ANA/DET - DET in 6 WAS/PIT - WAS in 6 BOS/CAR - BOS in 4 VAN/CHI - DON'T GIVE A **** HATE BOTH TEAMS (I live in Calgary )
yeah that one was insane--totally thought a few were in totally robbed.. but hey, i think the caps were robbed on 1 or 2 also Agreed, but on the plus side, the Caps put a TON more pressure on the offensive end than they did in the Rangers series. So at least it kinda evened out (except the 2nd half of the 2nd period, which sucked) But yeah, time to improve certainly. I got tickets for game 2, too! (After that, I don't know if I can afford to go again for a long while) =P
My guess is he has something minor. There was some speculation because he skipped practice on Wednesday but I think it was mostly just speculation. Some people also say they saw him skating awkwardly toward the end of the Rangers series and that he underperformed. I didn't notice the former and fully disagree with the latter. Ovie played like Ovie. Even with him, you can't always just look at points (although 3 G and 4 A did have him in the top handful of scorers). Just off the top of my head, I remember him drawing at least 6 or 7 penalties on the Rangers. No other Capital drew nearly as many penalties. And, of course, he was hitting anything moving, including Avery quite a few times. The Rangers were among the best defensive teams in the league in the regular season. The fact that the Caps put up 19 goals in that series when they only scored 1 goal total in 2 of the games was pretty impressive, in my opinion. The point is that it was expected that the Caps scoring would be down in this series yet they nearly averaged 3 goals per game. If there does happen to be something serious going on with Ovechkin, physically, nobody outside of the Caps locker room will likely know until the playoffs are over anyway. On a side note, I get tired of the Ovechkin-Crosby and Ovechkin-Malkin comparisons. Ovechkin is a scoring power forward. Crosby is a true center. Malking is a hybrid center/wing. If people want to make more legit comparisons, it should be Semin-Malkin and Backstrom-Crosby. The Penguins don't have anybody like Ovechkin. That doesn't mean he is better than any Penguin. If I had to pick the best player in this series, I'd say Malkin. After that, I'd put Crosby, Ovechkin, Backstrom and Semin (when he's focused) in the same boat. Backstrom is one of the most underrated players in hockey.
Are you guys as against the Bruins as you are the Celtics? I listened to the ESPN guys in Austin say how they'd never cheer for a Houston team. I wanted to give them a good talking to and beat their brains in with logic. There is no one city who possesses the same qualities unless you assume them to begin with and connect the dots in your mind. It's like looking at clouds and saying clouds love turning into bunny rabbits. Thank Savard.
No doubt. Both teams could have scored 2 or 3 more goals. My guess is this series will come down to the goalies, the defenses and the 3rd and 4th lines. The Penguins have the edge on paper when it comes to goalies and depth up front. Crosby, Malkin, Fleury and Staal were all 1st or 2nd overall picks. The Penguins had field day after field day in the draft for a few years around the lockout. Basically, the Penguins are stacked up the middle. Their top 3 centers are all great talents as is their goalie. They also have the edge in experience after making it to the finals last year. Yes, Hossa and Roberts were big parts of that run but all their big name players benefited a lot from that experience. If the Caps win this series, I think it will because guys like Fleischmann, Laich, Fehr, Bradley, Gordon, etc... match the play of the similar players on the Penguins. Varlamov will have to at least match Fleury's play as well. At the same time, if their stars significantly outplay our stars or vice versa, that may be the deciding factor so who knows....
I have no problem with the Bruins. I actually respect their team quite a bit. They play a beautiful brand of hockey and have no major weaknesses. Goaltending, defense, offense, depth of talent... you name it, they got it. They have a very good chance to win it all this year. At this point, I'd say they are the favorites of the remaining 8, even over Detroit. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see a Bruins-Ducks finals even with the Ducks already down a game. Savard is a very nice player and Lucic is a beast. I'd love to see Lucic in a Caps uniform. He's exactly the type of skilled, tough guy we need. Brashear was never a very skilled player in his prime and what skills he had our nearly gone. He does serve a purpose when he doesn't get himself suspended for 6 games at a time.
today should be awesome.. going to game 2, then i should be home in time for the start of the Rockets game! Last time I had a last second mohawk.. this time, I'm gonna spend a little more time on it and color it red for both teams.. and we got penguin dolls and bloodied them up a bit, hahaha..
Bad night to be a Pens fan despite Sid's hat trick. Ughhh....now Rockets vs. Lakers. Somebody find me a padded room.
That's bad ass...this series is what makes hockey great...don't get me wrong the others are good, but c'mon...
"hat trick".. you can call it that cause it was I guess. But man, that last one with 30 secs to go, down 2...and swatting it out of the air, off the goalie's mask and then off the back post (or at least close to it). He really had no angle and got lucky, and it had no bearing on the outcome. It was funny to still see a few hats come down on the ice for it.. Crazy game to be at yet again. I don't know if I can top those 2 games as my first 2 NHL playoff games ever. The city was electric afterwards, horns honking for a long while.. let's-go-caps!!
Just a curious question - how much did you pay for tickets? I want to go to Canucks playoffs games and will probably catch one this round or next (if they make it), but it's $150 for the worst seats in the house and $250-480 for lower bowl. Pretty ridiculous.
well, they doubled their prices from 1st to 2nd round I think.. but I paid 70 plus ticketmaster fees to sit up top (of course the actual price was then $85..ridiculous). These were tickets sold to the general public (presale available to season ticket holders...my friends have season tickets, so I used their password). There were VERY few available..
Not to mention Kunitz cross-checking Varlamov in the face before the puck swung to the other side of the net. We got away with one too though so it sort of evens things out. Semin definitely tripped/interfered with one of their guys on Ovechkin's PP goal. Crosby is a brilliant player. I try to avoid the whole Crosby hate thing. He isn't generally as flashy as Ovechkin but he is positionally smart (something Gretzky was famous for) and he sees the ice very well... sort of like a good PG in basketball. He also has terrific hand-eye coordination. He worked hard for that third goal. He deserves some credit even if it did bounce off Varly's mask. Oh yea... Ovechkin absolutely schooled Gonchar and Fleury on his 3rd goal.
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I mean, even if you want to discredit his third goal he still had two legit ones. It's not Ovechkin didn't get lucky on one of his goals too. All the same, it's been a great superstar match up thus far. Sid and Ovechkin are definitely pulling their weight and making something out of this dream match up. I'm just waiting for Malkin to wake up.
no doubt they were. and as brooksball said, he's all about position. different way, but if he keeps getting it done that way, i can definitely appreciate it. I'm still learning the game (only been a fan for about a year now), and I never played it...so it's very different from every other sport where I'm used to just analyzing it at a deep level right away. I saw Malkin's stats for the playoffs through yesterday's game.. considering he hasnt' done a damn thing yet in this series, that's a pretty insane 1st round for him. I really hope he doesn't ever show that, cause it'll be big problems for the Caps if he does Can't wait for Brashear to get back.. nobody out there to help out when things happen like Varlamov getting jobbed in that vid above (Ovie is the next best hitter i think, but no way he can afford to get tossed from a game)
