Zeke Lukow

Round 3 is here!!! Again the Kings are my only shining moment in these playoffs.  I didn’t do so hot on most of the picks, and that’s unfortunate because I called the first series right.  So I’ve gotten most things wrong, but Stanley Cup Champs are still in it so I’m still super happy about the way things are playing out.  I hope that Holtby played well enough to gain a starter role or at least split starts next season with the Caps.  Beating the defending champs and taking the top team in the East to 7 games is a great accomplishment.  We’ve also seen from the last round that the 8 years remaining on Bryz contract might be a rough time for Philly.  He had a great 2 seasons with the Coyotes, and had a great run in the regular season this year, but he did not have a great postseason by any means.  The no defense play of Philly caught up with them a little earlier than I was expecting.

Western Conference Championship

A couple things that we’ve learned from the Kings.  First, they’re great on the road, they are still undefeated in road games this Postseason.  Second, they can beat a good defense, the Blues had the best goaltending duo, and were known for having the strongest defense in the playoffs, and regular season.  The Kings experience with beating the Blues means that they should be able to beat the Coyotes.  The Kings top line has been playing real well, Dustin Brown and Anze Kopitar have combined for 21 points over only 9 games.  This combined with the top scoring defense from the regular season and Quick’s playoff best .949 save percentage will be a force to be reckoned with.  The Coyotes have been playing real well over the past two rounds, beating the Blackhawks and Predators isn’t easy.  Smith has the second best Save percentage, only .001 behind Quick.  Over the last round it looked like no one would score against him.  I’m sticking with my champs, and taking Kings(5 games).  I’m over looking the Coyotes again, but I think the Kings will continue their road win streak and take home ice in Game 1 tonight.

Player to watch: I’m taking the copout here and am just going to say its both goaltenders.  They are the top 2 performing goalies in the Playoffs, and I think they will keep it up.  It will be determined by who skates to the net harder and gets the rebounds and deflections.  This will be a really exciting series to watch because of these guys.

Eastern Conference Championship

I think this series will be the more exciting of the two.  This series is going to be like the Flyers and Pens series in the first round.  This series isn’t going to be friendly.  The Rangers are going to be really tired in this series, coming off of two 7 game series in a row.  No team thats played two 7 game series hasn’t made it to the cup.  I remember the most recent, the Canes in ’09 that had two 7 game series and then got swept by the Pens.  Ilya Kovalchuk leads the active players in the Playoffs with 8 goals and 12 points.  He’s done this in 2 games less than the Rangers.  I think this series will be interesting, Brodeur played well last series, and I think he can continue this play.  The Devil’s need to make sure that no one reminds him that he’s 478 years old.  I think that the Caps revealed a weakness in Lundqvist, a small one at that, but almost every goal I saw was glove side and it will be interesting to see if the Devils aim for it.  I think that if the Rangers want to win in any less than 7 games they are going to have to play way better offense than they did against the Caps.  Every game was decided by one goal, and had a flukey goal to win game 5.  I think that the Devils will end up winning this series.  Devils (7 games), but I do think that the Rangers have a great opportunity to win this series, and think that this series is more of a toss up.

Player to watch:  Martin Brodeur, the biggest question is whether or not the Brodeur from the first round or the second round shows up.  The second round Brodeur was playing like he was playing like it was the ’03 Playoffs.  First round was more like the old Brodeur that played the regular season.  It will be interesting to see which one shows up to the series this time around.

First Round Recap

So my picks on the first round didn’t go so well..which is unfortunate because everything stated out so well.  The best thing about the first round…my Stanley Cup pick, the Los Angeles Kings took down the Pres. Trophy winners.  Unlike the West, My East did ok and 3 of the 4 teams I picked won and my Eastern Championship game can still happen…cant say that much for the West.  Fun Fact….the last 4 Stanley Cup Champions have been eliminated…commence chaos!!

Second Round

I know this is a day late but my picks haven’t changed after last night, or the game thats on now.  Things have changed a little after the first round for me though

East

#1 New York Rangers Vs #7 Washington Capitals

This is going to be a good matchup, both first round series went into 7 games, and were exciting to watch.  I’m not to high on the Rangers right now because things got a little rough against the Sens, however they still do have Lundqvist.  The Caps played an ok series, I still don’t really know what their strategy is, but they did beat the #2 seed, so they deserve credit.  I think if Holtby can keep playing the way he has been, and their offense gets it  going like it was in Game 5 they have a good shot to win this series.  I didnt see the Rangers playing a spectacular game, just King Henrik keeping them in it.  I think this series will reflect the season series between the 2 teams and be real close… but I like the way the Caps play the rangers Caps(6 games)..also the NHL CAN’T allow Torterella to win a cup.

#5 Philadelphia Flyers Vs #6 New Jersey Devils

the Flyers surprised almost everybody by beating the Pens the way that they did, and it was pretty impressive but eventually playing 0 defense and a streaky tender will catch up to you in the playoffs.  In the Devils series almost everybody was surprised that the series went so deep, and proved that the devils aren’t what they used to be.  If you can’t beat a team thats fielding Jose Theodore in less than 7 games you have some offense issues.  The main issue that I see with the Flyers is that while everybody else has been playing hockey, they’ve been sitting at home…this could lead to a packers style rust build up.  I think the first game they;ll come out still and will have to try to rally from behind…which will be harder to do against Brodeur (yes even the old one)….however I think that its going to be Flyers(6 games)

Player to watch: This is definitely Braden Holtby…same as the first round, the Caps 100% depend on how he plays.  He’s played great for anyone, let alone someone playing some of their first hockey in the NHL.  He;s settling into the game and becoming more comfortable….only has to adjust to the crappy lighting of MSG.  Hopefully he gets some offensive help so letting up one goal wont cost him a W.

Team to watch: Theres only 4 left so this is tough…but its gotta be the Flyers.  Just look at the scoring from the first round, will this keep up?….probably not, but still it should be exciting.  The big question is how will they come out off of this break? energized…or slow?  Also we will see if any body in Philly can play Goalie…I think at this point they need “Invincible” style tryouts….Mark Wahlberg might be their best option at this point.

West

#2 Saint Louis Blues Vs #8 Los Angeles Kings

The Blues sent the sharks packing and made it look easy, and the Kings pulled off a great upset…this series will be great to watch.  Any team that makes a Gold Medal Goaltender sit is pretty impressive.  Its like that awesome moment in Miracle when Herb Brooks smirks as he tells the team that they just benched the best goaltender in the world.  The Blues defense and Goaltender tandem are going to be hard for any team to beat, but the Kings don’t have a slump in goal either.  I think that the Kings will get some offense going, but each game will be settled by only one goal.  Hoping that Kopitar and the first line get going…maybe Jack Johnson will seranade Brian Elliot or Halak with one of his wonderfully brotastic music and allow someone to sneak in and score.  I gotta have the Kings winning this series since they’re my pick Kings (6 games).

#3 Phoenix Coyotes Vs #4 Nashville Predators

Both non-traditional markets took out Original 6 teams, making for a pretty strange second round.  Both teams also played GREAT series in the first round, and no matter who starts in net for the Coyotes they play phenomenal in the playoffs…losing Bryz didn’t hurt them at all.  I was definitely more impressed with the Preds in the First round since they took out the always dangerous Red Wings in a short series.  Also watching the Blackhawks series was pretty brutal…Crawford let up really soft goals at the worst possible times…like a not really a shot through the 5 hole in OT….I think that the Predators offense and core players are stronger than Phoenix and should lead to a series win, despite some of the vets like Ray Whitney on the coyotes.  Also whats more fun…the Phoenix white outs…or the Predators awkward yellow…kinda orange…outs. Preds (7 games)

Player to Watch: All goalies in the West…but I guess Mike Smith because he has an awesome mask….seriously that thing is awesome.  All of the goalies in the West are standing on their heads.  I think that Mike Smith will probably make the biggest difference to any team though, because they’re playing a strong team…and looking at the blues they have the best tandem in the league regardless.

Team to Watch: The Kings…not only because I picked them to win it all…but because they’re the 8 seed in the West…they beat the top seed so they have the talent to beat anyone.  This series really depends on whether or not they can get their offense going.  They were able to against Luongo, but will they be able to crack through the Halak and Elliot combo….hopefully they can.  They’re playing a good game, so this series will be a great one to watch…im excited for the start at 7:30 tonight.

Starting this semester I knew little to nothing about how Google ranked pages or how people could improve rankings.  Its been interesting figuring out how it all works and applying it to my website.  My performance hasn’t been anything spectacular or anything, but its still nice to see results.  We were given the task of optimizing one of our pages or posts around the phrase “Love JMU.”  At the start of this assignment my website was not in the top 20 pages of googles result pages.

When I recently checked my site has climbed all the way up to…wait for it….are you ready…the 9th page.  Its nothing great, and most likely wont be getting any visitors any time soon based on that search, but its nice to see that it moved up at least 11 pages.  According to website grader my page has improved.  The marketing score increased over 20 points, and the biggest improvement was in the Middle of the Funnel area where it improved from 8% up to 50%.  Its nice to see that the work that we’ve been doing all seemsteris paying off.

To improve rankings I used a couple of different things.  I used a tittle tag for the page that I was trying to optimize, as well as creating keywords for it and a description area with the phrase “love jmu” to increase the relevance of the page.  I also swapped links with one of my classmates to build links for the page.  the last thing i did was change the permalink for the for the page from “/jmu” to “/lovejmu” after my google adwords campaign ended.  These all increased the sites rankings and made it jump at least 11 results pages.

Before I started this semester I thought I knew a decent amount about google, and its features, like Docs, Mail, +, search and things like that.  There is so much more to Google than just those simple things that we use almost every day.  Now I have experience with AdWords and Analytics, and now Webmaster tools.  Webmaster tools are very important and should be used by every business that has a website…so every business.  It not only helps with PPC, by providing good keywords that are on your page and showing queries and yourCTR, It helps just manage and optimize your site.

Webmaster tools has a variety of different features that are useful to even casual website owners. It can show you potential errors and issues in your HTML, with things like title and alt tags; and also provides some statistics on site performance such as load times.  one of the most important features is that it can detect malware on your website, which many people have problems with but may not even know the existence of malware.  I think one of the better benefits from Webmaster tools is that it will track historical data and will be able to move it from one domain to another.  This helps rising businesses and casual users because there are a variety of different reasons why you might want to change your domain or domain name, and now you wont have to lose all of your information if you do that.  Google is really making it easy for you to track and make useful changes to your website, all at the same time helping you advance higher up on the SERP’s.

So the regular season is finally over…and its time for the best month plus of hockey a year.  So I figured this year I’m not only going to make predictions, I’m going to write them down.  I think I’m going to do it round by round, but my Bro and I are gonna make a full bracket too just to see if we can get it perfect.  Ill post back with his prediction and after every round we can see how bad our brackets look.

East

So lets start with the east here

#1 New York Rangers Vs. #8 Ottawa Senators

Rangers (5 games).  The Rangers have been pretty dominant all season, I would say that they would sweep Ottawa, but a Canadian team has too much pride to go down in 4.  The Rangers have let up the least amount of Goals this year, and the playoffs are all about goaltending.   Lundqvist has played well all year lets see if he can continue in the postseason, I think he will be too much for the fairly dangerous forwards of Ottawa like Spezza and Alfredsson.

#2 Boston Bruins Vs. #7 Washington Capitals

This series will be close, Washington has been playing in the end of the season “playoffs” for 8 and won.  That end of a season run can really help a team out in the postseason.  If the Caps can have all of their players come on and hit their stride in this series they will make it tough for boston.  However, I think that the Bruins might be too much for the Caps.  The caps top 2 goalies are in question for the series, which means Braden Holtby is looking at getting the start.  I like Holtby but he’s not ready for the playoffs.  Boston’s attack will be too much. Boston (6 games)

#3 Florida Panthers Vs. #6 New Jersey Devils

Jersey (5 games).  Not much to say here…Its Florida…against Martin Brodeur…this isn’t an upset.  Florida will be lucky to not be swept in this one.  Also ask anyone who lives in the Washington DC area what playoffs with Jose Theodore is like…they wont be happy.  Regardless of how old Brodeur is he will step up and play out of his mind in the playoffs…good luck Panthers.

#4 Pittsburgh Penguins Vs. #5 Philadelphia Flyers

Flyers (7 games).  This is by far the most exciting series this year, a 7 game rivalry series, things will get interesting.  This series is going to go to 7 games, and will probably be the most exciting series in the playoffs his year.  I think that the Flyers will win take it in an incredibly close series.  I think Bryz will play like he did in the 2010 playoffs, and he actually has a team to back him up…The Pens are a great that are finally healthy, but they will lose in an exciting game 7.  Bonus prediction….there will be 1,265 PIM’s in this series.

Team to Watch: The Washington Capitals…any team having to play meaningful games at the end of the season has a good leg up on the competition.  With Backstrom back in the line up and if Mike Green can play well things will get really interesting.

Player to Watch: Ilya Bryzgalov… He earned a huge contract this offseason and has playoff experience.  The Stanley Cup Playoffs are all about goaltending.  If he can overcome the mid season play that he had and the for some reason benching to Bobs the Flyers will win the series.

that means the second round is Rangers and Devils and the Bruins and Flyers.  Rangers win in 6 and Flyers win in 5.  Rangers and Flyers conference championship and it will be an exciting one.  Rangers in 7

West

Now for the west.

#1 Vancouver Canucks Vs #8 Los Angeles Kings

This will be a close series if the Kings can produce the offense that they are capable of they have a good chance to win the series.  The Canucks playoff goaltending will also be interesting with no real clear starter Luongo and Schneider matched up against the regular season Shutout leader Jonathan Quick.  There is a good chance that Luongo wont finish out the series.  Kopitar who has the ability to score and if Richards and Carter have the ability to turn it on and pour on the goals.  I think that the Kings will be able to steal a game or two in the series and go on to win.  Vancouver has great defenders like Salo and Ballard play well, however I’m worried about Sedin coming back from his concussion, thats a big missing piece in the offense.  Kings(6 games)

#2 St. Louis Blues Vs. #7 San Jose Sharks

San Jose is a very difficult opponent for the Blues, especially because the Blues don’t have too much recent playoff experience, and the Sharks do.  The Sharks have strong forwards like Couture, Pavelski, and Thornton but weak defense, which hurt them in their regular season series with the Blues.  The Blues also have Jaroslav Halak, which made the 2010 playoffs hellish for my roommate at the time who was a Caps fan, 50+ saves a night will do that to you.  If Halak can put in that performance and frustrate the Blues they can win.  I think Niemi will be able to shut down Backes and Oshie, and will be a big reason why the Sharks win the series.  Sharks (5 games)

#3 Phoenix Coyotes Vs. #6 Chicago Blackhawks

Hawks(5 Games).  This is the exact same matchup as the 3-6 matchup in the East.  The weaker team has the higher seed and will lose.  Its the Blackhawks even without Toews they still have Sharp and Hossa as forwards, and Keith and Seabrook on D that will be enough to overcome the Coyotes and Shane Doan.  It will be nice to the the Coyotes play a team thats not the Wings in the first series.  Also it would be ridiculous if a team in Arizona had a team go anywhere in the playoffs.

#4 Nashville Predators Vs. #5 Detroit Redwings

Wings (7 games).  The Preds will play the up and down Wings for the third time since 2004, and it will be interesting.  The last 2 series went real deep and were close.  My issue with this is that its Detroit, anyone whose seen them play before knows that they don’t lose in the playoffs, ask the Coyotes….  Babcock is a great coach, and if Howard is healthy the wings wont lose the series.  Nashville has been the better team this season and would win if this was a regular season series, but its not.

Team to Watch: Phoenix…for the first time in the past 3 years they will finally get a team that isn’t Detroit, so maybe they will prove me wrong and win the series.  It will be fun for the league and its fans to see Phoenix play meaningful games against another team….bad thing is…out of the pan and into the fire….they’re going to Chicago.

Player to Watch: Another bonus here….theres 2 both from the same series and can effect the final outcome of the series.  Daniel Sedin…hes missed the last part of the regular season with a concussion(probably single handedly costing me my fantasy hockey league) some players are slow to hit their stride after concussions.  If he is slow to come back the team will suffer.  The second player is Quick…10 shutouts is a lot, lets see if he can keep up the regular season form and continue it into the playoffs.  If he steps it up like most goalies do…they will be unstoppable.

so these crazy predictions mean its going to be Wings vs Kings and Sharks vs. Hawks.  Kings in 7 and Hawks in 6.  The conference final will be Kings in 6.

Final:

#1 New York Ranger Vs. #8 Los Angeles Kings

To make things fun….Kings(7 games).  all of the series this year are pretty even which will make things interesting.  I think that Quick and the stron play of the Kings forwards with the shutdown defense of Greene and Mitchell will be enough to win.

Last Tuesday we had a guest speaker, Deb Van Horn, come to class.  Ms. Van Horn is the Vice President of Support Services for Rockingam Group.  She had a great and informative presentation on social media marketing.  She was able to explain how companies use Facebook and other social media to connect with customers.

Before her presentation I was never quite sure how effective social media was to a business, but she made a convincing case.  I always thought that Facebook and social media was used for trying to promote the business and make sales, Ms. Van Horn explained that Rockingham Group uses their pages to provide relevant information to their customers and maintain an open line of communication.  I like this because it builds their brand, and will build loyalty instead of trying to sell and potentially pushing customers away.  The important thing about Facebook is that the communication is a 2-way channel, and they will receive feedback from their customers, which allows them to better their service.

The last point that Ms. Van Horn talked about was the importance of timeline for business pages.  It allows them to have a large banner photo and a profile picture.  This will allow them to continue to brand because customers will see a larger image on the business.  Timeline is also better then the previous format for businesses because it doesn’t separate the posts that they have, and posts that others leave on their page.  I thought this presentation was very informative because it showed me the importance of social media marketing and that every business should establish one.

I appreciate Ms. Van Horn taking time out of her schedule to come talk to our class and provide us with this valuable information.

You know when you are looking at something on one site but you leave and that same thing keeps popping up everywhere, thats retargeting ads.  Retargeting ads has come under some fire lately, because some users feel that it is an invasion of privacy.  I don’t think its really that bad of a thing.  I’ve noticed some retargeted ads when I’ve been at other sites, this summer I bought a couple of gifts through Crate and Barrel for my mom and stepmom.  Now everywhere I go Crate’s ads show up everywhere.

I don’t really care too much about it.  First, the site and companies that are retargeting are just using cookies.  Cookies are used by almost every site; ever wonder how when you go to a site and they know your history and know what to recommend, thats from cookies.  I think that cookies are harmless, and that they’re not invading my privacy.  The other part about retargeting is that if you go to a site and you’ve looked at products, you know where to go to find them.  I don’t need to see ads for things I already know the location for.

I also don’t pay too much attention to ads on websites, I generally just look around till I find what I’m looking for.  Companies putting ads for things I’ve looked for isn’t going to make me want to click on them.  The most it does is make me think of the company, but a 21 year old college student doesn’t have much use for Crate and Barrel.  If anything the money being put into retargeting could be better utilized better in another way.

Well, it’s almost playoffs time again, which this year is even more scary cause that means it’s close to graduation.  It looks like for the second year in a row the Carolina Hurricanes aren’t going to make it.  The worst part about it isn’t that they won’t have a chance to play for the Cup, it’s that I wont be able to go to any Playoffs games this year.  With just 9 games left the ‘Canes are 5 points out…things don’t look good.  Carolina needs to win out, and they need help from other teams like Washington and Buffalo.

Playoff games are the most exciting things I’ve ever experienced, well other than being at Lane Stadium when we took down number 13 Virginia Tech.  They’re just so much fun, everyone is on their feet screaming for 60 plus minutes, as a huge sports fan you just can’t beat it.  Thats why every year since 2009 when I went to my first game, there’s been nothing more that I’ve wanted in sports than to see the Hurricanes make it back to the Stanley Cup Playoffs.  Hopefully I wont be too far away from Raleigh after graduation, I want to still be able to get to experience more games.

Like every Redskins fan always says, we’ll get ‘em next year, except the Hurricanes actually have the talent to make the Playoffs, they’re just too young this year.  Hopefully we can lock up another top 6 forward, and call up our 2 defense prospects in Ryan Murphy and Brian Dumoulin (Go Eagles).  We’ll be right back into the playoffs talk next year.  LETS GO ‘CANES!!!