I think it's bulls@it....

It's great that Zetterberg wasn't injured, but suspensions/penatlies should be based on intent of the play...not the result.

Weber got a big break.

WOO-HOO!
8-5? Are you kidding me? After falling behind in the first 15 seconds? After being down 3-2, 4-3 and 5-4? On the road-again?
With a crapload of rookies including one in Couturier who had a hat trick in only his second playoff game ever?
Giroux had a hat trick and 6 points? He's in the Top 5 players right now and moving on up. And it was jagr who had the winning goal if I remember.
As always, Laviolette's timeout worked wonders.
Bryz wasn't great but he made one of the most spectacular saves you'll ever see. As usual, Pittsburgh had the most power plays as well. Letang should be shot at dawn for his ridiculous display trying to goad the refs into a penalty.
I'll take the win instead. I am stunned, but I watched the game with 15 other knuckleheads (including a few females though my wife sat this one out) and we had a blast.
I feel bad for my buddy Alan though-a devout hockey nut and Pens nut in Pittsburgh (and Charles as well). But not that bad!
In any case, let's see what happens in Philly. I'm not 100% convinced yet, but the Flyers are very much for real despite having so much youth.

I won't say I was 100% confident in my pick, but I really thought the Penguins would put up more of a fight. Even as I said Penguins, I wouldn't have been surprised to see the Flyers win. But I expected the Pens to show a little more spine. And as odd as it sounds, I think Crosby's return upset the chemistry on the team. I was glad to see they finally restored the power play that had been producing - Malkin, Neal, Kunitz, Sullivan and Letang. That said, Malkin has been a huge disappointment - he seemed to come alive in the second half of the game, but prior to that, he was about as relevant as a blank Betamax tape.

In a series average 10 goals per game, this will sound odd, but...the goalies have not been playing poorly. You can pick a couple places (both ways) where you need a goalie to make that extraordinary save, but the D on both sides have been giving up a ton of chances.

I assume IP's reference to Letang is about the diving call - I thought that was a bad call. The original angle showed it to be a late hit. The Pittsburgh broadcast later showed an angle from the opposite end, and they pointed out that the official at center ice made the call. From that angle, which I assume was closer to what that ref saw, it looked like a horrible dive. Even if you want to say Letang went down very easily, from that angle it was 100x worse, and I can see why the ref thought it was a dive. That said, I'm not sure I like the official in that position making a call in that part of the ice. I have gotten a chuckle out of the comments I've read about the officiating - on the Post-Gazette blog, the Penguins have been persecuted beyond belief. On NHL.com, they have been treated with kid gloves while being allowed to beat the Flyers' orphaned children to within an inch of their lives. In reality, there have been missed calls and bad calls going both ways. Anyone who says the officiating has had a major effect on the two games so far hasn't been paying attention.

The bad and missed calls aren't isolated to this series, BTW. In the NJ-Florida game tonight, a guy from Florida got a four-minute high-sticking penalty on a clean hit - not only did his stick not get high, it didn't hit the Devil at all. It was his own stick that hit him.

Ah well...Sunday will be game 3, and I'm sure it will be quite an unwelcoming environment for the Penguins. I expect the first 10 minutes to be survival mode - maybe they'll find their mojo again. Maybe not. Either way, I think I'm going to go see Mastodon, Opeth and Ghost. Should be a much less frustrating experience!

Oh - and suddenly Vancouver is down 2-0. This is not something I expected at all. I thought they'd handle the Kings fairly easily.

I guess what I'm saying is, don't wager any money on my analysis!

Alan

Oh, a couple things I forgot.

One, Jaromir Jagr just abused Ben Lovejoy on his goal. That was just not right.

Two, I'm still looking for the first retraction of a "Pens Will Win The Cup" prediction.

Three, NBC just showed a stat - 12 Flyers goals on 57 shots, which works out to a whopping .789 save percentage.

Alan

Yeah, Alan, I read the thing about the CBA afterward, but that makes it even more embarrassing. Can you imagine Dwight Howard ramming somebody's head into the basket support and the NBA's CBA saying that he could only be fined $2500 max? No.

Flyers 17-0 when up in a series 2-0. Penguins are just playing terrible right now. You score 5 goals at home, you should win that game by multiple goals. No discipline on defense at all, 8 goals in any hockey game that isn't an all-star game is a travesty. 2 guys with hat tricks? The Flyers are probably fining anybody who didn't get a point. I said the Penguins were done after Game 1 and they didn't show me why I should retract that. However, Game 3 is a chance for them to be right back in it so they better seize it.

I can't stand Bertuzzi, but it was nice to see him go at Weber right after the game started in Nashville. I picked Nashville but I think that bush league move by Weber may just turn the series against them.

Vancouver is playing terrible right now, giving up not one but TWO SH goals to Dustin Brown tonight. Jonathan Quick with 46 saves and the nyuk nyuk nyuk's are in trouble. Bad news for Kings fans like myself is the Kings play with more poise and focus on the road. At home, they are undisciplined and Drew Doughty is usually good for a terrible turnover that leads to a goal or two. I wonder if a #1 seed has ever been swept by a #8 seed?

I think of this every time I read about how the players "lost" the last CBA negotiations.



From what I dug up, no. At least not since they went to the current format for the 1993-94 season. They used to list (at least I think they did) all the playoff series results in the NHL Guide & Record Book, but now they only have the previous year's. Another of my books made it easier to look up, but that only covered through the 2003 playoffs.

I thought the Kings looked much better against the Canucks last night. Game 1 struck me as a team taking advantage of another team that didn't really respect them. Game 2, Vancouver seemed a bit more aware of what the Kings can do, but the Kings still took it to them.

Four games today, four tom'w (although I'll only see the first two for sure).

Alan

Alan:
No-I was referring to Letang acting like he'd been shot and falling down behind the net when nobody even touched him. The best soccer players in Europe would've been proud. It was an embarrassing display and one that Simmonds hilariously made fun of during a scrum when he acted like he'd been shot right in Letang's face. Great theater actually.

Ah - have to confess, I didn't see that. Although I will say that diving has become a disturbing trend across the game. It's gotten to be almost soccer-like, and as the father of a soccer player, I probably shouldn't say that, although my son used to take offense until he became a ref and really looked at what some kids do. (I did tell him either in or at the end of middle school not to flop like that. He hated it and used to complain about players on his team doing it, especially the prima donnas. And especially when he could point out that a kid flopped early in a game and then didn't get a more legit foul later.)

But the diving thing is starting to get ridiculous, and every team has guys that do it. And it's very rare to see a call for just diving. The league's stance is that if they call the dive with the foul, the diving will stop because teams will lose power plays. I'd rather see more out and out dives called.

It's been a frustrating day of hockey watching today. Rather, a frustrating day of hockey not watching today. I watched about half of the Bruins-Caps regulation, then was playing around w/my music stuff. Did see the second OT, though. Unfortunately, we've had a lot of rain today, and DirecTV fades and I haven't been able to watch much of the evening games. St. Louis-San Jose was the game I saw the most of. Very little of the Rangers-Sens and not a second so far of the Coyotes-Blackhawks. I love having the Center Ice package and I'm generally happy w/DTV, but I hate the rain fade issue, although I suspect mine is being aggravated by my dish cover.

From what I've seen, nobody is happy with the officiating. The Pens craptacular TV announcers have been complaining, and I have no doubt there have been complaints from the Philly side - there have been bad calls and no calls both ways. The Sharks announcers were complaining during today's game. The NBC analysts were complaining about the consistency in the Caps-Bruins games (they showed some examples, and it was pretty brutal). I know officiating is a pretty thankless job, and I know how hard it is to do well and how easy it is to miss something (as I'm sure the people at the soccer games I've done will tell you I've done), but it seems to me the officiating used to be much better. Maybe it was that there was more accountability then - I remember a guy named Mike Noeth, who was really bad. After a couple years, if that, he was suddenly an AHL official.

Saw something in the brief bit of the Rangers game that I've only seen one other time, and that wasn't exactly the same as this. At one point before a faceoff, they showed that there was a puck sitting on the back of the Rangers net. Sure enough, the play came down to that end and the puck went behind the net. The shot was deflected off the glass, and it bounced onto the back of the net, where the puck that was in play stuck on the net and the other puck bounced off. One of the Sens realized it (the replay was kind of funny - you could see his head snap around and then he just froze for a second). The Rangers got control of this puck and shot it down the ice. At this point, none of the officials realized there were two pucks. The puck in play was clearly going to be icing against the Rangers, but Stephen Walkom blew the play dead and ordered the faceoff at center. The only other time I saw something similar, someone had thrown a puck on the ice. That play also went on a few seconds before it sank in that there were two pucks.

Maybe tom'w will be a better weather day - I should get to watch the first two games, but I won't see any of the third and maybe just the end of the Canucks-Kings. I'm likely going to see Opeth, Mastodon and Ghost. Somehow, I have the feeling that loud, distorted guitars, growling aggressive vocals, and a bunch of sweaty moshing people will be a more relaxing event than the Penguins game.

Alan

Got a signal back in time to see the end of the Coyotes-Blackhawks, and the Hawks did it again, scoring with 5.5 seconds left to send the game into OT, where they won to tie the series.

Nashville has looked pretty calm and composed against the Red Wings today, and are up 3-1 with 97 seconds left. I actually felt bad for Jimmy Howard on the first Preds goal - he made a great glove save only to have the puck come back across to his right where Shea Weber slammed it home.

And now it's 3-2 with 51.9 left...

Looks like three disciplinary hearings today for the NHL - Matt Carkner from the Sens for his beatdown on Brian Boyle, Carl Hagelin from the Rangers for his elbow on Daniel Alfredsson, and Andrew Shaw of the Blackhawks for a head-to-head hit on Mike Smith. Of the three, the Shaw thing is something of a joke based on the replays I saw - Shaw was coming behind the net and Smith was playing the puck, and Shaw tried to go around him, even turning his head and trying to avoid contact. The other two should - should - result in suspensions.

And the Preds hang on to win 3-2.

Alan

This Flyers-Pens game is nuts!

WOW!
What an isnane display today and some of the most gutless cowardice I've ever seen from the Penguins. First off, the Flyers destroyed them again 8-4 as Pittsburgh's goatending was beyond atrocious (yes, I spelled it "goatending"). The Flyers weren't a ton better in net as Bryz seemed frightened by circus bears and pucks through the five-hole.
Every player on the Flyers was splendid and Briere, Read, Simmonds, Giroux, Jagr, Talbot (one of the steals of free agency), etc. were on fire.
I get being frustrated and all that, but the crap that went on was juvenile and garbage. Pulling on hair, punching from behind and the worst of all-Neal's sickening cowardice of headshots to Giroux and leaving his feet to destroy Coutourier (who has been STELLAR defensively on Malkin). What a piece of shit. And, like any coward he kept hiding and got off the ice-he will be remembered next game. There is no place for this crap at all. And what Asham did to Schenn was a disgrace (schenn's hit prior to that wasn't angelic, but it wasn't the disgusting display that Asham's was)..
I've met Asham in a bar when he was with the Flyers-he's a nice guy, but he's a dick for what he did and will be suspended.
Crosby? I've defended him, but no longer. He is the definition of a joke. He does so much juvenile crap like poking away Giroux's glove to start a fight it's laughable. Grabbing Hartnell from behind and just in general being a lame-ass player. Sad to watch.
No wonder he is so hated.
Fluery should be ashamed of his play, but I hope he keeps playing.
All in all, 8-4. YEAH!

IP, you of course watch a Flyers game from the viewpoint of being biased towards the Flyers. I'm sure Alan didn't view the game the same way. Being a Kings fan, the Flyers certainly aren't angels out there. They have the reputation of being *physical* beyond what hockey from most clubs entails. They often goad other teams into retaliating and that's what hockey is: immediate retaliation, regardless of it not being smart because the refs always penalize the second guy. I'm not calling the Flyers a dirty team, but the Broad Street Bullies didn't have much on the current Flyers. Regardless, the Penguins are terrible right now, they've scored 9 goals in the last 2 games and lost both of them. 8 goals allowed in one game is pathetic, in consecutive games is a disgrace. I don't see any leadership out there on the ice at all. Obviously, they are frustrated at imploding, but they have the firepower to get back into this series. I see the Penguins winning Game 4 and Game 5 as well and then Philly better hope they win Game 6. I don't agree with your assessment of what Crosby did at all. It's the play-offs. Anything goes. You can ram a guy's head into the boards and not get suspended in the play-offs. They aren't called the same way at all as the regular season is. Crosby is a great player and that was one incident. Had he been playing the Red Wings and not the Flyers, I seriously doubt that you would have sen that from him.

Kings had one of their biggest wins since they beat Calgary in OT in the playoffs when Gretzky was there. Not because they won, but how they won. They didn't win 6-5 in OT, they broke the Canuck's back tonight with a poised 1-0 win. Stayed disciplined and Dustin Brown is playing like a captain should be playing.

James:
There were 4 seperate incidents with Crosby. Just this game. It's pathetic. If you're OK with guys getting heads slammed into the boards because it's the playoffs I'm not.
I watched the whole game and what the Pens did was shameful-watch the discipline and we'll see how wrong I was.
I also said the Flyers were not angelic, but not one Flyer the whole game went after someone's head, pulled someone's hair, went after someone's throat with a cross check. Now, if they were losing 8-4 maybe they would have and it would still be wrong.
I've said before I dislike violence in sports. I don't get thrills out of watching guys get hit in the head with elbows. These guys have families and the idea of a kid seeing his Dad sprawled on the ice from a head shot because some other guy is losing a game sickens me. I KNOW I am in the minpority with that, but I don't care.
It's not just the Pens-look at the garbage from the Rangers (and the suspensions) and the Black Hawks.
I don't think Alan even commented yet-when he does you know it will be intelligent and not one-sided. Of course he'll see things from the other side, but I highly doubt he was proud of what he watched.

The Hagelin incident was pretty bad, but a 3 game suspension is pretty high. I thought what Shea Weber did to Zetterberg was worse. Hagelin was 100% wrong, but Weber continued with what he did to Zetterberg and all he got was a $2,500 fine.

These playoffs are pretty dirty...so far.

Yes they are and it's out of hand and dangerous. Hagelin desrves what he got and should've gotten more. Weber should absolutely have been suspended-without a doubt. Carkner deserved more than one game for Ottawa too.
I guarantee Asham gets suspended and Neal should be too.
The NHL should be ashamed of this crap-it's an absolute joke except to those fans who get thrills of seeing career-ending head injuries.

I watch the games with my 12 year old son, and we're hoping for a NY Rangers Stanley Cup this year, but when a player goes down, no matter who it is, I always say "I hope he's OK". I always tell him, I know it's a playoff game, but you never like to see anyone get hurt. I know the physicality is part of the game, but it looks as though players are going head huntng these days.

This is exactly how I've always felt. That head-hunting crap is awful. I don't know what sicko gets joy out seeing a guy sprawled on the ice from a cheapshot blindside hit to the head.
I don't care if it's the team I'm rooting for or the opponent-I do not like watching people get hurt. Obviously, some do, but not me.
Players like Kariya, Lindros, Primeau, Pronger, etc.-these guys all have permanent damage from multiple concussions-many of which came from cheapshots to the head (not to mention some who have tragically comitted suicide). Now, every concussion hasn't come from cheapshots of course, but so many have.
I never forget about those guys (ex players) because it's their lives after hockey that are ruined. All the money in the world can't fix a guy with blinding headaches, memory loss, nausea, depression and other awful symptoms from this problem.
And yet, every game we see this crap because it's "playoff hockey", like that excuses this sickening display night after night. Bettman has talked tough about ridding the league of this shit, but I've seen it only get worse-not better this year.

I'm very surprised with the way the Penguins are behaving as a team. They've become the goons of the league.

IP: it's the Penguins-Flyers. Crosby went on record after the game as saying he hates the Flyers and that there isn't a single guy on the Flyers that he likes. And that's the way it should be. When the Lakers play the Celtics, it's a whole different game. Kings play Anaheim, same thing. Play-off hockey is a whole different season, hell, Anze Kopitar got a 5 minute fighting major last night. I am not "for", nor do I advocate, "violence" in sports. But hockey and football are violent sports. The NFL is becoming a joke with their overreactions, you can't even touch the qb anymore and the very term "defenseless receiver" is an absolute joke. In hockey, the WEAK commissioner's office allows violence, so the players fear no retribution. Hockey is the ONLY sport where fights are even allowed, let alone encouraged. I think it's pathetic that the NHL does both in regards to fights, but there are a majority of hockey fans who think fighting is a part of hockey and the NHL is scared to death of losing fans. If you allow and encourage fighting, how can you be taken seriously when you try to clamp down on other violence on the ice? $2500 for not even trying to hide ramming a guy's head into the boards--because the guy wasn't hurt? That's embarrassing. Shanahan has done a TERRIBLE job meting out punishment. The players don't fear any weak retribution that he has to offer.

IP, I wasn't criticizing you for having a bias towards the Flyers or trying to infer that you couldn't offer a reasonable opinion out of blindness. It's just natural to see things as your team against the world, us against them. Laker fans whine about the refs, even though we shoot more free throws than the other team most nights, but yesterday, when Matt Barnes was out of bounds on one play and interfered with the rim on another, I didn't hear any Laker fans complaining. Dallas Stars fans here don't think the Stars have ever commit a penalty. There are things going on out there on the ice, things being said, that we don't know about. If you don't retaliate, you're soft, if you do, you get criticized. Hockey is a game that allows violence and actually encourages it and when it happens, they hand down punishment so soft it doesn't even matter. I would prefer to watch a skilled team like the Red Wings any day, but you don't want to have an all-star game out there, either. Regardless, the Penguins are acting like an expansion team out there and we'll see what kind of character they have in Game 4.

James:
All's good. I know you weren't saying that and I know you weren't advocating the violence. That's why I said some fans, meaning drunken idiots who think MMA is the NHL. I agree-what is Shanahan doing? Sometimes tough, toher times (i.e. Weber) not at all.
P.S.
LA looks magnificent so far-Quick rocks!

I saw my name mentioned. Did something happen? Were there more games that I missed?

Alan