The 2017 Winston Cup Series: Truex Jr. wins at Kentucky

Martin Truex Jr. gets his 10th career win at Kentucky Speedway. Truex Jr. dominated, leading 152 of 274 laps

Martin Truex Jr. continued his stellar season last night with a solid win at Kentucky. It was nearly a heartbreaking finish for him, when the caution came out with two to go, thanks to Kurt Busch’s blown engine... It’s only fitting Truex Jr. held on for the win, after leading the field by over half a lap in the closing stages. Even though Truex was on old tires, he got a good enough jump on the final restart to secure his 10^th career win. The dominant car won the race, something that we don’t always see. Other notable finishes include Darrell Wallace Jr. with an 11^th, Danica Patrick in 15^th, and Jeffrey Earnhardt with a decent finish of 29^th.

Clint Bowyer, Jimmie Johnson, and Brad Keselowski (not visible) bring out the caution on lap 88. The accident takes out Keselowski and Johnson, they finish 39th and 40th

The biggest surprise/disappointment was the accident that took out Brad Keselowski and Jimmie Johnson. Keselowski has dominated at Kentucky, winning three of the six previous races here, only to lose control under Clint Bowyer in turn three. A third of the way into the night, he was done.

This was actually the first time I watched the Kentucky race (it’s a fairly new track on the schedule). Aside from the accidents on restarts, it felt like a pretty clean race… I know it’s another cookie-cutter, but being only 5-6 hours away in Michigan, I’ll have to make my way down there sometime to see it in person. The grandstands look high enough where you’d probably have a great view of the whole track.

Here’s a look at the classic points after Kentucky, the official halfway point of the season. With the win and the most laps led, Truex Jr. gains some points on Larson, but not as much as he does with stage wins (Truex actually got 60 points last night winning all three stages, here I only score him for 45). Chase Elliott’s third place helped him jump four spots to fifth in the classic points… Both Johnson and Keselowski drop substantially because of their crash.

Next week the Cup series heads to Loudon, New Hampshire. A fun fact: Kenseth, Newman, Johnson, and Kurt Busch all have three wins at New Hampshire. Jeff Burton holds the Cup series record with four. Another fun fact, of all active drivers, Dale Jr. holds the title of most starts at New Hampshire without a win, with 33. Let’s see how he does on his 34^th and final visit...

The 2017 Winston Cup Series: Who the "real" champion is

A shot of the "classic" days in the Winston Cup series... Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, and Bill Elliott make up a few of the legends in this 1998 race

I’m a NASCAR fan, an old school one too. Not old as in ancient, but old as in knowing the sport used to be better. Not just the drivers, but the common features that have fallen by the wayside. It’s kind of like enjoying hockey fights, or knowing the value of a major in golf (and not the Fedex Cup). “Because we’ve always done it that way” doesn’t work well in modern day politics, but to me it’s always made sense in sports.

                I became a NASCAR fan in 2001, back when it was still the “Winston Cup Series.” Since the addition of “The Chase”, essentially playoffs for NASCAR, things have gone downhill. No racing back to the line… Green-white-checkered finishes… The overtime line... Stage racing… The list goes on.

Me in front of the turn three stands at Michigan International Speedway in 2004. The stands have since been torn down, partly due to falling attendance.

But my main beef is using the Chase, and nowadays, bracket style elimination, to determine a champion. If you’re unfamiliar, NASCAR used a points system for decades that awarded consistency all season. Unlike ball sports, there was no “playoffs.” Your regular season champion was the “champion.” It meant running well just about every race. NASCAR only tainted their definition of a champion by adding the Chase in 2004. Come September, this made it possible for any driver in the top 10, 12, or now 16 in points, to have a shot at the championship.

Jimmie Johnson ended up winning five straight titles under the Chase format between 2006 and 2010. Under the old rules, he would have only won two of them. If the “classic” rules had been in place all this time, Jeff Gordon would have won seven championships, tying him with legends Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt. Fast forward to 2017, his former teammate Jimmie Johnson holds that honor (under the old points system, it would be the other way around).

It’s 2017. Plenty of people are chanting that Donald Trump is “not my president.” So it’s only fair that I can say “not my champion.” Kyle Busch for example, broke his leg a day before the 2015 daytona 500, and missed about half the season. With a win at Sonoma (Sears Point) he qualified for the chase, then captured the title by winning at Homestead. Under the classic system, he would’ve come in 20^th for the year. Not my champion!

                I decided to take it upon myself and keep track this year, the OLD way. The Winston Cup way. Online, Jayski had been doing this for years on its “Chaseology” page, race by race, updating what the classic points standings would look like, as opposed to the Chase standings/grid. So far Jayski hasn’t done this for 2017, so I decided to go for it.

                My logic follows the 2016 standings structure, with a full 40-car field, 1^st place gets 40 points, last place gets 1 point. Winning gets you three extra points, leading a lap gets you an extra point, and leading the most laps gets you two points. Obviously, with this year’s fields of 37-38 cars on occasion, last place doesn’t always get only one point (One difference is that the 2017 points system only awards one point to anyone 36^th or worse). Stage points and playoff points don’t count. Also, this doesn’t use the “classic” point structure used from 1975 to 2003, I may get to that in the future. But regardless, we’re measuring consistency. Plus, point scoring from 45 to 1, rather than 185 to 34, is a lot easier to understand and calculate. I do factor in Joey Logano’s “encumbered” win at Richmond, where he was docked 25 points.

Here’s a look at the official 2017 standings, after the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona. After about half the season, Kyle Larson and Martin Truex Jr. are dominating the field so far. (Click on the image for a closer look)

Official Cup standings from nascar.com

Now let’s take these standings, and switch to the “classic” point structure. 

"Classic" Cup standings so far

     Gone are Truex Jr’s 11 stage wins, and the gap between the top 5 drivers is considerably smaller. Also notable, is that without the Chase grid, winning a race doesn’t guarantee a shot at the championship. Therefore a driver like Austin Dillon has no shot at the title, despite his win in the Coke 600.

     Some of the results aren’t a surprise. Dale Earnhardt Jr’s poor showing this season has him in 24^th place. Danica’s awful luck (and occasional bad driving) puts her in 30^th overall. Jeffrey Earnhardt comes in a lowly 37^th place, essentially last among drivers who have completed most, or all of the schedule so far.

     It also brings surprises, especially seeing Eric Jones and Ryan Blaney in 18^th and 19^th. Both young drivers have run great all season, but compared to fellow young gun Chase Elliot (9^th) haven’t put up the best finishes. It also shows that some drivers are better than most would give credit for. Based on watching this year’s NASCAR coverage, who would’ve thought Daniel Suarez would be 14^th?

Kyle Larson salutes the fans at Michigan, after winning the June race last month. I watched from turn one

     One thing is clear, Kyle Larson and Martin Truex Jr. are dominating. These two drivers are good week in, and week out. How the rest of the season plays out remains to be seen. Stay tuned.

The "80-point" playoff race

The race for the Western Conference wild-cards

As the season begins to wind down, the playoff races are heating up. In the Western Conference, the 8th place Coyotes are sitting at 82 points, only ahead of Dallas by three and Vancouver by four, following the Canuck's win over the Wild last night. Vancouver's win stopped the 7th place Wild, with 85 points, from jumping farther ahead of Phoenix.

Although the teams are spread out fairly evenly, it's close enough to worry if you're Minnesota or Phoenix. Vancouver has finally picked up the pace and won their last three, so tonight's game against Colorado will prove crucial in their playoff chances. Both Phoenix and Minnesota have games tonight as well, so tonight could be very telling for the West's wild-card.

The EPIC playoff race in the Eastern Conference

But the Western Conference doesn't come close to the current drama in the East. Four teams are tied at 80 points, battling for the two wild-card spots to make this year's first round. Unless the Flyers (three points ahead of the four-way tie) fall apart, two of those 80-point teams are going home early.

Gustav Nyquist is keeping Detroit alive in the playoff race with 9 goals in his last 6 games. But is that enough? (Photo by Greg Fiume)

Each one of these squads has quite a story. First we have Detroit, who is desperately trying to keep their playoff appearance streak alive. At 22 seasons, it's currently the fifth-longest all-time in the league. The Wings have struggled with injuries all season, and currently are without Zetterberg, Datsyuk, or Abdelkader. They lost a pivotal match in regulation against Columbus on Tuesday, bringing the Blue Jackets to 80 points. Gustav Nyquist, Tomas Tatar, and Alfredsson can only do so much alone. Wings fans are getting impatient to say the least, considering they haven't experienced missing the playoffs since 1990.

A few hours south, the Blue Jackets are attempting to make their second postseason appearance, ever. Their first, five years ago, was a four-game exit to Detroit...The Blue Jackets have surprisingly re-tooled quite well since losing Rick Nash, now with a near 30-goal scorer in young Ryan Johansen, who's having a breakout year. Anisimov and Dubinsky, both former Rangers, have been performing well. The Blue Jackets have a rough road to finish the season; four of their ten games are against Pittsburgh, Colorado, the surging Philadelphia Flyers, and Chicago.

Ovechkin, seen here scoring against LA on Tuesday night, leads the NHL with 48 goals this season (Photo by Rob Carr)

The Washington Capitals are an interesting situation. Alex Ovechkin leads the league in goals by a mile, and has near-singlehandedly made the team's offense this year. However, the team struggles with nearly everything else. With nine games remaining, the Capitals need to make a large offensive push. Although the Caps have made six-straight playoffs, it's been an early exit every single time. Even during their 2010 President's Trophy run, the Canadiens found their way around the Caps' strategy. This might be the team's last chance before big changes come sweeping through.

Gardiner, Gleason, Bernier, and Reimer watch from the bench as Toronto fails to tie Tuesday's game against St. Louis. (Photo by Nathan Denette)

And finally, Toronto, who earlier had a large jump on the playoff race, now have lost their last six. They have sat stagnant at 80 points since March 13, letting everyone catch-up. Partly due to Bernier's injury, and partly equated to sloppy play, the Maple Leafs are facing an uphill climb to what looked like an easy playoff spot. With only 8 games left in their season, Toronto has to do nearly perfect to catch up to the other 80-point teams, as they all have games in-hand. Toronto can max out at 96 points, while Detroit and Columbus can both still reach 100. 

Therefore, a key game is tomorrow at 7 p.m., when Toronto plays in Philadelphia. If the Leafs can snap their losing streak, this will give the pack of playoff hungry teams a chance to catch the Flyers.

All of this, of course, is to determine who gets to face the grueling first round matchup against either Boston or Pittsburgh...good luck! 

Tough night at the ACC, Leafs lose 6-0

Cam Atkinson opens the scoring in Toronto with a first-period goal (Griag Abel)

A tough loss tonight for the Toronto Maple Leafs, as they were blown out at home 6-0 by the Columbus Blue Jackets of all teams…

Columbus, who are currently 2nd to last in the Metro division (now 9-12-3), would be the last team you’d think could rout Toronto so bad. With Marian Gaborik (the team’s only former 30-goal scorer) out with a knee injury for the next month or so, the Jackets don’t exactly have the strongest tools in the lineup every night.

Sloppy, lethargic, and passive were only some of the adjectives Sportsnet-590 used to describe Toronto’s play tonight in the ACC. The Leafs had a mere 18 shots in the loss, with only one coming from Kessel and none at all from Nazem Kadri. Coach Carlyle went on to say it looked like his team was playing on boots.

Meanwhile, Reimer had an awful night in net, stopping only 15 of 21 shots for a .714 save percentage. It’s his worst game since March 19, 2012 against Boston, where he allowed four goals on nine shots. Reimer will have to fight a lot harder than tonight if he wants to take the #1 starting job back from Bernier…The near future looks bleak for Toronto, as they are up against Pittsburgh on Wednesday. Hopefully Phaneuf isn’t suspended for his “illegal check to the head” on Anisimov.

The Stanley Cup Finals

Bryan Bickell and David Krejci lead the Blackhawks and Bruins in goal-scoring this postseason. Krejci has nine goals, while Bickell is tied with Patrick Sharp of the Blackhawks, with eight.

It's come down to this.

The President's Trophy winning Chicago Blackhawks (who I correctly predicted in the finals, YAY!), and the gritty Boston Bruins. Neither team had an easy trip to this final round; interestingly enough both teams got a wake-up call to save their postseason.

Boston nearly blew their 3-1 series lead against the Maple Leafs, and finally rebounded in game seven from a 4-1 deficit to win in overtime. Since then the Bruins have dominated, winning their next two series in a total of nine games. They outscored Pittsburgh 12-2 in the conference finals, and left both Crosby and Malkin pointless in the series.

Meanwhile, Chicago dominated their series against the Wild, winning in five. Detroit however, had Chicago on the ropes and down 3-1 in the series, with the team falling apart (evident by Jonathan Toews' trips to the penalty box in game four). It was then that Chicago finally came together as a team and started taking the playoffs seriously, winning the next three games to advance to the conference finals.

Now we're left with a special match up, the first Original Six final since Montreal and New York in 1979, 34 years ago. On paper, things look close, especially the goaltending. Rask's GAA is 1.75, while Crawford's is 1.74. Their save percentages are .943 and .935. Rask has allowed 30 goals; Crawford has let in 31. Now that's close.

But my prediction? The Boston Bruins have got this, it won't even be close. They've worked harder, they've been faster, and will play a better physical game than the Blackhawks. This contest will be over quickly, let's say, five games. If Chicago's even going to get off the ground, they MUST have production from their star players. Brandon Saad, one of four Blackhawks with at least 10 goals in the regular season, has absolutely fallen asleep during the playoffs, minus four with no goals in 17 games. Toews isn't much better, his one goal of the playoffs came in game five of the Detroit series. And without his hat-trick to win the conference final for the Blackhawks, Patrick Kane would likely be included in this ridicule. But to get these scoring opportunities, the Blackhawks must also solve Zdeno Chara, and the Bruins' excellent defensive play (Chara leads defencemen in the playoffs with an outstanding plus 12).

I'll go ahead and predict shutouts by Tuukka Rask, and pesky moves by Brad Marchand that will drive Chicago insane. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get an oddly integral part of my bracket correct: Chicago getting to the Stanley Cup Final and falling apart. Don Cherry's getting excited already...

Don't hate on Duncan Keith

Duncan Keith approaches Jeff Carter to apologize in game 3 between Chicago and Los Angeles, following the slash to the mouth.

Following Duncan Keith's actions in game three of the Western Conference Final on Tuesday night, Brandan Shanahan saw it fitting to suspend the defenceman for one game. Remembering back to 2007, when Chris Simon was suspended 25 games for a two-hand slash on Ryan Hollweg in retaliation, it's incredible to think that Keith's actions only merit a single-game suspension. But nonetheless, the decision has been made, and there's no reason to dwell on how suspension-worthy the slash was in 2013.

Jeff Carter won't get away from the incident free either though, and really shouldn't. Don Cherry couldn't have said it better in Wednesday's edition of Coach's Corner, reminding everyone that if you go looking for trouble, trouble will find you. A slash to the unprotected hand of your opponent is no way to act like a respectful hockey player, and now Carter will always know that (surely the 20 stitches will forever remind him). Perhaps Sean Avery would have performed less cheap shots if he had received a hard slash immediately following, who knows?

Hopefully though, the incident doesn't negatively affect the play of this year's President's Trophy winners. After the Blackhawks learned their lesson in the Detroit series last month, it would be a shame if Keith's suspension cost Chicago the Western Conference Final. A win by the Kings in game four would mean a tied series; essentially proving Chicago's wins in games one and two meaningless. Keith leads Blackhawks defencemen in the playoffs with 10 points; the closest behind him is Johnny Oduya with four...Sounds like Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews need to step it up tonight; out of Chicago's 40 goals this postseason, Kane and Toews have three. Ouch...

Now, on a lighter note, let's look back on a less-violent moment in NHL retaliation. In a 2009 match between Boston and Montreal, Andrei Kostitsyn boarded a Bruins player, stopping the play. As Kostitsyn skated past the Boston net, Tim Thomas stood up for his teammate and delivered a hit that left the TD Garden roaring. As you will see, Kostitsyn went looking for trouble, and Tim Thomas found him. No one was seriously hurt, and no suspensions came about. Classic hockey...

NHL Playoffs - Conference Finals

Blackhawks defenceman Brent Seabrook screams in celebration following his series-winning overtime goal against the Red Wings.

So here we are at the Conference Finals. I couldn’t be more satisfied with who’s left alive in the playoffs; the past four Stanley Cup champions: Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. Whoever wins the Cup completely deserves it, and will be remembered as the true dominating team of the early 2010’s. Just imagine if the Kings go back-to-back, we’ll basically have a modern day New York Islanders! My bracket, although working out a little differently than what I predicted, has three of the four teams correctly slated (I admit, choosing the Capitals was a gamble).

(1) Chicago Blackhawks and (5) Los Angeles Kings

For the second postseason in a row, the Kings have been extremely competitive without having a high number of points to show for it in the regular season.  Having them up against the President’s Trophy winner seems only fitting, and is the ultimate test for LA to prove their dominance was not for a short period of time. The series is too close to call, especially after Chicago faced the Red Wings in the conference semifinals. The Blackhawks, down 3-1 in the series, woke up and started playing powerful, disciplined hockey like that of their amazing season. This is, by far, the most enticing matchup of the playoffs so far…Toews and Kane need to start scoring some goals to put Chicago over the top. As Don Cherry said, the Blackhawks also need to be prepared for the hitting of the Los Angeles Kings; something the Red Wings did not pose a threat with.

(1) Pittsburgh Penguins and (4) Boston Bruins

Like I said, the Penguins would go far with Tomas Vokoun; 6-1 with a GAA of 1.85 is absolutely fantastic for a backup goaltender. Another series that is too close to call; Pittsburgh and Boston lead the way in the playoffs for goals scored per game, but Pittsburgh soars ahead in that statistic with 4.3 (Boston has 3.2). Both teams are coming off series where they won in five, but had a bit of a layoff before the start of the conference final. There is no telling who will have momentum, yet.