Oof.

My band had a gig last night, so I didn't even get home and start watching the game until like 12:30. What a waste of staying up until 3 in the morning! Man, that was depressing.

First of all, what are the chances you give up three goals in the first period off of deflections off of your own men in front of the net? 'Cause that was one off of Girardi's skate, one off of Staal's shoulder, and one off of Anisimov's stick. On the first one, I thought, "you know, at least Girardi is making sure there aren't any Ducks in front of the net to deflect pucks in." In general, I guess that's a good sign? The Staal one was weird, but by the Anismov deflection, it was pretty clear that the Ducks were also doing something right. Say, that Bobby Ryan feller is pretty good at the hockey.

You know what the worst part is? Well, no, the worst part is obviously the standings. Of course, the Thrashers-'Canes game went to OT last night. And, as you know, that means Gary Bettman rewards both teams for "keeping the game exciting" by making their game worth more points than a normal, regulation game. So, that sucks. But you know what the second-worst part is? Giving a win to Dan "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems" Ellis! Fuck Dan Ellis! In our long-standing tradition of making goalies look better than they are, we let Dan Ellis make the most saves he's made so far in a game with Anaheim! And he's a jerk-butt!

Anyway, no real constructive comments here. We're a young team, we gotta learn to win games like these, and we will with time, if we stick to the plan. Meanwhile, as far as this season is concerned, things are looking grim. Here are the standings as of this morning:

7. NEW YORK RANGERS - 74 pts, 13 GR
8. Buffalo - 72 pts, 16 GR
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9. Carolina - 72 pts, 15 GR
10. Toronto - 68 pts, 15 GR
11. Atlanta - 67 pts, 15 GR
12. New Jersey - 64 pts, 16 GR

It's that "GR" thing you should be looking at. We've played 3 more games than Buffalo and the Devils, and 2 more games than everyone else behind us. So, theoretically, if we were to sit still and let everyone play their games-in-hand, and they all won those games-in-hand, the standings would look a little bit more like this:

7. Buffalo - 78 pts
8. Carolina - 76 pts
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9. NEW YORK RANGERS - 74 pts
10. Toronto - 72 pts
11. Atlanta - 71 pts
12. New Jersey - 70 pts

That's us, on the outside, looking in. Not too far behind, but outside the playoff picture nonetheless. At that point, we'd all be looking at 13 games to go. Time to catch Carolina and possibly also Buffalo, but we're really going to have to start to get hot down the stretch here. Buffalo, Carolina, Toronto, and New Jersey all have, and if we keep playing this way-under-.500 hockey, we could find ourselves in, like, 11th by the end of the season. Just sayin', that 7th-place thing is kind of a lie.

Anyway, we're off again until Saturday night at the Shark Tank. Meanwhile, tonight, the Sabres are in Boston and the Flyers are in Toronto. If Philly and the Bruins can do us some (regulation-time) favors, the pressure lessens a little. Late season playoff push: here we go again!