I am a slave to rankings. I love anything that has numbers attached to them. The interwebs seem to have been invented for rankings, from SI.com's Dr. Z NFL Power Rankings to the awesomeness of the Scarlett Johansson-centric With Leather Power Rankings. As you can imagine, I check hockey rankings pretty religiously.
And what did I find when I checked this week's ESPN.com Power Rankings? Tha Habs are at number 5. FIVE! CINQ! Boy that was exciting. And that was even before the Isles win. But honestly? It feels totally wrong.
Look, I like the Habs. But don't they seem sort of middle of the road to you? Win one, lose one. Lose to the shitty Leafs twice. Not show up for a Sabres game. Crap out on Larry Robinson Night. A (former) number one line struggling. Defensive zone lapses. We are not a Top 5 team.
Interesting that the ESPN rankings have 5 out of the top 6 teams from the East. Shift in power or East Coast bias?
Anyway, I feel the Habs should be in the 8-10 range. You guys?
And what did I find when I checked this week's ESPN.com Power Rankings? Tha Habs are at number 5. FIVE! CINQ! Boy that was exciting. And that was even before the Isles win. But honestly? It feels totally wrong.
Look, I like the Habs. But don't they seem sort of middle of the road to you? Win one, lose one. Lose to the shitty Leafs twice. Not show up for a Sabres game. Crap out on Larry Robinson Night. A (former) number one line struggling. Defensive zone lapses. We are not a Top 5 team.
Interesting that the ESPN rankings have 5 out of the top 6 teams from the East. Shift in power or East Coast bias?
Anyway, I feel the Habs should be in the 8-10 range. You guys?
10 comments:
I don't think they can be considered a top team either. But when you look at the other teams around the league, you realize that there really aren't a lot of consistent teams. Most of the teams in the west have been very inconsistent and in the East of late it looks like only Ottawa is a super powerhouse. Carolina has been struggling a bit, Philly was to. Maybe more of a number 5 by default?
yeah matt you might be right. I tried to list 8-10 teams i would put ahead of us and I couldnt. there seems to be true mediocrity in the league this year. Woohoo! Habs for the Cup!
If you think five is extreme, TSN's rankings have them SECOND. I don't see how even hardcore Habs fans could rank Montreal over Detroit, but this guy did. Makes me wonder if they replaced the guy who never let Montreal crack the front half of the rankings last year.
you know msevigny i thought i saw that earlier in the week and I just figured I was having acid flashbacks again. but i just checked and you're right. SECOND??? that is INSANE
but Matt is right - it's just a war of attrition out there, no one is good except the Sens, and even they finally lost 2 in a row and are developing goalie problems
so yeah, we're number ONE! wooo!!
I definately think were in the top 5 for sure. We tend to be overly critical of the Habs because we watch ever second of every game and the stupid plays stick out more than the great plays. Name one team out there that can out skate us? There isn't one, when we show up for the game we always dominate.
Of course, they need to show up. This team is way too Jekyll and Hyde sometimes. Worldbeaters one night, losing to the Leafs the next. If they strung together a string of performances like they had against the Flyers or the first 55 minutes against the Sens, they'd easily make the playoffs and be trouble for anyone they met.
Of course, they keep playing the same five teams, so who knows.
Hard to compare the Habs to anyone since all we have played this year are divisional teams.
Maybe we in the top 5 in the Northeast
But I won't comment on this year's schedule :-)
A power ranking is about the team AT THAT particular moment.
We we 4th in the league this morning. Our power play is number one and STILL around 30% after 20 games. We scored ONE goal less that OTTAWA this year. 6th best offense this year, 9th in defense and this is without Ryder and a very shaky first line.
Now the fact that I hear people groaning left and right tells me two things. We know our hockey here and we ask for way too much.
we know our hockey because we are all complaining about how the team plays even though we have only 6 Loss in 21 games (only Ottawa has less with an incredible 4). But we see how often those victories are close calls and we don't want that.
And we ask for way too much because quite frankly, how can we, as fans, complain about a 12-6-3 start of the season? Do we expect to be dominating like Ottawa does? Let's be honest folks, Ottawa is the only team I can say I am scared of. Any other team is either on par (or close enough) or worst than us in our conference.
Are we the 5th best team on paper in the league? I don't think so. But ask the Rangers how their team looked on paper for the past couple of years and how often it translated to victories.
On the ice, the Habs can compete with anyone and I wouldn't mind facing anyone in playoffs.
But I'd hate to finish 8th.
i don't think they'd be terribly upset if you ranked them, HF29. let's see how you rank them.
your friends that is
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