The Two-Line Pass

The Lead

Sometimes you catch lightning in a bottle.

You’d think a 2-1 overtime game was some sort of defensive struggle, the type of game that the mere thought of having it on national television makes Gary Bettman sit bolt upright in bed and wake his wife to tell her about the horrible, Lovecraftian nightmare he just had in which “The Fastest Game on Earth” was reduced to some type of a 200-foot, 64-minute goalline stand in football with no one scoring ever and people in the Sun Belt turning off their televisions in disgust and major advertisers angrily calling NHL ad reps to pull all their commercials and every rink having 1,200 people in it, none of whom are happy to be there and all of whom want their money back right this second and it will be poor li’l Gary stuck holding the check for this league that overexpanded and crashed and burned under his watch and David Stern will laugh at him and deservedly so.

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The Lead

Anyone that reads this blog or my column on Puck Daddy or my posts on message boards or my status updates on Facebook or my tweets on Twitter or my scrawlings on public restroom walls or have even been standing within 10 feet of me at a bar while a Hurricanes game was on knows my stance on Eric Staal: I am not enamored of him.

And so imagine my joy when, even though he brought his A game in the first couple minutes and got the Hurricanes on the board and generally appeared determined to have a positive impact on the game for the first time since the middle of the Eastern Conference semifinals against Boston, he still finished a minus-1 and his Hurricanes slouched out of the playoffs.

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The Lead

It’s overtime. Game 2 at Detroit. Your team came back from down a goal more than halfway through the third.

You are Brian Campbell.

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The Lead

In a lot of sports, you hear close games refered to as “a chess match” and coaches as “tacticians.”

But for some reason, coaches in hockey don’t seem to get the credit that say, a football coach or baseball manager does. A hockey coach, the majority must suppose, is one that can give a good speech during intermission and maybe get the power play humming along above 22 percent. But other than that, you let the boys hop over the boards and your job is done until it’s prudent to use your one timeout.

But a coach’s job, as we saw tonight, is about far more than simply sitting on a one-minute team talk for most of a game, if not for its entirety. What Dan Bylsma did to Paul Maurice in tonight’s third period was nothing short of a master class in hockey stratagem.

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The Lead

Kinda funny, I guess, that Scott Walker was the guy to eliminate Boston.

I mean, you knew it wasn’t going to be Sergei Samsonov, who had gotten to the bottom of his “lucky goal” supply earlier in the game. You knew it wasn’t going to be Rod Brind’Amour, who was taken to the dressing room earlier in the overtime and never came back. You knew it wasn’t going to be Erik Cole, who hasn’t scored in about a trillion straight playoff games. You knew it wouldn’t be Eric Staal, who once again had as little effect on tonight’s proceedings as his little brother Marc.

And you knew it wasn’t going to be anyone on the Bruins, who despite scoring both their goals because they had big bodies like Byron Bitz and Milan Lucic going at the front of the crease, never really went to the front of the crease with any great regularity in the overtime period of what was a supremely entertaining game, even if it was a little sloppy because of the circumstances.

It was certainly the most evenly-played game of the series. Wild swings of momentum back and forth led many people to whom I talked to say something along the lines of “Well the Bruins/Hurricanes HAVE to score soon.” They didn’t. Almost all of the goals, save for the Byron Bitz tally that opened the scoring, came on the counterattack. And none was more counterattack-y than Walker’s, which came on a Ray Whitney shot off the transition designed to do exactly what it did: get a fat rebound into the slot that someone could take a whack at. Now, I don’t know why Thomas came out so far to challenge and tried to punch it away instead of backing off a little and smothering it, but I also don’t know why he was so eager to play the puck at every opportunity once overtime hit.

Sure, the Bruins kind of poured it all out in overtime. They had no interest in playing conservative hockey, as it really was not their wont all year. Why start now? But Thomas was uncharacteristically aggressive, I thought, even by his typically challenge-minded standard.

So the puck fell to the guy the Bruins probably least wanted to score an OT series-winner (with all the other Hurricanes in a dead heat for second-to-last). And he scored the knockout blow.

At least he kept his gloves on this time.

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The Lead

Uhhhhhhhhhh…?

So the Capitals, right, they had a hell of a Game 6. On the road, they’re trailing 1-0 and go ahead 2-1. Then they’re trailing 3-2 and go ahead 4-3. Then they win it in overtime. Awesome game. Fun stuff for everyone. And they were headed home, where they were decidedly difficult to play against (they lost three of their seven previous home games there but none by more than a goal).

And then THAT happens? I mean, what the hell? This was the most entertaining series in the playoffs thus far, and everyone on the planet was talking about how glad they were that The Hockey Gods had blessed us with a seventh game of this magnificent series. And then the Caps give up two goals in EIGHT SECONDS in the first period and the game is completely over.

The silence in the arena, no doubt, was deafening. Just the sound of skate carving ice, puck hitting blade, and 18,277 people rubbing their eyes in disbelief.

This couldn’t be how the Capitals, who bravely fought off elimination against a New York Rangers team that (let’s face it) had no business giving them a series in the first place, and who went toe-to-toe with Crosby and Malkin for six games, and who had gotten a strong series from a cast of supporting characters that ranged from guys you’d never heard of to guys no one had ever heard of, went out.

I mean, SIX TO TWO? There aren’t words to properly quantify just how inexplicable I find this. And really, how could anyone, even the Penguins have foreseen this? A 2-0 lead through one, regardless of how far apart the goals were scored (still, eight seconds?), is almost understandable. Giving up that third goal just 28 seconds into the third, yeah, that gets into noodle-scratchin’ territory. The fourth goal like a minute and a half after that? Mouths agape, no doubt. Heads hanging on the bench, for sure.

But goal No. 5? Abandon all hope and maybe try to get out of the building without giving up the extra point. My friend commented to me that 5-0 is a difficult score from which to claw back in baseball, and that’s pretty much the long and short of how dismal the night was for the Capitals.

And that Sidney Crosby scored the goal to put Pittsburgh up five after Alex Ovechkin cut the lead to four was just about right, wasn’t it? I mean, those two were throwing haymakers all series. But while Ovie’s goal might have earned him the upper hand in the points category (he finished 8-6-14 to Crosby’s 8-5-13 — and the fact that those totals are in a seven-game series boggles the mind), Crosby’s, fittingly, closed the book on what was once the most unbelievably awesomest series since the lockout.

We got everything we could have asked for in these seven games. We got star power. We got excitement. We got engrossing, beautiful skill. We got a bit of nastiness. We got not one, not two, but THREE overtime games. And then tonight we got a virtuoso performance by the player the NHL considers its best chance to brush off the dust of the mainstream media’s neglect.

So the league got what it wanted, too.

(And we also got proof that hockey is a sport no one will ever truly figure out: Tom Poti finished plus-2.)

The Lead

Scary stat on Puck Daddy today: Carolina is 7-0 in games in which Eric Staal has scored a goal in the postseason. Which, of course, accounts for all of their wins to this point.

That, in turn, means that ol’ Staalsy ain’t doin’ dick in the six games they’ve lost so far. And you’ll never guess what: Staal didn’t score tonight. And the Hurricanes lost. Nice of the kid to show up in the big games, innit?

Meanwhile, the Bruins’ star forwards are actually going against the Staalian school here, and performing well. Marc Savard scored a goal on a beautiful setup by Milan Lucic. Patrice Bergeron engineered a pair of brilliant goals. And meanwhile Matt freakin’ Cullen and Sergei Samsonov have to do the heavy lifting for Paul Maurice and his crew, who have spectacularly bungled a series that looked to be very much in hand just five days ago.

Not only did they fail to show up in Boston for Game 5 — and I don’t think many experts were giving them a chance to win twice in a row at the TD Banknorth Garden — but the way in which they comported themselves in the game’s waning moments (i.e. the Scott Walker cheapshot on Aaron Ward) gave the Bruins an actual reason to do something they had not done in the prior four games of the series: play with emotion.

Now they had a beloved team leader who had been sucker punched and, it was feared, would be unavailable for tonight’s game (and all because he had the temerity to engage an opposing forward on the edge of the crease), they had some gasoline to throw on the competitive fire that had been slowly dying for the prior few games. The Ward Situation obviously wasn’t going to sit well. Was it any surprise that they jumped on the first two decent scoring chances they had just to really, as the kids say, shove it up Carolina’s asses?

So instead of going down to Raleigh with a world of pressure on their backs to keep the series alive, the Bruins went down with a purpose: beat the christ out of the team that had attempted to put one of the most veteran guys on the team out of commission. And they jumped out to a two-goal lead nice and early, and once again put four past Cam Ward, this time on just 19 shots. That makes eight goals against in the last two games for Killa Cam on a mere 59 shots. That’s a save percentage of .864. And that sucks very badly.

And now the series goes back to Boston for Game 7. All the pressure is now on Carolina to salvage something from the wreckage of their playoff hopes here, so that they can begin life anew against the winner of this wonderful Caps/Pens series. But they can’t have any belief in their ability to beat Boston any more (their fans sure don’t). And with good reason. The Hurricanes have already been downgraded to a tropical storm and by the time 10 p.m. rolls around on Thursday, it’s more likely to be little more than just a bit of bluster, the dying memory of what could once have been a fearsome storm.

Umbrella weather. At best.

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The Lead

Was hockey kidding? How can two consecutive games be THAT freaking awesome?

In 126:22 of hockey tonight, we were treated to 21 goals on 135 shots and more lead changes than any normal person could possibly consider rational.

Take the Penguins/Capitals game for example, the sixth in a now-seven-game series that has lived up to every inch of its lofty billing and will make the Conference Finals (be they against Boston or Carolina) look like the worst kind of anticlimax. It was 1-0 Pens after one. Then the Caps score twice. Then Geno Malkin levels inside of 30 seconds to go in the period and it’s 2-2 through two. Then all hell breaks loose.

Kris Letang scores on the power play at 4:40 of the third. Brooks Laich answers 58 seconds later and Viktor Kozlov puts his team up just 29 seconds after that (with a special tip of the hat to Hal Gill, who’s pictured above). But then Sid Crosby, clearly the best player on the ice in this series, scores with just under five minutes to go in the period to force overtime. That’s where The Steckel came in to pop in his second goal in this series, both of which have been game-winners.

Then go have a peak at that Chicago/Vancouver game. No Game 7 necessary there, eh? Nah, Patty Kane took care of that. Hat trick for the kid. Lead changed five times in that one. Home team won before their huge home crowd which, for the year, officially topped one million fans tonight, a good fifth of which might’ve turned up to see them play last year.

And that game was a lot like the Pittsburgh game in that many of its goals came in bunches. The two goals in the first were scored exactly two minutes apart. Three of the four in the second were scored in the space of 4:32. The first two in the third came 1:58 apart, and the last four were in 4:02. It was nuts. And despite having three separate leads, Vancouver only actually found itself ahead of the Blackhawks for 4:43.

There was just no unseating the Blackhawks or Caps tonight. Awesome night of hockey.

The Lead

The Ducks have their unstoppable scoring machine in Ryan Getzlaf. And the Wings, through three games, had a hodgepodge of thrown-together guys scoring their big goals.

There was Nick Lidstrom, who had two goals and an assist in Game 1. There was Mikael Samuelsson and Brad Stuart who each scored in the first period of Game 2. Then there was Henrik Zetterberg who scored the only Detroit goal in Game 3.

Oh, and this Johan Franzen guy. He was the hero in Game 4 with two goals and an assist, sure. But those were his third and fourth goals of the series and third, fourth and fifth points overall. And even on Marian Hossa’s second goal of the game, he could have had an assist for his dictionary-definition perfect screen of Hiller that made it 4-2 Detroit.

Oh, and then you can go ahead and toss in the six points he had in four games against Columbus as well. Which, y’know, ain’t bad.

Six goals, six assists, eight games. Playoffs end today and he might be your Conn Smythe winner. He’d at least give Getzlaf a run for his money, but you gotta think if it goes to anyone on the Ducks is goes to Hiller, so you see my point.

Johan Franzen has been playing his balls off for the Wings but because he’s one of those guys that busts out jaw-droppping goals on a nightly basis like Alex Ovechkin, you might not see him come up in highlights. His first goal was the direct result of his own hard work along the boards in the neutral zone and his ability to get to a high-percentage scoring area in a hurry. His second was just going to bloody nose alley and tipping a shot inside of a minute to go to put Detroit up 2-1 despite having trailed almost immediately. And his assist was just a rocket pass out of the corner to Hossa.

Those are the kinds of plays that you might not even really notice his subtle, hardnosed brilliance. You and the Ducks might wanna start.

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The Lead

Yeah yeah, Sid and Ovie. Both score hat tricks. We get it. Big deal. I’ve been watching Versus since the playoffs started. They’re supposed to do that. Every game.

But David Steckel. Guy came outta nowhere. Scored a beauty. Yessir.

And that was really the difference. Ovie showed up. Sid showed up. Simeon Varlamov showed up (for the sake of argument). And no one else did. Except Steckel.

This game was literally 60 minutes of a bunch of people skating around with no rhyme or reason to it, just hoping Sid and Ovie would hop over the boards and take the game by the scruff of the neck because they sure as hell had no interest in doing so. That, sadly, includes Evgeni Malkin who once again recorded an assist against the Capitals, but also did a whole lot of “falling down” and “turning the puck over” in the lead-up.

So the difference in a Sid/Ovie slugfest came down to one man — David Steckel, the pride of Westbend, Wisconsin — who now has as many goals in the two games of this series as he did in his prior 32. Which is kinda crazy if you sit down and think about it.

But what the hell, right? Someone’s gotta show up. Might as well be the guy with 13 career goals. Since it sure isn’t anyone else.

By the way, at some point, this Gary Bettman wet dream has to end, right? Of the 12 goals scored in the series, Crosby and Ovechkin have combined for eight of them. The one has never failed to equal the other’s production.And in his midtown Manhattan office, Bettman is almost assuredly printing out hundreds of copies of the Nielsen ratings and rolling around nude in them, crying tears of joy and breathing silent thank yous to his chosen deity. He really couldn’t have gotten a better pair of opening games outta these two horses.

Oh yeah, and David Steckel.

He rules.