The Two-Line Pass

The Lead

The fans chanted for it. The radio talk show hosts blathered over it. The newspaper reporters wrote about it. The bloggers tweeted about it. The players surely discussed it. Everyone ravened for it.

Revenge.

Bloody, swift revenge. Matt Cooke had to pay for his transgressions against Marc Savard. After all, you don’t rattle another team’s best player’s brain around in his skull without paying for it. Certainly not the way Cooke did it: an unprovoked, deliberate ambush designed to do exactly what it ended up doing.

So no sooner did Cooke hop over the boards for his first shift to a chorus of boos from every corner of the arena than Boston’s resident tough-guy Shawn Thornton asked him to answer for his dastardly deed as though this brand of justice ripped straight from the last 10 pages of every awful black-hat-bad-guy Western would somehow lift the fog that crept into Savard’s brain cavity in the immediate aftermath of last Sunday’s blatant headshot du jour.

Cooke had a full five seconds of ice time before the gloves were dropped and he predictably refused to remove his helmet, which by the way sports a visor the size of a space shuttle windshield. So Thornton and Cooke started exchanging punches, and the latter turtled the second his lid flew off, allowing the linesmen to step in and hopefully put an end to this circus sideshow.

That was when Thornton threw two more punches and earned himself a 10-minute misconduct. Probably worth it for him, since he plays about six minutes a game.

The funny thing is, no one on the Bruins even bothered to really take a run at Cooke again after that decidedly minor dustup two minutes into the game. He was hit three more times in the course of normal play, but the rest of the night was played as though none of the previous Sunday’s events had ever taken place. No one, as some foolishly predicted or even hoped for, took a run at Sid Crosby. No one slashed Cooke away from the play. Everyone went about their business, which is probably how it should’ve been.

Perhaps because of the media circus, and certainly not in spite of it, the Bruins were as punchless as Cooke. They put just 17 shots on net (including five in each of the first two periods) against a team that was playing the second game of an all-road back-to-back, and lost 3-0.

I’m not really sure that the game served as any type of deterrent against Cooke’s behavior. If anything, it encourages it. “Take runs at our best players,” the Bruins’ performance said, “we’ll totally focus on one of your team’s worst players for a week and a half then not hold him accountable once the puck drops.”

The only question is this: Was the two extra pops in the face worth two extra points in the standings?

*looks at tight race for Atlantic title*

Well played, Matt Cooke. Well played.

Elsewhere…

St. Louis 4, New York Rangers 3

Well at least the Bruins got some help tonight. The only team they’re worried about right now is the Rangers, and the Rangers are probably playing worse than they are. Losing to the Blues, I mean honestly.

Carolina 4, Washington 3 (OT)

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU SUSPEND ALEX OVECHKIN! The Caps only score three goals and Semyon “four goals on 29 shots” Varlamov still doesn’t play very well.

Atlanta 6, Ottawa 3

Boy the Sens sure have folded up tents. And how ’bout the Thrashers going two games without a loss? Good for them.

Toronto 2, New Jersey 1 (SO)

lol.

Buffalo 6, Tampa Bay 2

Jason Pominville had a hat trick. Good news if he’s on your fantasy team I guess, but otherwise you have no reason whatsoever to care about this game.

Phoenix 4, Florida 3 (SO)

This game set the all-time Phoenix record for wins. Pretty rad. Even radder: the Desert Dogs are three points out of the top spot in the West. Love it.

Nashville 5, Minnesota 0

There was one point where the Wild went like 11:30 into the second period without getting a shot (and in that time actually went on the power play). Then in the third period, they went another 9:30 without a shot. Real stats!

Philadelphia 3, Dallas 2

Hey didn’t Dallas just score like eight goals the other night against the Sharks? How do they only sneak two past Brian Boucher?

Vancouver 3, San Jose 2

Memo to San Jose: It’s not April yet!

Chicago 3, Los Angeles 0

Antti Niemi is Chicago’s go-to goaltender for at least another week.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 19th, 2010 at 3:07 am and is filed under Good night. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.