The bad start cost the Wild in game 1. Hopefully, they can avoid falling that far behind in this one.
The Wild won 2 of 3 on the road in the first round, and to win this series they have to win at least one road game. Let's make it this one just for the heck of it.
Historical pessimism:
Another series that everyone is picking as too close to call.
I'm not sure I can take the Wild being eliminated by the same team three playoff seasons in a row (even the Twins never lost to the Yankees three years in a row). So I think I'll cheer for the Wild in this round as well.
Historical pessimism:
The big question is whether Crawford in goal for the Blackhawks can give them a chance. If he keeps games close, most people seem to think the "veterans who just know how to win" on the Hawks will prevail over the Wild.
The Wild didn't have to win any games that were too close in round 1 (no overtime, only one lead change all series). It will be interesting to see if they can continue to lock down and extend leads in the same way. (also: scoring first is always good - something they struggled with against Chicago the last two years)
It's pretty simple at this point. The Wild need to win one of the next two games to move on and face the Blackhawks (again).
The Wild have really only had 10 good minutes over the course of the last two games. Fortunately that was enough to steal game 5, so now they get to feed off the home crowd and hopefully replicate game 3.
Historical facts:
2015 Playoff facts:
More like game 3, less like game 4 please.
I'm nervous about this one.
Game 3 was great, but apparently St. Louis isn't going to just give up.
The Wild have never had a two game lead in a playoff series. They are 0-3 when given the opportunity (all 3 games on the road).
I thought the Wild played well in both games in St. Louis, minus a few hiccups that didn't hurt them in game 1, but did in game 2. The series is shaping up to be the close battle that everyone predicted it to be.
So now the series is in Minnesota and it's on the Wild to hold onto home-ice advantage. Generally the Wild have been good at home under Mike Yeo in the playoffs (6-2 record in the last two playoff years), but the home record hasn't been exactly spectacular as the season finished.
The historical pessimism corner:
Historical pessimism worked so well last time, so here's a few more nuggets.
Game 1 was a good game for the Wild, they just need to do that again.
How about some history?
OK, enough history.
I don't know what I think about this series, to be honest with you. The Wild are certainly capable of beating the Blues, but I would say that it wouldn't take much for the Blues to beat the Wild as well.
Looking around I see a lot of people saying this series is too close to call and then picking the Blues. The Wild have the advantage in goaltending and the penalty kill, but their power play just doesn't contribute and I can see that being a potential huge problem if the Blues find a way to get their own special teams rolling.
Still, if the goal totals stay low, I like the Wild's chances.
Either way, it's playoff hockey and therefore awesome. Here we go!
A few thoughts.
Nebula Award nominees are out. One pet peeve I have with SF/F awards is that so much is series-oriented. This year 5 of the 6 nominees in the novel category are part of a series and one of them is book 7 in its series. (To be fair, 2 of the nominees are the first book in the series) and so require an awful lot of someone who uses these awards as reading list fodder. All that aside, I'm excited that The Three Body Problem was nominated. I definitely plan to pick that one up at some point in the future, and I was always going to read Ancillary Sword given how much I liked the first book.
I read Player Piano as part of my ongoing passage through Kurt Vonnegut's novels. It was pretty much as I remembered, not exactly what you think of when you think of Vonnegut, but so many of his consistent themes are right there from the very beginning.
I read some other stuff, but I'll save that for the comments.
Some good things that I found on the internet this month:
"Some Desperado" by Joe Abercrombie. A short story title that should be read sarcastically. It's a Western setting with a young woman trying to get away with the spoils of a robbery.
"Weary" by P.E. Garcia. A quiet, but strong short story. I'm not sure I can put my finger on why I liked this. But I did.
"Pnin" by Vladimir Nabokov. The short story that became the first chapter of the novel by the same name. I actually read this a few years ago and loved it. But then I came across this reading of it by Alexsander Hemon and I got to listen to it again. I love the initial description of the title character and his situation.
This year, I decided I was going to re-read (or read for the first time) all of Kurt Vonnegut's novels. With that in mind, I looked around for some books that get into the background of both the books and the author. This month I read three biographies of various types. I'll admit that by the end of the third, I was feeling a little like I was going over the same material, but each was different enough. Listed below are the books that I read all or part of this month.
THE MAN:
And So it Goes - Kurt Vonnegut: A Life by Charles J. Shields
The word that comes to mind is "workman-like". It's about as straightforward as a biography can be. Point to point without much editorializing or analysis in between. Still, this filled in a lot of details about Vonnegut's life that I was not familiar with (the kids, the wives, the agents, etc.) and gave me a pretty good framework for the other biographical books that I read.
Letters by Kurt Vonnegut (edited by Dan Wakefield)
Reading this directly after the Shields biography was about perfect. A lot of the details that were only mentioned in passing in this book I was already familiar with from my previous reading. I enjoyed Vonnegut's writing even in this non-narrative format.
Palm Sunday by Kurt Vonnegut
One of many "autobiographical collages" that Vonnegut published that collects some of his lectures and writings and attempts to connect them together. This is perhaps a little redundant with respect to the collection of letters above, but it was interesting to see how Vonnegut connects things as opposed to an editor or biographer. This added some depth to some life events, but as noted in the intro, I did start to feel like I was reading some of the same material.
THE NOVELS: (Analysis - I've only started these two, so any thoughts are preliminary)
The Vonnegut Effect by Jerome Klinkowitz
Klinkowitz has written a lot of analysis of Vonnegut's work. This book breaks things down by novel. Depending on how much I like this book, I might seek out some other Klinkowitz offerings (there are quite a few, here's his author's page on Goodreads, see if you can spot the theme).
Unstuck in Time: A Journey Through Kurt Vonnegut's Life and Novels by Gregory D. Sumner
Lest you think that I am some kind of truly original visionary with the re-reading Vonnegut idea, here's someone who already thought of it and wrote a book about it. This might be the book I'm most excited to read in this post. I've only gotten through the prologue (an abbreviated biography - Argh!) and the section on Player Piano so far.
So, fair citizens. What are you reading?
