Advantage...NHL

Most Americans think American Football is a higher-scoring game than ice hockey. Most Americans will gleefully point out that the average score in the NFL is something like 24-17, while the average score in the NHL is around 4-3. Look how many more points are scored in football, that's like 20 extra scores! Most Americans are stupid. That has nothing to do with this particular post, it's just worth noting.

Let's examine two games, one from each sport, over the past week. On Monday night the NFL saw two of its premier offensive teams go at it, and one of them even showed up! The New Orleans Saints stomped the New England Patriots 38-17. Wow! Look at all that scoring! 38 points, I mean, WNBA teams don't score that many! Let's break down that score, shall we? The Saints rolled up 5 (!) touchdowns on the Patriots, made all 5 (!) extra points and even kicked a field goal. If you think field goals and extra points are exciting, then please drink a gallon of bleach because your continued existence on this planet is no longer necessary. Just look at the following equation:

[38 - (3 + 5 * 1 (gallon of bleach))] / 6 = 5, count em, 5 scores!

That's your best offensive team in the NFL, and what a show it was! Apply the same math to the Patriots rather paltry 17 point line and it looks like:

[17 - (3 + 2 * 1 (gallon of bleach))] / 6 = 2, count em, 2 scores!

Now at this point you have probably drank 7 gallons of bleach, and let's be honest here bleach IS delicious. For those of you still with me let's take a look at last night's NHL tilt between the New Jersey Devils and the Vancouver Canucks. These are two of the top 10 teams in the NHL in terms of fewest goals against, so you'd think it would be a defensive struggle and marquee match up of the two goalies favored to start for Team Canada in the 2010 Olympics. Final score? 5-2.

To summarize, on Monday night in the high-scoring NFL where offense is the name of the game, the teams ranked 1st (New Orleans) and 4th (New England) in scoring played to an adjusted score of 5-2. In the slow-moving, plodding NHL where defense is all you see and no one ever scores, the teams ranked 2nd (New Jersey) and 9th (Vancouver) in goals against played to an actual score of 5-2. What does it all mean? Ooo...bleach!