Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Capitals 2, Rangers 1
We played a better game than they did for 40 minutes. They played a better game than we did for 20. That's it.
Tomorrow's story, if the Rangers win
That was exactly the effort we needed! They say "anything can happen in a Game 7," which is the awkward hockey equivalent of "any given Sunday," and anything sure as hell did. Torts was right - all the pressure was on Washington (no one expected us to win this game), and they were a little choked up on their sticks at first, but led by Alex Ovechkin, they came at us hard throughout. But we also came out with a jump, like we remembered the game mattered or something (I know, it's weird, right?), and it absolutely made all the difference.
First and foremost, my thanks go out to Henrik Lundqvist. "Stood on his head" is a phrase that doesn't quite carry the power I want to convey here - the dude was unimpeachable (despite a few impeachments from the Caps nonetheless). As they say, Lundqvist is the kind of goalie that gives us a chance to win every single game. He gave us this one, too.
But as you know, all the King can do is keep us in the game against a far superior team. We have to capitalize on that. And somehow, we did. Sean Avery was once again a presence on the ice - sure, he went to the box a bunch, but it was absolutely worth it. He took Mike Green, an otherwise very dangerous man, completely off his game, and our PK made every time worth it. Sean didn't do anything stupid, he just got penalized as if he had - what else is new? Freddie Sjostrom really stepped up to fill the metaphysically huge skates of Blair Betts and kept us in it every time Avery was unjustifiably sent off, which in turn allowed Avery himself to amp up his game.
More than his presence in Mike Green's head, though, it seemed like the rest of the guys caught the Avery bug. Everyone was finishing their checks, everyone was pursuing pucks deep, everyone was trying to win every battle. Even Markus Naslund hit somebody! I'm still not convinced I believe "safe is death" has really gotten through to everyone, but it seems to have worked just well enough.
Redden and Rozsival were a good second pair to Staal and Girardi. It took alternating both pairs to contain the Washington offense as much as we did, and both pairs came up big enough. Building out from a stellar performance by the King and solid work by our back 6, our forwards collectively brought a fight to the game that we hadn't seen in the previous 6. This game was not an easy one to win, but the Rangers made it fun to watch (it helped that we pulled it out in the end). Next stop: Boston.
First and foremost, my thanks go out to Henrik Lundqvist. "Stood on his head" is a phrase that doesn't quite carry the power I want to convey here - the dude was unimpeachable (despite a few impeachments from the Caps nonetheless). As they say, Lundqvist is the kind of goalie that gives us a chance to win every single game. He gave us this one, too.
But as you know, all the King can do is keep us in the game against a far superior team. We have to capitalize on that. And somehow, we did. Sean Avery was once again a presence on the ice - sure, he went to the box a bunch, but it was absolutely worth it. He took Mike Green, an otherwise very dangerous man, completely off his game, and our PK made every time worth it. Sean didn't do anything stupid, he just got penalized as if he had - what else is new? Freddie Sjostrom really stepped up to fill the metaphysically huge skates of Blair Betts and kept us in it every time Avery was unjustifiably sent off, which in turn allowed Avery himself to amp up his game.
More than his presence in Mike Green's head, though, it seemed like the rest of the guys caught the Avery bug. Everyone was finishing their checks, everyone was pursuing pucks deep, everyone was trying to win every battle. Even Markus Naslund hit somebody! I'm still not convinced I believe "safe is death" has really gotten through to everyone, but it seems to have worked just well enough.
Redden and Rozsival were a good second pair to Staal and Girardi. It took alternating both pairs to contain the Washington offense as much as we did, and both pairs came up big enough. Building out from a stellar performance by the King and solid work by our back 6, our forwards collectively brought a fight to the game that we hadn't seen in the previous 6. This game was not an easy one to win, but the Rangers made it fun to watch (it helped that we pulled it out in the end). Next stop: Boston.
Tomorrow's story, if the Capitals win
Well, the better-skilled team finally won out, despite going down to us 3-1. Let's start with them. It's no secret that they figured out how to get a few past Lundqvist. But mostly, their scoring came not because Hank wasn't "a god," but because Ovechkin kept his team firing. Green was again fairly useless, but people like Backstrom and Semin were fueled by Ovechkin's fire. It wasn't so much goal-scoring they relied on him for as it was an offensive drive - he was the reason all the big plays happened in the first place.
But enough about them.
We came out flat, as usual. Drury's statistics notwithstanding, his quiet demeanor was not enough to captain this team into giving a shit about their game. For the first 10 minutes, we barely held the puck at all - and by then, I already knew the game was over. Gomez and Drury had solid games, but nothing spectacular - nothing good enough to get a team pumped or build on.
Meanwhile, people like Naslund, Antropov, and Zherdev, as usual, underperformed. While Antropov was characteristically solid defensively, none of these guys seemed to know what to do with the puck. Veterans like Naslund are supposed to be immune to the nerves that completely take a team over in the playoffs, but these are the guys that seemed totally stunned by what they were doing.
Torts has been saying for a while now things like "our best players have to be our best players," "We're not gonna win if Sean Avery is our best player," "We're not gonna win if our kids are our best players." Well, Sean Avery, Brandon Dubinsky, and Ryan Callahan were our best offensive players. Torts was right.
Defensively, we played solidly enough getting in the way - our reactionary defense was fine, even from such as Redden. But once we got to the pucks, we gave them right back up, so the theory of "play defense by not letting them have the puck" gave way to "play defense by scrambling to get in the way" - which was exciting every time it worked, but just keeps leading to giving the puck right back. For every time Redden did something right to get in the way of the puck, he did something else wrong to give it back.
Look, it's no secret that we got where we are because of a stellar PK and a stellar goalie. I don't wanna sound sour on this, so I'm not gonna harp on it - good teams find a way to win, no matter what - but we were killed by the Caps power play. Sure, some calls were questionable, but that's not the point. Not having Betts hurt us more than anyone who will write anything about this game realizes. Our PK was significantly weakened, and while Lundqvist played what I thought was a solid game, and I'd (as ever) call him blameless again, he was not, in fact, superhuman. And unfortunately, our skaters needed him to be to give us a chance.
Among Staal and Girardi still not quite shaking off the nerves of the playoffs, Betts being out of the lineup, and Lundqvist not being supernatural, our defense was weaker than usual. A total lack of offense from the guys that should be our star players put the puck in their hands too often, and they're too dangerous on offense, even when we are at our defensive best. Plus, they were on fire, led by Alex Ovechkin, at home, in a Game 7. They remembered what that meant, and we couldn't get the requisite effort forth. So, they get Pittsburgh and we get golf.
But enough about them.
We came out flat, as usual. Drury's statistics notwithstanding, his quiet demeanor was not enough to captain this team into giving a shit about their game. For the first 10 minutes, we barely held the puck at all - and by then, I already knew the game was over. Gomez and Drury had solid games, but nothing spectacular - nothing good enough to get a team pumped or build on.
Meanwhile, people like Naslund, Antropov, and Zherdev, as usual, underperformed. While Antropov was characteristically solid defensively, none of these guys seemed to know what to do with the puck. Veterans like Naslund are supposed to be immune to the nerves that completely take a team over in the playoffs, but these are the guys that seemed totally stunned by what they were doing.
Torts has been saying for a while now things like "our best players have to be our best players," "We're not gonna win if Sean Avery is our best player," "We're not gonna win if our kids are our best players." Well, Sean Avery, Brandon Dubinsky, and Ryan Callahan were our best offensive players. Torts was right.
Defensively, we played solidly enough getting in the way - our reactionary defense was fine, even from such as Redden. But once we got to the pucks, we gave them right back up, so the theory of "play defense by not letting them have the puck" gave way to "play defense by scrambling to get in the way" - which was exciting every time it worked, but just keeps leading to giving the puck right back. For every time Redden did something right to get in the way of the puck, he did something else wrong to give it back.
Look, it's no secret that we got where we are because of a stellar PK and a stellar goalie. I don't wanna sound sour on this, so I'm not gonna harp on it - good teams find a way to win, no matter what - but we were killed by the Caps power play. Sure, some calls were questionable, but that's not the point. Not having Betts hurt us more than anyone who will write anything about this game realizes. Our PK was significantly weakened, and while Lundqvist played what I thought was a solid game, and I'd (as ever) call him blameless again, he was not, in fact, superhuman. And unfortunately, our skaters needed him to be to give us a chance.
Among Staal and Girardi still not quite shaking off the nerves of the playoffs, Betts being out of the lineup, and Lundqvist not being supernatural, our defense was weaker than usual. A total lack of offense from the guys that should be our star players put the puck in their hands too often, and they're too dangerous on offense, even when we are at our defensive best. Plus, they were on fire, led by Alex Ovechkin, at home, in a Game 7. They remembered what that meant, and we couldn't get the requisite effort forth. So, they get Pittsburgh and we get golf.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Captain's Log: Supplemental
...in which pretty much all I do is complain about the officiating.
Let's get the easiest one to swallow out of the way first: the Avery/Tortorella saga. We've already covered most of the ridiculousness there, but I just wanna add that I really believe that the officials took Avery out of this series with a conscious, if not organized, effort to penalize him so often for so many things that he now can't (or at least feels like he can't - who can say which?) finish a check without going to the box. Granted, I also feel like Avery didn't do himself, or us, any favors at the end of Game 4.
But let's get to the real meat of things: Brashear's hit on Betts, and the Brandon Dubinsky Finger Incident (band name?). You may recall mention of a certain hit about 9:50 (Betts had played about 1:40 so far) into the game that took Betts out of not only the game, but Game 7 and, presumably, the theoretical beyond. The hit broke an orbital bone (yes, kids, those are the ones we use to keep our eyes in). Let's start by reviewing the hit.
You can watch the whole video if you want, but the portion that matters starts 0:47 into the video. Now, this is a hit that went completely unpenalized. In fact, play continued for a few seconds before Mara went after Brashear, and each of them got 2 for roughing. No other calls on the play.
Now, it is unclear from the video whether or not Brashear's elbow made contact with Betts, or just his shoulder. Bruce Boudreau claimed that it was clearly just the shoulder. But here's the point I want to make: no one at all should be discussing which body part Brashear hit him with. Boudreau is referring to Rule 46.1: "Elbowing shall mean the use of an extended elbow in a manner that may or may not cause injury." The claim is that there is no foul to be found, technically speaking, unless Brashear followed through with the elbow. This is insultingly far from the point, and it speaks to a real gap in the NHL's thinking. They will call every little holding or hooking penalty they can find. If a stick comes up around a midsection, a penalty is called, in the name of "not slowing down the game." But if Brashear doesn't make contact with the elbow, it's a clean hit.
Let me be very clear about this. I've referred to it before, talking about the difference between Avery being a pain in the ass and a player who is actually dirty. This is a hit that is designed to injure. Watch it again. Betts dumps the puck in, and he's going for a change. His body is defenseless, he's away from the play. Brashear knows this. He comes at him from the back, where Betts can't see him, and he charges with all the force he can. Hockey players understand this. People who never watch hockey have a lot of trouble seeing the difference, but players don't. When you're in the game, you're skating, you're checking, you're hitting, your body is poised. Betts was out of the play, retiring to the bench, and never saw Brashear coming. When they talk about "late hits," they are talking about hits on players whose bodies are relaxed. This is textbook.
It is people like Donald Brashear that inspire me to come to Avery's defense so often. Sean Avery is a prick. He's irritating. He gets on everyone's nerves. It's, frankly, pretty sweet. But he has never, to my knowledge, done anything in order to cause injury to another player. Piss him off? Call his mother a whore? Sure. But not ever actually stop him from taking the ice. That's the difference. Everyone who watched that play knew Betts's body was unprepared for a hit. Brashear knew. That's why Brashear went after him. The NHL talks about how they have to "clean up the game," so they suspend Torts for squirting water at a fan, and they send Avery to counseling for talking about sex, and they call a minor on every hook anywhere on the ice. But they market Brashear as a "tough, physical veteran" and Avery as "the least liked player in the league." You know what? People may get annoyed by players like Avery or Esa Tikkanen. But I gotta believe that your average NHL player is way more put off by the kind of guy that purposely looks to take a guy like Blair Betts out of his career.
Epilogue: The NHL had a hearing today to discuss what to do about Brashear. They ended up suspending him 5 games for the hit, plus an additional game for starting up with Colton Orr in the pre-game warmup. This is good, he deserves suspension. But I'm having trouble getting it to feel too much like justice. You know I wouldn't make a claim like "if it hadn't been for this one thing, we would have won." We got outplayed in Game 6, for all the reasons I outlined. But...Blair Betts is our best faceoff man, and we couldn't get puck possession throughout the game. Also, Blair Betts is our best penalty killer. Through the first 5 games, our PK was quite strong, holding the incredibly dynamic Caps to a series-shaping 4 PPG in 28 minors for 41:23 of power play time. With Betts out of Game 6, they scored 2 PPG on 5 minors that only added up to 4:00 of power play time. 2 is the number of goals by which we lost this contest. I'm not drawing any conclusions here - I report, you decide. I'm just sayin'.
Overshadowed by this nonsense was the weird Dubinsky-Morrisonn biting incident. Apparently, when Dubinsky and Morrisonn came together with 5 minutes left in the second, Morrisonn bit Dubi on the wrist. Apparently, when he tried to show this to the linesman, the linesman determined that Dubi was being unsportsmanlike about it, and that's what led to Dubi's 10-minute misconduct.
It's hard to figure out the details here, but we know Dubi went to get a tetanus shot this morning. Morrisonn, of course, claims he didn't bite Dubi. It seems hard to believe that a dude would bite a dude, but then, Jarkko Ruutu did it, and it seems hard to believe that Dubi would make the whole thing up in the middle of the game like that. And get angry enough about it that he gets a misconduct for it?
Anyway, at the very least, it's very confusing. Surely, it's not as depressing as the Betts loss. But I do have trouble with the idea that a guy got a 10-minute misconduct for, presumably, getting bitten. Whatever. I somehow just got over this bullshit, unacceptable as it is. I mean, Dubinsky got bitten on the wrist, had to go for a tetanus shot this morning, and got a 10-minute misconduct for trying to tell the linesman about it. There is no goddamn way to spin that positively. It is terrible. And I won't get into what losing our second-best faceoff guy did to our chances of winning Game 6, either. There's nothing you can do about this shit. We have to just move on. Game 7 is tomorrow. That's the important thing.
Let's get the easiest one to swallow out of the way first: the Avery/Tortorella saga. We've already covered most of the ridiculousness there, but I just wanna add that I really believe that the officials took Avery out of this series with a conscious, if not organized, effort to penalize him so often for so many things that he now can't (or at least feels like he can't - who can say which?) finish a check without going to the box. Granted, I also feel like Avery didn't do himself, or us, any favors at the end of Game 4.
But let's get to the real meat of things: Brashear's hit on Betts, and the Brandon Dubinsky Finger Incident (band name?). You may recall mention of a certain hit about 9:50 (Betts had played about 1:40 so far) into the game that took Betts out of not only the game, but Game 7 and, presumably, the theoretical beyond. The hit broke an orbital bone (yes, kids, those are the ones we use to keep our eyes in). Let's start by reviewing the hit.
You can watch the whole video if you want, but the portion that matters starts 0:47 into the video. Now, this is a hit that went completely unpenalized. In fact, play continued for a few seconds before Mara went after Brashear, and each of them got 2 for roughing. No other calls on the play.
Now, it is unclear from the video whether or not Brashear's elbow made contact with Betts, or just his shoulder. Bruce Boudreau claimed that it was clearly just the shoulder. But here's the point I want to make: no one at all should be discussing which body part Brashear hit him with. Boudreau is referring to Rule 46.1: "Elbowing shall mean the use of an extended elbow in a manner that may or may not cause injury." The claim is that there is no foul to be found, technically speaking, unless Brashear followed through with the elbow. This is insultingly far from the point, and it speaks to a real gap in the NHL's thinking. They will call every little holding or hooking penalty they can find. If a stick comes up around a midsection, a penalty is called, in the name of "not slowing down the game." But if Brashear doesn't make contact with the elbow, it's a clean hit.
Let me be very clear about this. I've referred to it before, talking about the difference between Avery being a pain in the ass and a player who is actually dirty. This is a hit that is designed to injure. Watch it again. Betts dumps the puck in, and he's going for a change. His body is defenseless, he's away from the play. Brashear knows this. He comes at him from the back, where Betts can't see him, and he charges with all the force he can. Hockey players understand this. People who never watch hockey have a lot of trouble seeing the difference, but players don't. When you're in the game, you're skating, you're checking, you're hitting, your body is poised. Betts was out of the play, retiring to the bench, and never saw Brashear coming. When they talk about "late hits," they are talking about hits on players whose bodies are relaxed. This is textbook.
It is people like Donald Brashear that inspire me to come to Avery's defense so often. Sean Avery is a prick. He's irritating. He gets on everyone's nerves. It's, frankly, pretty sweet. But he has never, to my knowledge, done anything in order to cause injury to another player. Piss him off? Call his mother a whore? Sure. But not ever actually stop him from taking the ice. That's the difference. Everyone who watched that play knew Betts's body was unprepared for a hit. Brashear knew. That's why Brashear went after him. The NHL talks about how they have to "clean up the game," so they suspend Torts for squirting water at a fan, and they send Avery to counseling for talking about sex, and they call a minor on every hook anywhere on the ice. But they market Brashear as a "tough, physical veteran" and Avery as "the least liked player in the league." You know what? People may get annoyed by players like Avery or Esa Tikkanen. But I gotta believe that your average NHL player is way more put off by the kind of guy that purposely looks to take a guy like Blair Betts out of his career.
Epilogue: The NHL had a hearing today to discuss what to do about Brashear. They ended up suspending him 5 games for the hit, plus an additional game for starting up with Colton Orr in the pre-game warmup. This is good, he deserves suspension. But I'm having trouble getting it to feel too much like justice. You know I wouldn't make a claim like "if it hadn't been for this one thing, we would have won." We got outplayed in Game 6, for all the reasons I outlined. But...Blair Betts is our best faceoff man, and we couldn't get puck possession throughout the game. Also, Blair Betts is our best penalty killer. Through the first 5 games, our PK was quite strong, holding the incredibly dynamic Caps to a series-shaping 4 PPG in 28 minors for 41:23 of power play time. With Betts out of Game 6, they scored 2 PPG on 5 minors that only added up to 4:00 of power play time. 2 is the number of goals by which we lost this contest. I'm not drawing any conclusions here - I report, you decide. I'm just sayin'.
Overshadowed by this nonsense was the weird Dubinsky-Morrisonn biting incident. Apparently, when Dubinsky and Morrisonn came together with 5 minutes left in the second, Morrisonn bit Dubi on the wrist. Apparently, when he tried to show this to the linesman, the linesman determined that Dubi was being unsportsmanlike about it, and that's what led to Dubi's 10-minute misconduct.
It's hard to figure out the details here, but we know Dubi went to get a tetanus shot this morning. Morrisonn, of course, claims he didn't bite Dubi. It seems hard to believe that a dude would bite a dude, but then, Jarkko Ruutu did it, and it seems hard to believe that Dubi would make the whole thing up in the middle of the game like that. And get angry enough about it that he gets a misconduct for it?
Anyway, at the very least, it's very confusing. Surely, it's not as depressing as the Betts loss. But I do have trouble with the idea that a guy got a 10-minute misconduct for, presumably, getting bitten. Whatever. I somehow just got over this bullshit, unacceptable as it is. I mean, Dubinsky got bitten on the wrist, had to go for a tetanus shot this morning, and got a 10-minute misconduct for trying to tell the linesman about it. There is no goddamn way to spin that positively. It is terrible. And I won't get into what losing our second-best faceoff guy did to our chances of winning Game 6, either. There's nothing you can do about this shit. We have to just move on. Game 7 is tomorrow. That's the important thing.
Capitals 5, Rangers 3
...in which I do not complain at all about the officiating. Because the most important thing is to look inward and see what we did wrong (Spoiler Warning: Markus Naslund, Nikolai Zherdev, and Wade Redden).
We actually started this game much better than either of our other losses. We came out strong, as did the Caps - the first time all series I thought to myself "Wow, here are 2 good teams playing at their best." They scored first, but I wasn't worried, and Gomez tied it up (on the power play, no less) only 1:06 later.
Then, the circus started. I'm not going to get into the details, because that would require quite a bit of complaining about officiating. Suffice it to say: Brashear did something very unsportsmanlike and dirty, and Betts was out of the game (he will likely also miss game 7). Paul Mara, may he be blessed for many years, went right after Brashear for it, and they each ended up in the box (for 2 minutes. But again, I'm not here to complain about the officiating).
The point here is: that was the end of retribution. And here is where the lack of a leader shines through. If the officials aren't going to do their jobs to settle the score, we have to. Some teams preach that you get back at a guy like that by scoring a goal the next shift. Some that you flatten him every time he takes the ice all game. Others still claim that next shift he's out there, you send a guy after him to cross-check him in the nose. I am not here to make any claims as to which school of thought prevails (all have their merit, though I fall most often in school #2). My complaint is that the Rangers did none of these. Instead, it seemed like everyone decided to empathize with Betts by all going out cold along with him.
After the incident, the Rangers were a completely different team. It all comes back to what we've been saying all along: there is no spark. There is no leader. Schoenfeld did a completely adequate job interimming (ew) for Torts, (in post-game interviews, I was as impressed by how much Schoenny channels Torts as I was by Perry Pearn channeling Renney), but that fire can't come from behind the bench. We played completely flat, and we don't have a Jaromir Jagr or an Alex Ovechkin who can, through firey play and a firey bench attitude, get his team back in it. Our bench is silent. Our "enforcer," Colton Orr, was scratched, presumably because of a combination of the "we need some dang offense" and "that Too Many Men penalty was his fault" factors. Not that I'm convinced he necessarily would have done anything, or that I disagree. But he could have.
Anyway, we didn't have to stay flat for very long. 7:20 later, it was 3-1 Caps. You see, we are playing a team that is very fucking good at hockey. Way better than we are! We can be forgiven for not having the talent they do, but given that, we can't be forgiven for being so goddamn unaccountable. The coaching party line is always: "we need more from our best guys, I don't wanna name names." I'm gonna name some.
Markus Naslund had what I believe to be his worst game since the coaching change. The CDC has no record of the Wade Redden Virus being contagious (although they do have some research concerning the mycobacterium ulcerans infection by a Jane Redden-Hoare), but I'm prepared to send in a paper. Every time Naslund found his way to the puck (usually because someone else sent it to his stick), he stopped and thought about it. Sometimes, he was driving to the net, and by the time he was done thinking, he was already there. Sometimes, he had a wide open net, and he stopped to make a couple of moves before he bothered attempting to shoot. Across the board, in the Tortorella world of "Safe is death," the motto in play seemed more like "Think before you act." That. Isn't. Working.
Naslund is not alone. Redden, of course, fell victim to his own virus as much as anyone else. Well, slightly more. It is his namesake, after all (or is he its namesake?). He cannot decide what to do with the puck, goddamn ever.
In other news, everyone else sucked, too! Zherdev is embarrassing. The guy that Torts calls "our most offensively talented player" spent yet another game not doing shit, despite 15:27 of ice time, more than each of 5 other forwards (admittedly, one was Betts) AND Paul Mara. If it were me, I wouldn't resign him. But I know Torts thinks he's great, so, well, I guess I have to give him another season to prove it.
Avery was a complete nonfactor. He finished no hits. He got on no one's case. I have a very strong theory about this that involves him going to the box every time he skated near someone for the entire time he's been back on the Rangers, but I won't expound: that would be complaining about the officiating. He needs to accept that he's going to be sent to the box for bullshit, and he needs to play his game anyway.
Once again, when the third period rolled around, we were down by 4, we had pulled Lundqvist, and we started to play some hockey again. You were probably too depressed to notice, but not only did we win the third period 2-0, we outshot them 11-2. Granted, that has something to do with all the makeup calls the refs handed us (we had 2 5-on-3s), but as you know, I am not complaining about the officiating. We played a solid period, especially given that half of it was without Dubinsky and all of it was without Betts. But, as you know, it didn't matter. We were out of the game.
So, there you have it. You'll note I didn't mention Lundqvist much here. That's because I'm not buying into the whole "Lundqvist has lost his touch" crap. He's still a fantastic goalie. He has always been easier to beat top-side than down low. We knew he had stood on his head like a crazyperson earlier in the series. And we've seen that he plays better when he has a solid team skating in front of him! Nothing is news. He will have a fantastic game on Tuesday, and it's up to the rest of the team to make that effort good enough.
We actually started this game much better than either of our other losses. We came out strong, as did the Caps - the first time all series I thought to myself "Wow, here are 2 good teams playing at their best." They scored first, but I wasn't worried, and Gomez tied it up (on the power play, no less) only 1:06 later.
Then, the circus started. I'm not going to get into the details, because that would require quite a bit of complaining about officiating. Suffice it to say: Brashear did something very unsportsmanlike and dirty, and Betts was out of the game (he will likely also miss game 7). Paul Mara, may he be blessed for many years, went right after Brashear for it, and they each ended up in the box (for 2 minutes. But again, I'm not here to complain about the officiating).
The point here is: that was the end of retribution. And here is where the lack of a leader shines through. If the officials aren't going to do their jobs to settle the score, we have to. Some teams preach that you get back at a guy like that by scoring a goal the next shift. Some that you flatten him every time he takes the ice all game. Others still claim that next shift he's out there, you send a guy after him to cross-check him in the nose. I am not here to make any claims as to which school of thought prevails (all have their merit, though I fall most often in school #2). My complaint is that the Rangers did none of these. Instead, it seemed like everyone decided to empathize with Betts by all going out cold along with him.
After the incident, the Rangers were a completely different team. It all comes back to what we've been saying all along: there is no spark. There is no leader. Schoenfeld did a completely adequate job interimming (ew) for Torts, (in post-game interviews, I was as impressed by how much Schoenny channels Torts as I was by Perry Pearn channeling Renney), but that fire can't come from behind the bench. We played completely flat, and we don't have a Jaromir Jagr or an Alex Ovechkin who can, through firey play and a firey bench attitude, get his team back in it. Our bench is silent. Our "enforcer," Colton Orr, was scratched, presumably because of a combination of the "we need some dang offense" and "that Too Many Men penalty was his fault" factors. Not that I'm convinced he necessarily would have done anything, or that I disagree. But he could have.
Anyway, we didn't have to stay flat for very long. 7:20 later, it was 3-1 Caps. You see, we are playing a team that is very fucking good at hockey. Way better than we are! We can be forgiven for not having the talent they do, but given that, we can't be forgiven for being so goddamn unaccountable. The coaching party line is always: "we need more from our best guys, I don't wanna name names." I'm gonna name some.
Markus Naslund had what I believe to be his worst game since the coaching change. The CDC has no record of the Wade Redden Virus being contagious (although they do have some research concerning the mycobacterium ulcerans infection by a Jane Redden-Hoare), but I'm prepared to send in a paper. Every time Naslund found his way to the puck (usually because someone else sent it to his stick), he stopped and thought about it. Sometimes, he was driving to the net, and by the time he was done thinking, he was already there. Sometimes, he had a wide open net, and he stopped to make a couple of moves before he bothered attempting to shoot. Across the board, in the Tortorella world of "Safe is death," the motto in play seemed more like "Think before you act." That. Isn't. Working.
Naslund is not alone. Redden, of course, fell victim to his own virus as much as anyone else. Well, slightly more. It is his namesake, after all (or is he its namesake?). He cannot decide what to do with the puck, goddamn ever.
In other news, everyone else sucked, too! Zherdev is embarrassing. The guy that Torts calls "our most offensively talented player" spent yet another game not doing shit, despite 15:27 of ice time, more than each of 5 other forwards (admittedly, one was Betts) AND Paul Mara. If it were me, I wouldn't resign him. But I know Torts thinks he's great, so, well, I guess I have to give him another season to prove it.
Avery was a complete nonfactor. He finished no hits. He got on no one's case. I have a very strong theory about this that involves him going to the box every time he skated near someone for the entire time he's been back on the Rangers, but I won't expound: that would be complaining about the officiating. He needs to accept that he's going to be sent to the box for bullshit, and he needs to play his game anyway.
Once again, when the third period rolled around, we were down by 4, we had pulled Lundqvist, and we started to play some hockey again. You were probably too depressed to notice, but not only did we win the third period 2-0, we outshot them 11-2. Granted, that has something to do with all the makeup calls the refs handed us (we had 2 5-on-3s), but as you know, I am not complaining about the officiating. We played a solid period, especially given that half of it was without Dubinsky and all of it was without Betts. But, as you know, it didn't matter. We were out of the game.
So, there you have it. You'll note I didn't mention Lundqvist much here. That's because I'm not buying into the whole "Lundqvist has lost his touch" crap. He's still a fantastic goalie. He has always been easier to beat top-side than down low. We knew he had stood on his head like a crazyperson earlier in the series. And we've seen that he plays better when he has a solid team skating in front of him! Nothing is news. He will have a fantastic game on Tuesday, and it's up to the rest of the team to make that effort good enough.
Benching a Coach
So, that was interesting. Apparently, while I was upstairs crying in my oatmeal, there was a Caps fan downstairs pouring beer on my head coach. Or something. The details are unclear. At first, the story was that some unruly fan poured beer on the bench, and then Torts threw water back at the fan. After a day of investigation -- no, seriously, I am making none of this up -- it was determined that Torts struck first. And the NHL suspended him for a game.
This...is fantastic. This is really amazing. This is a nice, compact way for me to be angry at absolutely everybody. It is, of course, impossible to figure out what happened in full, but here's what we know: some fan agitated Totorella. Water was thrown. Beer was thrown. Torts brandished Voros's stick at the guy!
You heard me. He took Voros's stick out of his hands and threatened the fan with it.
See? Fantastic stuff. On the one hand, the NHL is suspending a coach in the middle of the playoff series, quite possibly for throwing water at a drunk fan who threw beer at him, while doing nothing at all to ask the Caps to maybe up their security a little bit.
On the other hand, our coach managed to take his mind off the game for long enough to threaten some drunk guy in the stands! Suspendible or not, I don't care how long a T.V. timeout is - you should probably be doing something else? Now, I understand that you're trying to teach your team pride. I do get that. But to get suspended for dealings with a fan? In the middle of the game? Irony bonus: in the middle of the game from which you benched Avery for losing his temper? That is astounding work.
Sure, if that's a Lou Lamoriello coach behind the bench, there's no suspension. Granted. The NHL is biased, we know this - that is no excuse. Just like the open season refs have declared on Avery's head was no excuse for him to swing a stick at a guy, the bullshit coming from the fan and the NHL are no excuse for Torts to take his head out of the game like that. Is there a line combination he could have been changing up in the time he was instead throwing water? Could he maybe have been recommending a Nikolai-Zherdev's-head removal to Nikolai Zherdev's ass? I feel like there's some coaching he could have been doing.
So, that pretty much takes care of Game 5. Promising stuff, huh? Next entry, let's see if we managed to close out the series at home 2 days later (SPOILER WARNING: Nope!)
This...is fantastic. This is really amazing. This is a nice, compact way for me to be angry at absolutely everybody. It is, of course, impossible to figure out what happened in full, but here's what we know: some fan agitated Totorella. Water was thrown. Beer was thrown. Torts brandished Voros's stick at the guy!
You heard me. He took Voros's stick out of his hands and threatened the fan with it.
See? Fantastic stuff. On the one hand, the NHL is suspending a coach in the middle of the playoff series, quite possibly for throwing water at a drunk fan who threw beer at him, while doing nothing at all to ask the Caps to maybe up their security a little bit.
On the other hand, our coach managed to take his mind off the game for long enough to threaten some drunk guy in the stands! Suspendible or not, I don't care how long a T.V. timeout is - you should probably be doing something else? Now, I understand that you're trying to teach your team pride. I do get that. But to get suspended for dealings with a fan? In the middle of the game? Irony bonus: in the middle of the game from which you benched Avery for losing his temper? That is astounding work.
Sure, if that's a Lou Lamoriello coach behind the bench, there's no suspension. Granted. The NHL is biased, we know this - that is no excuse. Just like the open season refs have declared on Avery's head was no excuse for him to swing a stick at a guy, the bullshit coming from the fan and the NHL are no excuse for Torts to take his head out of the game like that. Is there a line combination he could have been changing up in the time he was instead throwing water? Could he maybe have been recommending a Nikolai-Zherdev's-head removal to Nikolai Zherdev's ass? I feel like there's some coaching he could have been doing.
So, that pretty much takes care of Game 5. Promising stuff, huh? Next entry, let's see if we managed to close out the series at home 2 days later (SPOILER WARNING: Nope!)
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Capitals 4, Rangers 0
So I'm back-blogging. I just got back from a hockey weekend in DC. We all know how it turned out. Let's start with Friday night.
I know I usually like to start with the good news. Well, Friday night, the good news was pretty much: Ryan Callahan passed me a puck over the glass at practice. From there, it was all downhill. Steckel beat Dubinsky on the opening faceoff, and it seemed like we didn't get the puck back until the third period started. Unusually, the King let in a softie: 12 minutes in, a simple shot from 20 feet out that he let slip either threw his pads or between them and the post, to put the Caps up by 2. But blaming Lundqvist for this loss feels a little like blaming Governor Schwarzenegger for his party's poor handling of environmental concerns.
They never had the puck. Through 40 minutes, they just never had the damn puck. The biggest thing that jumped at me was speed. Yes, the Caps are fast. But literally every race was won by a Cap. No matter who it was, no matter how many steps behind they were, no matter who they were racing, they got there first. Yes, we fell back on the standard Rangers don't-know-what-to-do-with-the-puck. Zherdev looked positively awful every time he touched the puck. But more than that, it was speed. Speed is what makes Redden's game so inexcusable - there is *always* a beat in which he stops to make a decision once he gets the puck. In that time, everyone else has moved. He's like the exact opposite of Wayne Gretzky: he reacts to where everyone used to be.
As you know, you don't win games if you don't score goals, you don't score goals if you don't take shots, and you can't take shots if you never have the puck. So, through 40 minutes, we had only even seen fit to hit the net 10 times (and we had won only 37.5% of faceoffs). Oh, and it was 4-0 Caps. Weird, right?
So, we did the only natural thing we could to fix the problem: We pulled Lundqvist.
Okay, reasonably speaking, I know that we didn't pull him 'cause we thought it was his fault. There was no reason to leave him in while the Caps smelled blood, rest him for the next game, etc. And, as it turned out, for the third period, we started to play some hockey. Got me a little excited, even. Another 10 shots on goal in the third alone. But, it was already 4-0 Caps. So guess what happened. We lost 4-0.
I'd go through a rundown of personnel, but there's no one really to speak of. Every skater was slow, every skater was bad. Except, of course, Sean Avery. He...wasn't present. Torts benched him. Presumably, this was for the 2 penalties he took in the last 10 minutes of game 4. I guess this actually brings me to one more piece of good news that came out of this game.
Standing down by the ice during the pre-game warmup, when I learned that Avery was being scratched, I was talking to some Ranger fans standing around, and I really really wished that I could come up with the perfect real-life analogue for "biting off your nose to spite your face." And I had nothing, and I could not be witty. Now, after the game, I do have the perfect analogue: Game 5 of that Rangers-Caps first-round series, when Tortorella scratched Avery.
Look, I'm not gonna try to claim that we would have won game 5 if one guy had been there. And as you know, I absolutely think Avery has no justification for the lack of discipline he showed. But...maybe, I dunno, sit him for a period? Send a message? Don't take a guy that is consistently one of your best offensive players off the ice in a game where you know your biggest weakness is obviously going to be scoring goals?
Whatever. At the end of the day, every skater out there was accountable. And to try to pin it on just one decision is ridiculous. If anyone's to blame, it's me. I haven't seen a win live since November 17, 2007, in overtime. I haven't seen a regulation win since we swept the Thrashers in the first round of the '06-'07 playoffs.
At the end of the day, I feel like as an overall game, this 4-0 loss was worse for us than the 4-0 loss from Game 3. However, we showed some promise at the end of the game, taking the fight to them. I wonder what would happen if we ever put forth an effort for 60 minutes.
I know I usually like to start with the good news. Well, Friday night, the good news was pretty much: Ryan Callahan passed me a puck over the glass at practice. From there, it was all downhill. Steckel beat Dubinsky on the opening faceoff, and it seemed like we didn't get the puck back until the third period started. Unusually, the King let in a softie: 12 minutes in, a simple shot from 20 feet out that he let slip either threw his pads or between them and the post, to put the Caps up by 2. But blaming Lundqvist for this loss feels a little like blaming Governor Schwarzenegger for his party's poor handling of environmental concerns.
They never had the puck. Through 40 minutes, they just never had the damn puck. The biggest thing that jumped at me was speed. Yes, the Caps are fast. But literally every race was won by a Cap. No matter who it was, no matter how many steps behind they were, no matter who they were racing, they got there first. Yes, we fell back on the standard Rangers don't-know-what-to-do-with-the-puck. Zherdev looked positively awful every time he touched the puck. But more than that, it was speed. Speed is what makes Redden's game so inexcusable - there is *always* a beat in which he stops to make a decision once he gets the puck. In that time, everyone else has moved. He's like the exact opposite of Wayne Gretzky: he reacts to where everyone used to be.
As you know, you don't win games if you don't score goals, you don't score goals if you don't take shots, and you can't take shots if you never have the puck. So, through 40 minutes, we had only even seen fit to hit the net 10 times (and we had won only 37.5% of faceoffs). Oh, and it was 4-0 Caps. Weird, right?
So, we did the only natural thing we could to fix the problem: We pulled Lundqvist.
Okay, reasonably speaking, I know that we didn't pull him 'cause we thought it was his fault. There was no reason to leave him in while the Caps smelled blood, rest him for the next game, etc. And, as it turned out, for the third period, we started to play some hockey. Got me a little excited, even. Another 10 shots on goal in the third alone. But, it was already 4-0 Caps. So guess what happened. We lost 4-0.
I'd go through a rundown of personnel, but there's no one really to speak of. Every skater was slow, every skater was bad. Except, of course, Sean Avery. He...wasn't present. Torts benched him. Presumably, this was for the 2 penalties he took in the last 10 minutes of game 4. I guess this actually brings me to one more piece of good news that came out of this game.
Standing down by the ice during the pre-game warmup, when I learned that Avery was being scratched, I was talking to some Ranger fans standing around, and I really really wished that I could come up with the perfect real-life analogue for "biting off your nose to spite your face." And I had nothing, and I could not be witty. Now, after the game, I do have the perfect analogue: Game 5 of that Rangers-Caps first-round series, when Tortorella scratched Avery.
Look, I'm not gonna try to claim that we would have won game 5 if one guy had been there. And as you know, I absolutely think Avery has no justification for the lack of discipline he showed. But...maybe, I dunno, sit him for a period? Send a message? Don't take a guy that is consistently one of your best offensive players off the ice in a game where you know your biggest weakness is obviously going to be scoring goals?
Whatever. At the end of the day, every skater out there was accountable. And to try to pin it on just one decision is ridiculous. If anyone's to blame, it's me. I haven't seen a win live since November 17, 2007, in overtime. I haven't seen a regulation win since we swept the Thrashers in the first round of the '06-'07 playoffs.
At the end of the day, I feel like as an overall game, this 4-0 loss was worse for us than the 4-0 loss from Game 3. However, we showed some promise at the end of the game, taking the fight to them. I wonder what would happen if we ever put forth an effort for 60 minutes.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Rangers 2, Capitals 1
How's that for an answer to the "How will Drury hold up?" question? What if he holds up for the game-winning goal? Does that count? Man, what a pretty move it was, too - for a guy with only one hand, he sure found that angle. Chris Drury's 17th career Stanley Cup playoff game-winning goal (tying him for 6th ever in that category). And he played a solid defensive game, too! I'll take it, Captain.
So, the first period of this game was the best we've played of our 12 so far. We took the game to them, all period. We looked a step ahead, when we got the puck we kept it, etc. See what happens when you keep putting pucks on net? They bounce around and sometimes go in!
Then we kinda sat back. After outshooting them 11-9 in the first, they outshot us 30-10 over the final two. Welcome to The New York Rangers Present An Evening With Henrik Lundqvist. Letting in only one, a beautiful effort by the finally-on-the-board-but-still-frustrated-as-hell best player in the world, the King stood as tall as we needed him to despite a 40-minute barrage from the second-best offensive team in the East (and third in the league). This included a full 8 minutes of penalty time against the best PP in the East (and second in the league).
And I don't even really feel like we left him hung out to dry that often. Rozsival is actually playing good hockey. Staal realized he was actually a good defenseman and remembered to stop being afraid of the playoffs and do what he did all season. By the second half of the game, Girardi had followed suit. They both had easily their best game of the playoffs. They reminded me they were our best D-pair last night, and they had been blending in all series. Even Redden had a good game. In fact, I would almost even consider Redden/Rozsival our #2 pair, if all 6played every game like they did last night. It was...a good defensive corps.
Of course, if we're going to talk about the PK and defense, we have to mention some forwards. Their names, as usual, are Betts and Sjostrom, and also Antropov. These guys were everywhere they needed to be. I love their forechecking mentality, and more than anything not named Hank, it's this kind of play that has gotten us where we are right now.
We blocked 16 shots, compared to the Caps' 7, and it felt like we were back in the mentality of Games 1 and 2 - get in the way, sacrifice everything. I felt like we played hard, even throughout periods 2 and 3, when we let a bazrillion shots get to the King. The one place we significantly improved, and I think this was very telling, is faceoffs. After losing out on these in all 3 games, desperately badly in Game 1, we won an astonishing 39 of 58 last night, led by Dubinsky, who played like a man (or two) possessed, losing only 2 of his 17 faceoffs, one to Backstrom and one to David Steckel.
Speaking of Dubinsky, I can't say enough about him. What a winner. He is doing absolutely everything right. I want to keep him. I want him to captain the Rangers of the future. And while we're on the subject, Callahan. No matter where they were, these two were playing with an extra step, an extra hustle, and an extra hit. When a Cap had the puck, they were on him, on the boards, squeezing it out. PP, PK, even strength, offensive zone, defensive zone, neutral ice, whatever. These two should be Rangers their whole careers, please. Dubinsky, Callahan, Staal, and Lundqvist. This is my new definition of a Ranger. I'm happy with it.
And I need to talk a little about the penalty situation, because it needs to be discussed. Yes, we have the best PK in the league. No doubt. But it is unacceptable nonetheless to be shorthanded as much as we are shorthanded. Through 4 games, we have suffered 24 minor penalties for 40:59 of shorthanded time. That's over 2 full periods of penalty kill in 4 games.
Now, we know the officials have not been particularly...reasonable all the time. Last night, that came down pretty strongly in favor of the Caps, as the stripes called a phantom holding on Rozsival mere minutes from ignoring multiple crosschecks to Dubinsky's backside. But it's gonna happen like that. Especially in a series we're threatening to take a commanding lead in, when everyone wanted this to be a marquee match. The league scoring leader skates into Broadway? Ratings police say: this has to go more than 4 or 5 games. We'd be getting the same special treatment if we were about to go down 3 games to 1. And honestly, I'd rather be up by a few and getting dogged than the other way around.
We just need to compensate for it. Granted, there were phantom calls, but there we also unnecessary ones. Particularly, Naslund has had some real issues not taking stupid penalties. I remember Rozsival's inexcusable hook in game 2. And yes, let's talk about the Page Six elephant in the room. There is no doubt that everyone in the league is allowed to do whatever they want to Avery and never get called for it. And there is no doubt that whenever two people collide, if one of them is Sean Avery, he goes to the box. But Avery's mentality absolutely cannot be "if you're gonna do the time, at least do the crime."
As much as I have faith in him that the collision for the icing with 10 minutes left was incidental contact, and that officials Paul Devorsky and Ian Walsh have been drinking the "Avery is a criminal" Kool-Aid, the response absolutely cannot be to stick a guy in the head with 3 minutes to go. Note, those who would call Avery dirty for this move: it still did not intend to injure anybody. Believe me, if you swing your hockey stick at somebody's head and make direct contact with intent to injure, he doesn't just skate away annoyed. As with everything else Avery does, he was trying to fuck with, in this case, Brian Pothier. It's an important distinction from people like Jarkko Ruutu. However, the move is still completely inexcusable.
First of all, you are up by 1 goal, 3 minutes away from your team taking a 3-1 series lead. The play has already stopped. How dare you put the Rangers in jeopardy like that? What is it going to accomplish? Second of all, and this is the factor no one else is talking about, the more you keep your nose clean, while they keep calling more and more embarrassingly nonexistent penalties against you, the harder it is for the league to keep looking like it's in the right. But one clip like that high-sticking can be played on Vs. and on NBC and on TSN over and over and over again, and as long as you keep giving them material like that, you will keep being painted as the bad guy, and you will keep getting called every time you breathe near someone.
In conclusion, everyone stay out of the goddamn box tomorrow night!
But, as you know, this particular sub-story has a happy ending. The Rangers and their King killed off all of the penalties and everything else the Caps threw at them. It is hard to imagine a better playoff performance from a goalie. Well, at least, it's hard to imagine one that doesn't involve a temper-tantrum so bad your seven-year-old daughter chastises you for it when you get home. We kept saying he was going to need to be spectacular, and guess what? He was spectacular. Rangers lead, 3-1. And I have tickets to Game 5.
So, the first period of this game was the best we've played of our 12 so far. We took the game to them, all period. We looked a step ahead, when we got the puck we kept it, etc. See what happens when you keep putting pucks on net? They bounce around and sometimes go in!
Then we kinda sat back. After outshooting them 11-9 in the first, they outshot us 30-10 over the final two. Welcome to The New York Rangers Present An Evening With Henrik Lundqvist. Letting in only one, a beautiful effort by the finally-on-the-board-but-still-frustrated-as-hell best player in the world, the King stood as tall as we needed him to despite a 40-minute barrage from the second-best offensive team in the East (and third in the league). This included a full 8 minutes of penalty time against the best PP in the East (and second in the league).
And I don't even really feel like we left him hung out to dry that often. Rozsival is actually playing good hockey. Staal realized he was actually a good defenseman and remembered to stop being afraid of the playoffs and do what he did all season. By the second half of the game, Girardi had followed suit. They both had easily their best game of the playoffs. They reminded me they were our best D-pair last night, and they had been blending in all series. Even Redden had a good game. In fact, I would almost even consider Redden/Rozsival our #2 pair, if all 6played every game like they did last night. It was...a good defensive corps.
Of course, if we're going to talk about the PK and defense, we have to mention some forwards. Their names, as usual, are Betts and Sjostrom, and also Antropov. These guys were everywhere they needed to be. I love their forechecking mentality, and more than anything not named Hank, it's this kind of play that has gotten us where we are right now.
We blocked 16 shots, compared to the Caps' 7, and it felt like we were back in the mentality of Games 1 and 2 - get in the way, sacrifice everything. I felt like we played hard, even throughout periods 2 and 3, when we let a bazrillion shots get to the King. The one place we significantly improved, and I think this was very telling, is faceoffs. After losing out on these in all 3 games, desperately badly in Game 1, we won an astonishing 39 of 58 last night, led by Dubinsky, who played like a man (or two) possessed, losing only 2 of his 17 faceoffs, one to Backstrom and one to David Steckel.
Speaking of Dubinsky, I can't say enough about him. What a winner. He is doing absolutely everything right. I want to keep him. I want him to captain the Rangers of the future. And while we're on the subject, Callahan. No matter where they were, these two were playing with an extra step, an extra hustle, and an extra hit. When a Cap had the puck, they were on him, on the boards, squeezing it out. PP, PK, even strength, offensive zone, defensive zone, neutral ice, whatever. These two should be Rangers their whole careers, please. Dubinsky, Callahan, Staal, and Lundqvist. This is my new definition of a Ranger. I'm happy with it.
And I need to talk a little about the penalty situation, because it needs to be discussed. Yes, we have the best PK in the league. No doubt. But it is unacceptable nonetheless to be shorthanded as much as we are shorthanded. Through 4 games, we have suffered 24 minor penalties for 40:59 of shorthanded time. That's over 2 full periods of penalty kill in 4 games.
Now, we know the officials have not been particularly...reasonable all the time. Last night, that came down pretty strongly in favor of the Caps, as the stripes called a phantom holding on Rozsival mere minutes from ignoring multiple crosschecks to Dubinsky's backside. But it's gonna happen like that. Especially in a series we're threatening to take a commanding lead in, when everyone wanted this to be a marquee match. The league scoring leader skates into Broadway? Ratings police say: this has to go more than 4 or 5 games. We'd be getting the same special treatment if we were about to go down 3 games to 1. And honestly, I'd rather be up by a few and getting dogged than the other way around.
We just need to compensate for it. Granted, there were phantom calls, but there we also unnecessary ones. Particularly, Naslund has had some real issues not taking stupid penalties. I remember Rozsival's inexcusable hook in game 2. And yes, let's talk about the Page Six elephant in the room. There is no doubt that everyone in the league is allowed to do whatever they want to Avery and never get called for it. And there is no doubt that whenever two people collide, if one of them is Sean Avery, he goes to the box. But Avery's mentality absolutely cannot be "if you're gonna do the time, at least do the crime."
As much as I have faith in him that the collision for the icing with 10 minutes left was incidental contact, and that officials Paul Devorsky and Ian Walsh have been drinking the "Avery is a criminal" Kool-Aid, the response absolutely cannot be to stick a guy in the head with 3 minutes to go. Note, those who would call Avery dirty for this move: it still did not intend to injure anybody. Believe me, if you swing your hockey stick at somebody's head and make direct contact with intent to injure, he doesn't just skate away annoyed. As with everything else Avery does, he was trying to fuck with, in this case, Brian Pothier. It's an important distinction from people like Jarkko Ruutu. However, the move is still completely inexcusable.
First of all, you are up by 1 goal, 3 minutes away from your team taking a 3-1 series lead. The play has already stopped. How dare you put the Rangers in jeopardy like that? What is it going to accomplish? Second of all, and this is the factor no one else is talking about, the more you keep your nose clean, while they keep calling more and more embarrassingly nonexistent penalties against you, the harder it is for the league to keep looking like it's in the right. But one clip like that high-sticking can be played on Vs. and on NBC and on TSN over and over and over again, and as long as you keep giving them material like that, you will keep being painted as the bad guy, and you will keep getting called every time you breathe near someone.
In conclusion, everyone stay out of the goddamn box tomorrow night!
But, as you know, this particular sub-story has a happy ending. The Rangers and their King killed off all of the penalties and everything else the Caps threw at them. It is hard to imagine a better playoff performance from a goalie. Well, at least, it's hard to imagine one that doesn't involve a temper-tantrum so bad your seven-year-old daughter chastises you for it when you get home. We kept saying he was going to need to be spectacular, and guess what? He was spectacular. Rangers lead, 3-1. And I have tickets to Game 5.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Don't do what I said
Don't click down there. Click here instead. This is better. This is much better. 'Cause this is the Devils' broadcast. This shows two things the other video doesn't. You get to see the absolute tantrum Marty throws, including smashing his stick against the boards. He is a child. Also, you get to hear the whole thing announced by Chico Resch. You get to watch him complain about some goalie interference non-call, even showing the clip, over and over again, of Marty being bumped a full foot in front of the crease, while Chico complains about how Marty is clearly still in the crease. You even get to hear him commend Marty for the stick-throwing tantrum! This whole thing is so priceless, I'm linking you to it twice. If you were a Devil fan (*shudder*), how embarrassed would you be?? This is Devils' hockey.
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