Good night: Dave’s a killer
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.
