Yeah, the ref commentary wasn’t directed to you at all, just the sympathy. I have to warm up my anti-Penguins-fan feelings just in case.
If it helps at all, I see several nights of 0 goal efforts against Lundqvist in the immediate future.
You can’t get used to something that’s never happened before. That is the first time a team has ever blown a 3-goal lead in the third period in a Game 7, ever. I believe it may also be the first time a team has ever blown a 2-goal lead with that little time left in any playoff game.
I’m a Sens fan, and therefore I despise the Leafs, but even I feel terrible for their fans. That is a Bill-Buckner-Game, Jean Van de Velde, Jackie-Smith-drops-the-ball epic choke, and no fan deserves to feel that. It makes you sick.
Indeed.
As bad as I feel for the Leafs and their fans after that (and hey, I’m a Cubs fan, I know something about gut punch losses)…
I can only imagine how freaking cool it must have been to be a Bruins fan at that game. That looked absolutely electrifying.
Hey, if it helps, I actually cried last year.
Toronto Leaf Players…What the Hell? Way too let down your fans!
Ok… I went 5-3 in the first round while the Ducks, Caps and Leafs let me down.
Lundqvist is going to get more respect from me this round:
Rangers vs Bruins, Rangers in 6 games
Penguins vs Senators, Senators in 7 games
Blackhawks vs Redwings, Blackhawks in 6 games
Kings vs Sharks, Kings in 7 games
Get those predictions in guys…2 games tonight!!!
I don’t do predictions – I’m too superstitious. 
I think starting Vokoun for a few games will also help Fleury get his mojo back. If you’ll recall, Bylsma did this last time he was having trouble – he started Brent Johnson for a while, and then Fleury game back swinging. I have faith.
Senators over pens in 6 games
Bruins over rangers in 5
Kings over sharks in 6
Hawks over wings in a 4 game sweep
Great first game by the Penguins…strong smart play yet again. Now that they’ve won 3 straight, let’s hope that they have figured out that this is the way they need to play every game, rather than thinking “Whoa, we whipped em in game 1: this’ll be easy” like they did with the Islanders.
You might be thinking of a different team and two different goalies.
Well, at least Quick looked like last year’s goalie in last night’s game.
No, I was definitely thinking of Crawford and Chicago - I was referring to their slight hesitation with him starting in the playoffs, due to the PHX series last year - but I was thinking of a completely different guy than Emery. I tend to post late at night when I don’t have a, er, sound mind…
Otherwise, what’s the deal with Joacim Eriksson, that Swedish goalie? He was drafted by the Flyers in 2008 in the 7th round, but never signed a deal with them so they lost him. He just turned 23 and is putting up monster numbers, as good or better than Lundqvist at the same age, and seems to do better in pressure situations. Like, he just lead his team to the SEL championship putting up a 1:06 GAA and a .952% over 10 games in the playoffs - those numbers are just silly. He’s got the size too, and is rather athletic. Does he not want to come to the NHL? Are teams letting him mature a bit, since he’s still young for a netminder? Does he have ridiculous demands that teams don’t want to offer, like he wants to start right away?
He has the potential to be the next goalie phenome if he can translate his game at all. Some team has to be interested, right? Pittsburgh might not be a bad place for him…
ETA: Oh yea, numbers
this is not mma hockey , the fact that boston is the biggest cheap shot team in the league and they always get away with it . I agree leafs could of done a better job, but if the refs did their jobs the outcome would of been different. if I screw up at my job I get fired. I think these moron refs graduated from Kerry frazers school of bad reffing.
Well the Hawks are off to a good start.
Detriot did them a HUGE solid in knocking off the Ducks.
Hopefully Babcock is right about now spitting out a huge piece of ass he just chewed off the forwards to finally convince them that one beautiful goal doesn’t beat three ugly ones.
Shoot the fucking puck!
That’s why I loved Tatar and am pissed he got sent down. He didn’t fit in I guess because he actually likes to shoot the puck.
and ohh yeah, just one more thing… get the shot on the fucking net!
Crosby was a beast tonight. Keep the foot on the pedal, Penguins!
Whenever the Pittsburgh Post Gazette refers to the Penguins Joe Vitale, they ALWAYS call him “the great Joe Vitale”. Why? Obviously this is a reference to something I’m not aware of or some inside joke, but what?
I just want to go on the record as having empathy for the Maple Leaf fans. That 3rd period meltdown was epic, and it could hose the franchise for years to come. That kind of collapse was a backbreaker, and I’m not even a Maple Leaf fan.
Pens 2-0… I am starting to see the Pens falling into their old habits of allowing too many shots on goal, without getting back on defense. Volkoun is playing well, but they have to give him some help.
If the Pens go up 3-0, look for the Pens to start Fleury in net in game 4.
I just don’t see them going up 3-0, that’s not their style. I see them more as a country-strong (can crush an apple with their bare hands if it means they don’t have to eat the apple) 12 year old man child beast in Trailer Park, Tennessee that’s discovered shake and bake crystal for the first time from their under the sink laboratory and are protecting a large, discounted Wal-Mart sheet cake with a rusted sledge hammer - we’ll call him Hambone. Other teams want the cake, but if they aren’t careful, they’re liable to get their knees done crushed in from both sides. But since the shake and bake is made from God knows what, Hambone reacts in God has no flipping clue fashion - he might be alert and pulverize you before you even had time to think about cake, or he could rear back with the sledge hammer and have a brain pause, all movement halted in mid motion, prone like a statue. All you have to do then is run up and grab the cake, kicking him between the ears all the while.
Islanders and Flyers - those brave SOBs - realized that, even if his brain only froze every 4 or 5 or 6 times it reared back - that was still enough time to run up and grab handfuls of cake. Yea, you’d probably get struck anyway - but cake through attrition is still cake.
Senators, so far, are standing in the wood-paneled tin-can and contemplating - do I really want cake? Does that cake even taste good? And while they twist their workboots into the mottled Berber carpet, seasoned with cigarette butts and decades of fast food ketchup, Hambone wails away in their direction. And when Hambone does the brain freeze mid-motion, the Sens walk up and flick him on his nose, to get him started again.
But why I know this won’t go 3 games with cake is that the Sens are backed by the all powerful Paulrus, who wants cake more than any creature on heaven or not heaven (Delaware?). I mean, have you seen that man? He could hide a whole wedding cake right up under his mustache and leave the bride in tears and the family full of regrets. So he will get some cake, no matter what.
And I think Pens’ fans all want the same thing: for Hambone to go berserker and destroy every molecule in his path, even the family heirloom commemorative Dale Earnhardt JR plates and the motivational Jesus figurines. Crosby got close tonight, with the hat trick, and Malkin seems to be warming up - but will we ever get another 2009 Carolina series from him again?
Here we go! Hawks up 1-0 in the series about to take on the evil, evil Redwings for a shot to move up in the series 2-0!
[COLOR=“Black”]Go HAWKS!! [/COLOR]