The Two-Line Pass

The Lead

(I know, I know. Shut up.)

Derek Boogaard hadn’t scored a goal since January 7, 2006.

Four years, 10 months and three days later, he scored again, taking the puck coast to coast and rifling a slapshot past Michal Neuvirth to put the Rangers up 3-2 on the Capitals midway through the second period.

Since then, a new president got elected and already got halfway through his first term. There have been three Olympic Games. Conan O’Brien hosted three different late night talk shows. Alex Tanguay and Olli Jokinen played for the Flames twice. The Tampa Bay Lightning went through three owners, four coaches and four GMs. Twitter started existing, then became stupid. Some idiot gave Derek Boogaard four years at $1.625 million per. And so forth.

In scoring, he snapped a 235-game streak without a goal. The longest active streak in the league. And it came unassisted. None of the above was in any way a typo.

Everyone on the ice for Washington — Neuvirth, Tyler Sloan (who overskated the puck that Boogaard ended up pumping into the net), DJ King, John Erskine, Matt Bradley and Matt Hendricks — should be shipped to Hershey just on principle. They let literally the worst regular NHLer take the puck about 150 feet and score on them. Only Ilya Bryzgalov and Evgeni Nabokov know the indignity of allowing a goal to this talentless oaf, so maybe the Boogey Man just has a thing against Eastern Europeans.

Sure, sure, the Caps went on to win the game 5-3. But seriously, shouldn’t a Boogaard goal make the rest of the game a fait accompli? A Boogaard goal should be its own stat, worth six goals to his team, and negative four to the opponent. Skaters on the ice for one get a minus-30 subtracted from their season total. A goalie’s GAA gets two goals tacked onto it at the end of the year. The coach of the opposing team is fired and put in stocks in the town square, where children can point and laugh and throw rocks at him. The team itself should be docked 10 points prior to determining playoff seedings. The franchise should lose an entire draft’s worth of picks, or at least be forced to let Boogaard make them for it.

Honestly, I’m not a Caps fan and I want to die from embarrassment right now just thinking about this. There are currently 263 people who have played in an NHL game this year who now have fewer goals than Derek freaking Boogaard, and they should all be dreadfully ashamed of themselves.

I think we can safely say that Michal Neuvirth deserves no more games at the NHL level, or indeed, any personal happiness, for the rest of his life. And Tyler Sloan should have to be his butler for the next month, not unlike a bad episode of Saved by the Bell. Y’know, from the Tori years.

But the good news is now that this happened, so too will all the other things once thought impossible. People will admit they really can’t tell the difference between Pepsi and Coke. Peace in the Middle East will become a reality. World hunger will be solved. All diseases cured. Hockey fans will agree that Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby are both impressive players in their own right and do not in any way suck.

Seriously though. Derek Boogaard.

Elsewhere…

Carolina 7, Edmonton 1

I was a bit late in tuning into this game. Eight minutes late, in fact. I know because I looked at the clock and said “Hmm, eight minutes have elapsed in this game and Edmonton is down 4-0.” After that fourth goal, Tom Renney gave Nikolai Khabibulin the hook in favor of Devan Dubnyk. Why not just play with an empty net for the last 52 minutes?

Montreal 2, Vancouver 0

Carey Price now has two shutouts this year. That’s pretty good! Jaroslav Halak had that many in a five-day span about two weeks ago, and has another since then. Tee hee.

Ottawa 5, Atlanta 2

Some kinda bee got under Jason Spezza’s bonnet lately, yessir. Two ginos and an apple tonight. This after a 1-3-4 night on Friday. Seven points in his last three games, eh? Kinda makes up for the five in the first seven.

Tampa Bay 4, Toronto 0

Steven Stamkos is some kinda hockey player. Another two goals tonight to run his total to 13. In 14 games. On top of 11 assists. Clearly, he entered the Contra code at some point when no one was looking.

Calgary 4, Colorado 2

The Avs’ bottom four defensemen tonight played a combined 18 NHL games prior to tonight, which almost explains giving the four-spot up to Calgary.

San Jose ?, Anaheim ?

I wasn’t gonna stay up for this one.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 10th, 2010 at 1:00 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.