And a fresh reminder why the NHL postseason is the most exciting and most grueling time in sports — and that’s just for the fans. Two overtime games, including a ruining-of-the-next-workday fourth overtime game in Vancouver, a more ‘tame’ second overtime game, a defensive contest and a goal-fest comprised the second season’s opening night.
A few thoughts from the night’s contests:
- The Ottawa Senators’ breakout could be used as a teaching video. Quick, crisp, and decisive.
- It’s hard not to wonder how Marc-Andre Fleury will react to his first playoff start. He could go a long way to ridding himself of his reputation for cracking under pressure if he bounces back the rest of the series.
- Speaking of goalies making their first playoff starts: Roberto Luongo of Vancouver’s evening? 76 shots faced, 4 goals allowed. It’s okay, Rob, they usually aren’t all this long.
- Talk about knee-jerk: Scott Hartnell’s knee-to-knee hit on Jonathan Cheechoo — which undoubtedly merited Hartnell’s ejection, and a suspension is not out of the question — did serious damage to Cheechoo. He left the ice without putting any weight on that knee. Cheechoo would be a huge loss for San Jose. The Preds-Sharks rivalry just got uglier.
- Chris Pronger logged a Herculean 30+ minutes last night, in a non-OT game. Ride your horses, indeed.
- I do have a minor quibble with Versus’ coverage last night — they didn’t show the replay of a penalty in the Ottawa/Pittsburgh game in order to show their ‘Keys To The Game’ graphic. I know there is a storyline to sell, but coming out of a break might have been a better time to run that.
- Always good to hear Joe B. calling a game.
An eventful night to start things off and help everyone reset their sleep patterns. With goalie heroics and letdowns, defensive lockdowns and offensive explosions, it’s the most wonderful time of the year.
2 Comments
I thought Vanbiesbrouck was atrocious last night announcing, by the way. The league may want to talk to him about the new rule changes so we don’t hear “The refs are letting them play. They’re not going to call anything from here on unless it’s blatant. And that’s a good thing. LET THE PLAYERS DECIDE THE GAME.” It is exactly that type of “old school” thinking that has got to go if the league is going to move into this century. Also, I think he said that the Stars’ “championship ability” to come back shows that they are a “championship” team about 20 times. Easy there, Johnny. Let’s wait until at least game 3 of the playoffs before we start whipping out that rhetoric.
Im sorry, I couldnt stand the color guys commentary in the Sens/Pens game…he was all up Cindys ass the whole game, me thinks hes from Pittsburgh.
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