The Good Point: Pujols with a few holes in his bat

My latest for The Good Point takes a look at three of the American League's biggest bats - Jose Bautista, Josh Hamilton and Albert Pujols - and how each has started the 2012 season, be it on fire, slowly or not at all.

From my piece:

Back on May 6, the Toronto Blue Jays lost to the LA Angels, 4-3. It wasn’t exactly the most memorable game except for one at-bat. In the bottom of the 5th, on a 2-2 pitch, Albert Pujols hit his first dinger of 2012, a shot to left over the head of Eric Thames.

It was Pujols, you may remember, that was one of the marquee signings of the 2012 offseason. He signed with Los Angeles for an astronomical sum: $254 million over 10 years, the second-highest contract in MLB history. And this season has not been kind to him.

Click here to read the whole thing.

NHL Round Three Predictions

There's a few things I'm going to wake away from the second round of the NHL playoffs

• Dale Hunter did a pretty alright job and his exit isn't a good thing for the Capitols. They went into the playoffs as a low seed and upset Boston in the opening round, in a pretty good seven game series. And then they took the Rangers - arguably the best team still in the playoffs - to seven games, including a gutty win in game six. They played a wildly different style of hockey than they had under Bruce Boudreau, a much slower game that kept Alex Ovechkin on the bench. An article I read over the weekend asked if this was the start of a new style of hockey: keeping the scorer on the bench until you need a goal. I'm leaning towards no, but I wonder of Ovechkin's name will be tied to Hunter's abrupt leave. Were there problems behind closed doors? Did Ovechkin pull a Dwight Howard - it's either him or me, chief? I have no idea. But I'm curious to see what happens next for the Caps, and if they'll go back to what worked for them in the regular season, if not the postseason.
• The Devils continue to surprise me. Not just in a "now they play fast" sense, but in a "who saw this coming?" kind of way. And this is from someone who picked them to roar past the Flyers. Marty Brodeur is ancient at this point, but is putting up some of his best postseason numbers. His GAA of 2.04 is the lowest it's been since before the lockout (and since the Devils championship run of 2003, actually) while his Save Percentage of .920 is better than it's been in a while. Meanwhile Ilya Kovalchuk's 12 points is second-best among all active playoff scorers. This isn't a team to sleep on.
• Speaking of goalies, Kings netminder Jonathan Quick is putting together one hell of a Conn Smythe resume: he leads all goalies with a 1.59 GAA, a .947 Save Percentage (not to mention nine wins, a product of me not posting this in time). These Kings are in interesting team to watch: they've blown away two very good teams in St. Louis and Vancouver, lead Phoenix one game to zip and remind me a lot of the 2006 Oilers, a team all but carried by Dwayne Roloson and Fernando Pisani to the seventh game of the finals (and would have won, I think, if Roloson didn't get hurt).

There's more I could write about: Phoenix looking really good against Nashville (does this mean Chicago was much better than I thought?; the Blues folding like a cheap card table; the Rangers were lucky to gut out a tough series; etc. It's a testament to how good these playoffs have been that I could write more words than you'd want to read. I've certainly been enjoying them. Picks follow the jump.

NHL Playoff Second Round Picks

Given how insane and unpredictable the first round was, I feel pretty confident in my picks. I nailed one of the series - Blues over Sharks in five - and picked the right team in a few others: the Rangers, Devils and Coyotes all moved on. And I'll admit, I was completely, 100 per cent wrong in my Canucks-in-four pick. Although did anyone see the Kings just obliterating the team with the NHL's best record?

What's interesting to me is how close the first round was. 16 games went into overtime, with three of those going to a second OT. Altogether, 32 games were decided by one goal! I don't remember there ever being a first round this exciting, this close and this much fun to watch. And yes, I'm including 1993, the best NHL postseason ever. It sets a high bar for the second round. Picks follow the jump.

Flashfact: The Insane, amazing and dirty-as-hell first round

My latest for Flashfact is on the first week of NHL Playoff action, which ranged from the amazing to the insane to the dirty-as-fuck.

One thing I didn't mention for space reasons is the Blues/Sharks series. It's been close, with some fun and exciting finishes but I'm digging CBC trying to find a fully-bearded Jon Hamm in the private boxes. It's been a while since the Blues seemed this noteworthy.

But that's hardly the only thing. From my piece:

What the hell am I supposed to make of the NHL playoffs thus far? On one hand, we have some of the dirtiest series in years, some of the worst hits I can remember and at least a couple good games that went completely off the rails.

But on the other hand, the hockey has been ridiculously exciting, especially with regards to the amount of overtime, and ratings are up across the board. All of these series have been exciting to watch. So why is everyone calling them the dirtiest playoffs ever?

They led with hockey on Pardon the Interruption the other day, which almost never happens, even during the Stanley Cup Finals. But Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon didn’t talk about the overtimes, high-scoring offences or Backstrom’s laser-guided wrister against Boston. They talked about Sidney Crosby playing with a glove, about a basket full of dirty hits and brawling and wondered if the league is out of control.

Click here to read the whole thing!