{"id":592,"date":"2009-03-20T13:14:49","date_gmt":"2009-03-20T18:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/blogs\/hobey-watch\/elliot\/20090320\/where-i-went-wrong-where-the-finalists-can-go-right.html"},"modified":"2009-03-20T13:14:49","modified_gmt":"2009-03-20T18:14:49","slug":"where-i-went-wrong-where-the-finalists-can-go-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2009\/03\/20\/where-i-went-wrong-where-the-finalists-can-go-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Where I went wrong, where the finalists can go right"},"content":{"rendered":"
I got an e-mail early this morning congratulating me on\u00a0correctly picking\u00a0seven of the\u00a010\u00a0Hobey Baker finalists, more than any other media commentator. While I’m grateful for the attention and kind words, it’s still a bit odd to be congratulated for that sort of thing. I can tell you that when I brought home a quiz on which I’d gotten seven out of ten, I definitely didn’t hear anything congratulatory. I guess I’m still trying to get back to where I was with the 2007 Hobey, when I got nine of the 10 finalists.<\/p>\n
Oh well, let’s see where I went wrong.<\/p>\n
Wrong Pick: Ben Scrivens, G, Cornell<\/p>\n Right Pick: David McIntyre, F, Colgate<\/strong><\/p>\n I kind of started to have a feeling that I was wrong about Scrivens when my friend and colleague Brad Elliott Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald<\/u>, and he doubted my pick of four goaltenders to make the top 10. I really didn’t see Scrivens falling out of the top 10 after being a fixture in the Hobey race during the season, but the truth is that once he fell from the Ryan Miller territory where he spent much of the season, he became just another Cornell goaltender with strong numbers, benefitting from a system that’s built to make him look good. McIntyre, meanwhile, is almost the opposite. He had a great year – including a plus\/minus rating of +19 – on a Colgate team that, to put it kindly, wasn’t very good.<\/p>\n Wrong Pick: Ryan Stoa, F, Minnesota<\/p>\n Right Pick: Jamie McBain, D, Wisconsin<\/strong><\/p>\n You’ll have to excuse me for not including a defenseman with a -9 rating on my list of picks. I thought Stoa was the much more likely representative of the WCHA, but I guess McBain’s high-scoring ways from the blueline were more impressive to the coaches. Either that, or there’s a whole lot of college hockey coaches who like The Simpsons<\/u>. Oh, and for what it’s worth, Stoa is a +17 for the Gophers this season, to go with his 46 points. What might have hurt Stoa is that so much more of the buzz around the Gophers this season centered on freshman sensation Jordan Schroeder. Fair? Probably not, but right now, both Stoa and Schroeder are more concerned with the Gophers’ hopes of getting into the NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n Wrong Pick: Erik Condra, F, Notre Dame<\/p>\n Right Pick: Viktor Stalberg, F, Vermont<\/strong><\/p>\n