Picking Your Favorite Playoff Team

Look, we all know I really like the Stars, but occasionally you want to cheer for some other teams. And God forbid, if the Stars get knocked out, I'd like a team to be a playoff fling of sorts, a team I can bandwagon onto to root toward the Cup. Sad, yet true.

While puzzling over the playoff lineups, I thought to myself, "Self, there has to be a consistent way for you to pick playoff teams; there has to be a way in which you know which teams are giving you the best possible deal". In short, I don't want to blindly drop myself into liking a team that I discover later on is populated by jerkfaced idiots that you don't want to really root for at all. While I trust myself to already know this, I figured I'd be an enormous nerd and develop a set of guidelines for favoring teams.

During the regular season if I have to root for a team aside from teams I've come to know rather well through blogs (Sabres, Devils) I usually just go off of "Which team has the most Russians?" In the playoffs, however, that loose rule could easily mean the difference between rooting for Detroit or...anyone else. So I worked with it a little bit and came up with a set of guidelines for cheering for specific teams.

It is as follows:

For every ex-Stars player, a team receives one point;
For every Russian player, a team receives one point; and,
For every easily hated player on Caitlin's list, a team is deducted one point.

Team with the most points wins.

I'm automatically biased for former Stars players, so there's that. I view my irrational love of the Russians as charming and a nice balance to crazy, whacko nutjobs like Don Cherry. The Finns are an added bonus. The cherry on the top is the fact that there's a lot of players out there who just irk me and I have a difficult time rooting for their teams.

Please note that when I say "Russian player", I mean a player who has citizenship in the Russian Federation, for purposes of argument. It was pointed out to me on IPB one day that although Evgeni Nabokov is listed as being from Kazakhstan, he is most likely ethnically Russian. While I'm willing to totally acknowledge that, for the guidelines I'm counting players listed on their roster as hailing from Russia.

First up?

DETROIT RED WINGS

Ex-Stars? Aaron Downey. (+1)
Russians? Pavel Datsyuk. (+1)
Easily Hated Player? All of them. (-24)
TOTAL POINTS: -22

You didn't seriously think I'd honestly consider rooting for the Red Wings, did you?

NASHVILLE PREDATORS

Ex-Stars? Dan Ellis, Jason Arnott. (+2)
Russians? Alexander Radulov. (+1)
Easily Hated Player? Jordin Tootoo. (-1)
TOTAL POINTS: (+2)

I haven't forgotten that cheap shot on Robi, Tootoo.

SAN JOSE SHARKS

Ex-Stars? None that I know of. (0)
Russians? Alexei Semenov, even though andrew informs me he sucks. Still Russian, though. (+1)
Easily Hated Player? If you need to ask...Jesus, it's J.R. (-5, because I can.)
TOTAL POINTS: -4

Even if he has reformed his ways partially, I have a hard time cheering for any team that sports Old Man No. 27.

CALGARY FLAMES

Ex-Stars? Does Jarome Iginla count? Well, he got drafted by the Stars. Hey, what the hell. (+0.5)
Russians? This team has no Russians. What the hell kind of hockey team is this? (0)
Easily Hated Player? Dion Phaneuf. Grosstastic. (-1)
TOTAL POINTS: (-0.5)

I'm so "meh" on Calgary, I don't know where to start.

MINNESOTA WILD

Ex-Stars? Todd Fedoruk, Martin Skoula (ouch!). (+2)
Russians? No Russians to be found here. Huh. (0)
Easily Hated Player? Chris Simon. (-8, one for every suspension.)
TOTAL POINTS: (-6)

Seriously, I don't even know what to say about this team.

COLORADO AVALANCHE

Ex-Stars? None. (0)
Russians? Nil. (0) They did come close with Ruslan Salei, who's from Belarus.
Easily Hated Player? LaPerriere. Forsberg. Ryan Smyth. (-6 - double the points since I have to listen all the time about Forsberg's stupid foot.)
TOTAL SCORE: -6

Bad memories and ugly jerseys won't let me overcome my distaste for the Avs.

ANAHEIM DUCKS

Ex-Stars? If we ever had any of these guys and I've suffered massive brain trauma and forgotten, I don't want to remember. (0)
Russians: Thankfully, none. (0)
Easily Hated Player? Pronger, Giguere, Getzlaf, and Bertuzzi. Seriously. Bertuzzi is hideous. (-8, two points for each guy.)
TOTAL SCORE: -8

Since we're playing them, I obviously can't root for them. ...I don't think I could root for them even if we weren't.

MONTREAL CANADIENS

Ex-Stars? Guy Carbonneau counts, y'all. (+1)
Russians? Shockingly, only Alexei Kovalev and Andrei Markov. The Kostitsyns are from Belarus. Actually, I f'love Kovalev so he gets gold stars and bonus points. (+5)
Easily Hated Player? Erm...none that I can tell? (0)
TOTAL SCORE: (+6)

Mmm...Kovalev. What was that you said? Huh?

BOSTON BRUINS

Ex-Stars? Manny Fernandez. (+1)
Russians? None. Seriously, what is with this? (0)
Easily Hated Player: Yeah, I watched the Bruins play exactly once this year -- at the Stars home opener. No one really stuck out to me. Save for Fernandez. (0)
TOTAL SCORE: (0)

Wow, I really should watch the Eastern Conference teams more.

PITTSBURGH PENGUINS

Ex-Stars? Darryl Sydor. (+1)
Russians? Sergei Gonchar, Evgeni Malkin. (+2)
Easily Hated Player: I don't think I hate a single player on this team. Plus, Marc-Andre Fleury is so adorkable. (+1 for Flower!)
TOTAL SCORE: (+4)

Even with the Crosby hype machine, I still like Crosby and there's something oddly endearing about the Penguins.

OTTAWA SENATORS

Ex-Stars? Zip. (0)
Russians? Who in the hell is Antoni Volchenkov? Ah, well, he's from Moscow, so he counts. (+1)
Easily Hated Player? Ray freakin' Emery. I don't even live in Canada and I'm sick of hearing about him. (-1)
TOTAL SCORE: 0

I think that sums up precisely how I feel about the Sens: nothing, really.

WASHINGTON CAPITALS

Ex-Stars? None to be found here, friends. (0)
Russians: This team's pretty Russiantastic, with four -- yes, four -- Russians. Kozlov, Ovechkin, Semin & Fedorov. Ovie always gets a lot of credit, which he deserves, but I'm only awarding one point for Russianness. (+4)
Easily Hated Player? I don't hate Fedorov, but he used to play for the Red Wings. He seems to be redeeming himself now with the Caps. (-1) But...Ovechkin is so charming. I know I'm probably going to take a lot of shit for finding Ovechkin kooky and humorous, but "Russian machine never break", "Girls? Where are you?" and "I have five beers before game" as well as just generally being insane will never fail to endear me to Ovie, and by proxy, the Capitals. (+6) Also, not a player, but Fake Ted Leonsis, wherever you are, I ought to award a -1 for you e-mailing me like that. However, I shall restrain myself.
TOTAL SCORE: 9

Sheesh, all the Caps had to do to get me to root for them was load up on Russians. Who knew?

PHILADELPHIA FLYERS

Ex-Stars? Derian "I Injure My Own Teammates" Hatcher; Jaroslav Modry. (+2, I guess.)
Russians? Some dude named Denis Tolpeko. Seriously, I feel gross awarding points to the Flyers. (+1)
Easily Hated Players? Daniel "Frodo Baggins" Briere, Riley Cote, Steve Downie...you know what, let's just make it an even (-12) for all the suspensions and crap I've had to listen to this year.
TOTAL SCORE: (-9)

If I ever, ever, ever intentionally root for the Flyers, I want someone to put me down. Thanks.

NEW JERSEY DEVILS

Ex-Stars? JAAAAMIE LANGENBRUNNER! (+2)
Russians? Sergei Brylin! (+1)
Easily Hated Players: I don't hate any of them, really. And I'm not just saying that because the -Ookies are watching. No, really. (0) Bonus points for erm, Boxworthy. (+3)
TOTAL SCORE: (+6)

Whee, Devils!

NEW YORK RANGERS

Ex-Stars? None, although Lundy's brother is the starting goalie. (0) Also, I like to forget that Russian played for this team.
Russians? Fedor Tyutin. (+1)
Easily Hated Players: Jaromir Jagr (is this a joke?), Sean Avery (earns more than one point), Scott Gomez, Chris Drury. (-7 for the lot, especially Avery. Words can't express my utter distaste for Sean Avery.)
TOTAL SCORE: (-6)

Russian could go back to the Rangers and I STILL wouldn't root for them.

So, from best to worst, here are the rankings:

1. Caps - 9
2. Devils - 6
3. Habs - 6
4. Pens - 4
5. Preds - 2
6. Sens - 0
7. Bruins - 0
8. Flames - (-0.5)
9. Sharks - (-4)
10. Wild - (-6)
11. Rangers - (-6)
12. Avs - (-6)
13. Ducks - (-8)
14. Flyers - (-9)
15. Red Wings - (-22)

So, by this policy, the initial playoff matchups with my favorings will look like this, with the favored teams in bold:

Detroit Red Wings vs. Nashville Predators
San Jose Sharks vs. Calgary Flames
Minnesota Wild vs. Colorado Avalanche (I lose either way, here.)
Anaheim Ducks vs. Dallas Stars
Montréal Canadiens vs. Boston Bruins
Pittsburgh Penguins vs. Ottawa Senators
Washington Capitals vs. Philadelphia Flyers
New Jersey Devils vs. New York Rangers


Did you make it through all that? Good, good!

Aside from the Stars, go Caps!