even strength this season, which is good for 17th in the league. Not ideal, but still above teams like Washington and Toronto. None of these stats particularly account for dirtiness, but only getting 1 game misconduct this season versus 4 in 2015-16 is an encouraging sign, at least for this writer. No one likes seeing players get hurt.

Back to serious stats: 4th and 5th highest PDO in the league, not that that particularly means anything, and Columbus trailed Pittsburgh by 52 in goals for.

Basically, it’s not an insurmountable difference. Obviously losing home ice was a disappointment but just think: the Pens had home ice in 2013-14, and a team with Jared Boll and R.J. Umberger as significant roster members took the series to 6 games.

Miss you Jared.

Good Insults for Sidney Crosby

Now, this is something of a complex topic. We all know the standard Sidney Crosby taunts: Cindy Crosby, Sydney Crosby, Cindy Crysby, and so on.

The obvious through-line here is that they’re 1) lazy and 2) pretty sexist! Which sucks super hard, because we here are Loose Cannons are 100% in favour of making fun of Sidney Crosby, best hockey player in the world and remover of fingers; scorer of the Golden Goal (TM) and breaker of wrists. We love him, and we love to call him names, but we don’t love the idea that calling a man a girl’s name is somehow hilarious beyond compare. Did you know that the Women’s National Team is. uh, really fucking good? Significantly better than the USA men’s team? Yeah, I bet you did.

Hockey fandom is more creative than that! And so we beseech you to come up with some more creative ways to make fun of that dumb boy and his stupid facial hair. We even have a few suggestions, free of charge!

Walking corrective jaw surgery ad

Claude Giroux’s friend

Art LOSS Trophy

“Damn Sidney, back at it again with the yellow crocs!” (generally speaking, all slightly tired memes are good material for this)

The human equivalent of beige wallpaper

Nice Order of Nova Scotia you got there, Crosby

“I don’t have the mumps” (best paired on a sign with this picture)

“Choked on any mozzarella sticks lately?” (best yelled directly at him from as close as possible, while holding a plate of said appetiser)

We’ll try and keep the list updated throughout the next few weeks, for maximum insults/60.

Thank you very much for reading our very serious and formal playoff preview! We’ll see you all on the other side, for better or worse.

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