jimdahl

That's already been done. UND submitted the chosen 3 into the list along with all of the public suggestions

I wouldn't read too much into that, I think that means the literal name "no nickname" was rejected. "North Dakota" was on the accepted list. The rejection list were pretty clearly pretty mechanically rejected for technical or procedural reasons and do not necessarily mean a similar name isn't under consideration. Keep in mind that these (clearly) aren't edited lists, so every single submission has to make its way to one of the two so the rejection list is going to appear a little sloppy to us. The "under consideration" list is the important one.

http://ermines.com is for sale! Domain availability was apparently one of the criteria

Price is killing me, now I can only hope for him to get eliminated in two more

Good game, Rangers deserved the win. Lundqvist looked a lot more solid than game 1. Goal of the game goes to (who else but) Ovie. Three on one? You gotta cover him better than that NYR.

That was my primary comment on the game -- NYR are lucky he only let in two. As much as I'd love four in a row like that, Lundqvist is no rookie. He'll tighten up and make the series interesting. But, tonight's contest was goalie vs. goalie, and this one went Holtby.

Exactly my point. Ovie's hit (amongst other plays) somehow weren't penalties, but the scuffle at 3:00 left was roughing? The refs had the whistles in the pocket until they realized the game was almost over and wasn't tied. I don't love that the calls become looser in the playoffs, but everyone knows it and has the opportunity to adapt. But to call it so loose that hits like Ovie's aren't called, but then tighten up right at in the last critical minute and call a pretty soft penalty is annoying.

Definitely agreed, that was my point... after everything they let go in a game with 0 penalties called, the one someone decided to call with 3:00 left (a time by which refs have often put away their whistles in even the most penalty-filled playoff games), against the team up 2-1 was nowhere near the most egregious foul of the game. It was a pretty incongruous call.

11 shots total by NYI. Crazy. Also a penalty free game until they called WAS with 3:00 to go while WAS was up 2-1.

We picked pretty well overall on the forwards, we collectively haven't lost many. Only Ray77 is perfect so far, though would lose two if Tampa Bay is eliminated. Everyone has lost at least one defenseman, jimdahl has lost 3! Only ray77 managed to ditch his goalie in the first round, though Mafiaman still could if the Islanders win tonight. So, the game should still be pretty wide open after round 1, with a likely edge to ray77.

Meanwhile, the best of 9 NYI vs. WAS series continues...

When updating my spreadsheet to cross out the eliminated teams, I noticed no one took anyone from Vancouver. Is poor Vancouver the only playoff team that not a one of us wanted any of their players?

I expected the Islanders to be a bit hungrier than Washington in game 6, but was surprised how hard hitting they came out. Liked to see it get so physical at the end, as I like to think that will favor Washington if it carries over. But, the Caps historically don't have a stellar home game 7 record (1-4 in this situation since 08).

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=764971&navid=nhl:topheads

You gotta stay focused on the long game. If a game like that prevents the Isles from advancing, I think it'll be worth it for you. It will be interesting to see the final GA totals for the goalies at the end of round 1. Seems like each round earlier a goalie gets eliminated is going to be worth well beyond 10 points per round (could easily be 20 in some situations). If a goalie does too well (Price with 7 so far) he just buys himself a ticket to the next round where he's sure to rack up at least that many again.

Well, the Islanders revenge fight against Wilson (WAS) didn't go so well. Lee (NYI) threw the first punch and got the takedown, but spent the rest of the fight bashing his head into Wilson's fist. Laich (WAS) also managed to draw back-to-back 10-minute game misconducts/ejections by getting slashed twice by two different players during a faceoff in the 3rd. It's not clear the Islanders emotions were helping them last night. Hoping for more of the same on Saturday.

Well, Mafiaman, the good news is the odds of Halak getting eliminated this round just went up.

Those standings are better , but it's still going to matter about as much who exits this round.

Remains to be seen how many goalies advance, but losing your goalie in the first round is a big advantage. If you think of a great goalie as making it though a round with ~8 GA, it's entirely conceivable to let in something more like 15. That's worth something like 2-3 star forwards. I had hoped that Ottawa could advance while scoring a minimal number of goals. My other thought was that if Price were to advance, it would be with a decent GAA (so far true). But even if you think of a great goalie as making it through a round with ~8 GAA, that Probably should've just gone with the favorite to be eliminated (Fleury).

I was just thinking about how the game will soon transform into who's still playing instead of who's scoring, so made my own spreadsheet (so far not with scores like Ray's, but just to track who picked whom). A couple interesting things so far are: The only unanimous choice was Nash (Ovie was picked up by everyone but Ray77) The only goalie with more than one pick is Dubnyk with 3 With Ottawa and Winnipeg facing elimination tonight, the biggest effects would be that a lot of people have Byfuglein (WPG) and my goalie (Price-MTL) would be the first goalie advanced to the 2d round.

That's what makes it fun! I'm just two Islanders' wins away from finding myself in the consolation round. And don't even get me started on the disappointing Senators (they may not be knocking Montreal out, but at least they're not scoring many goals on the way).

Even I can answer this... no subs, of course Only half the game is picking who's going to score, the more important half is figuring out who's actually going to play. It's all going to come down to which teams get eliminated.

There seems to be a lot of controversy about whether this is real. We weren't sure either so let it go for the day. I think everyone has said what there is to say on the topic. If someone wants to petition that we should have left it open, send me a PM.

I need some scoring from the Caps. Edit - looking over others' picks, it's the Chicago and Anaheim love around here that's killing me. Crazy Western teams.