uncle ovipositor

The Sharks stunk. In the last half of the third, the Sharks had 2 powerplays in which 4 shots were taken, total. All 4 of them were by the Avs. I think they'll pick it up, but they got the beating they deserved. And for not having to do much, the Avs looked pretty good. Still doing better than the Duck.

I couldn't agree more, and as a non-duck's fan this is great news. I like the idea of Burke managing his team into a hole he can't get out of. Bert will continue to be a dependable player, even a pretty good one sometimes. No crime in that. 4mil is great for him, and bad for the Duck. So who's compaining?

So are they saying Pronger isn't on steroids, then? Really? I would be amazed if there aren't some illegal drugs and blood doping going on. I've never heard anything about testing in the NHL, and hockey players have as much to gain from EPO as cyclists.

You can only say this because Detroit has an abnormally good blue line. I don't have anything to say about the amount of money because it all seems crazy to me, but Doug Wilson (the gm) knows what he's doing, and whatever he's willing to pay is probably right for the team. I think Rivet did well in the playoffs, and by all accounts fit in with the team quite well. More importantly, he tied Mark Bell to Toskala. Otherwise he couldn't have paid another team to take on that albatross.

He has a lot of skills, and big reach that make him a natural. A good shot, an ability to almost casually be in the right position... But his inability to control his temper, his lack of respect for any other players, his cheap shots, and his inability to lose in a sportsmanlike way make me hate the guy. He plays ugly hockey. I'm glad to see him getting suspended (again), but since there's clearly no lesson learned from him being in the press box for a game there has to be some other sort of stick to used. I fear that the league won't do anything, and some player's going to lose it and go down with him. Oh well. Let's hope the Sens can get their act in gear here...

As far as I can tell all hockey teams are Canadian.

http://www.sjsharks.com/news/news.asp?story_id=3530 The odds are on Vesa jumping ship (although I'd rather see him stay than Nabby). If he does become available, Detroit would be fools not to take him. He's an excellent goalie, and when pushed can come up big. Plus he wants to play hockey for the full season, not every other game. He's good enough to do it, and if the Sharks won't let him he should be somewhere that will.

I'm not sure what you mean. The way around the instigator rule is to wait until the next faceoff, then drop the gloves and go at it. Happens all the time. The instigator rule doesn't address anything. It wouldn't have done anything in this situation, either.

The Ducks lost Pronger for a decent stretch in the regular season (a month or so), and their record without him was at best mediocre. They lost their decisive lead in the Pacific - 14 points down to 4, leaving them with merely a lead. This will be a big deal.

There's a logical disconnect here: currently, fighting is allowed, and this hit happened. DId fighting prevent it? No. Could fighting have prevented it? No. Especially not after the fact, which is when most fights happen. To their credit the Wings opted not to go after Pronger, and they won. So how would fighting have addressed this or made it better? I don't think having the big dog system of authority on the ice has ever prevented rough or even violent play, and the opposite is obviously true. That's why there are rules. If those rules disallowed fighting as they currently disallow cheap shots and more reviews like this one of Pronger's play were encouraged so that getting away with it on the ice didn't mean getting away with it would go a long way to shutting this down. There are a lot of other arguments to be had about what should and shouldn't be in the rulebook, but saying that a good fight would have had anything to do with this dangerous hit is a bit disingenuous.

Giguere will probably be in. Bryz is good, but they've already had their confidence shaken by losing Pronger (I smile every time I think about that) and I don't think changing up who's in net would benefit anyone. I think Giguere is a better goalie than a lot of people here give him credit for. True, he's not as athletic as a lot of goalies, but his ability to read plays and position himself is stellar, and that's 90% of the job done right there. He's athletic enough to deal with most of the rest of it - although not all, obviously. As far as the SJ Sharks Vesa-not-Nabby decision, I think it was the right one. While statistically Vesa might have seemed like an obvious choice, Nabby was the man going into the playoffs, and the team was comfortable with him in net. Nabby acquitted himself quite well, proving my point (in the sense that he didn't lose any of the games - more of a team effort, there). Plus I don't think Vesa being in goal was the determining factor in the Sharks regular season wins over Detroit.

I'm glad there's a hearing, but I don't think it will amount to anything more than a fine because the message they'll want to send to the fan is that their designated "great" players are important to the game. They'll say something about not wanting to deprive fans of the best hockey they can provide in the playoffs, and will reassure people that Pronger didn't mean to do it and he's real sorry. Heck - it's that kind of passion that he's bringing that makes it so important for him to be on the ice, not in the press box. I hope I'm wrong, but I've seen Pronger's golden boy status save his hide way too often. I don't get it. It's a common hockey theme to refer to a juvenile tantrum as passion. That idea is also part of what keeps fighting in the sport (as in, "if you take fighting out of hockey you're going to get rid of the passion," and "look at those two big guys throwing off their gloves and getting passionate with each other"), and that's a debate that the commish won't want to get involved in. Because they are convinced that a certain percentage of their fan base is there to see people get hurt. And they're right. So the word "passion" is used as a get-out-of-jail-free card. [i think there's a larger percentage who'd like the sport if it was physical but not violent, but what ever - I'm not in the business of marketing hockey or predicting the tastes of north americans, and that's another discussion all together anyway.]

Sharks, thank you very much. This is their MO, and I don't get it either. They beat the sharks 5 out of 8 during the season, and more than one of those were because they played incredible hockey. When they lost was when it turned ugly really fast. I want to like them for the moments of excellence, but then you get the games like this one and it's hard to respect them as a team. Selane, Getzlaf, and MacDonald are great players. Pahlson (probably a misspelling) is turning into a great player. There's a lot to this team. But screw 'em.

That's his @#!$%! career in a nutshell. He makes some great plays, but not enough to justify the golden child status. Not that anyone should be above the rules, but you can sort of understand why some player might be. Just not him.

Hasek doesn't get a star because he didn't have to do anything for long stretches of the game. When he did he was over-selling it - "LOOK AT ME! I'M PLAYING HOCKEY!" Please. He could have been asleep for long stretches of the game and it wouldn't have mattered. I think this game shows why Detroit will win this series and quite possibly the cup: they adjust. I didnt' believe it until they took out the Sharks handily. A couple of games to get their bearings, then it was done. The Ducks, like the Sharks, play a great game of hockey, but they don't have the range of the Wings - both teams play A great game of hockey. Singular. This is a great way to win in the regular season, but in the playoffs, where there there are at least 4 games in a row, this isn't enough. Especially against Detroit the way they've been playing. [it hurts me to say this, by the way.] Babcock and the team adjusted their game. The Ducks will have to answer, but I don't think they can. There will probalby be at least one more win for them, based on raw talent or Hasek having a bad game, but unless the Ducks can come up with some range that they haven't shown as of yet, they're done for. I've seen enough of them this season to know that their game ranges from what they've put on the ice so far to that game plus some goonery. I honestly think the Sharks were more capable of throwing different looks out there on the ice and they couldn't pull it off. The Ducks could surprise me, but I just can't see it. The only issue is how many Wings they'll take out on their way home, and that's no small thing. I forget his name (McMurty?), but I've seen the ref with the mustache call a few games for the Ducks at this point and he always calls them tight because he's seen their game. I don't know how the NHL rotates their refs, but I don't imagine he'll be out for more than at best one of the games left in this series. Still, any games he's on the ice for is to Detroit's advantage. The previous two are proof how much that matters.

I hadn't watched any Ottawa games until this series with Buffalo, figuring it'd be fun to watch the Sabres dismantle a canadian team. Boy was I wrong! Buffalo may not be playing great, but Ottawa has been amazing! Any mistake Buffalo makes, they're on it.

I only caught about 10 minutes of this game, sadly. The Detroit PK doesn't get much credit, but they are so damn good. There was a lot of talk about how the Shark's PP was failing, but they were greatly aided in that process by Detroit. If the Ducks can throw some different looks up there it might help, but Detroit's so quick to adapt that it'll be a narrow window of opportunity. I don't know how many different ways the Ducks can go at it, frankly - they've played one PP most of the season. But they do have some talent that they could give a chance to. And as others have said, these 2 conference finals are just incredible. After the Nashville/Sharks brawl in game 2 I was thinking I was done with playoff hockey. Since the games have been great and I'm back into it. It's a great time to be a hockey fan.

Heh. I've made that mistake before, too. Just like the Baldwins, I can't keep track of all the Thorntons.

I didn't know that about the linesman, but if I remember correctly the ref went to the Detroit bench first, then made the call. I don't blame Babcock because it's exactly what he should have done, and there was a penalty on the play, but it was pretty fishy. I'm not blaming anyone. Detroit won. And even if the refs had made horrible calls that affected the outcome of the game (which they didn't in that game or the first against the ducks), Detroit still would have won. Bad calls are as much a reality as bad ice - something you'll get to see a lot of when you play in Anaheim. You've got to hope that on the whole it's going to affect both teams evenly, and generally it works out that way. Detroit had won the series against the Sharks by the start of that game, and I don't think anyone would argue otherwise. They had the Sharks figured out, and while it wasn't the most exciting game to watch it was pretty clear who was in charge. The Sharks tried a lot of different attacks and the Wings adapted effortlessly. Having watched that series, I'm pretty sure they can beat the Ducks - not because they have more stars on the roster (this might arguably tip to the Ducks), but because they are so skilled at playing as a team and executing strategically. During the regular season when you see any given team at most 8 times over 6 months this is pretty useful, but in a playoff series it can be the deciding factor. To my eye that's what tipped the series against the Sharks and I bet it's going to tip this series as well.

And now you've got another. I just don't get it - they have some extremely talented players who can do some great things, but they tend to fall back on a cheap game more often than not. They could (and during the regular season often do) play hockey on a par with anyone out there. But if they're being beat or if it's the playoffs they don't think skill will get them through. Scott Thornton was on the Sharks last year and was a dependable offensive forward. Now his job is to pick fights with d men and not much else. He can do both, but one's a lot more interesting to watch. Pronger can pull off some magnificent plays, but he's just as likely to resort to stick work when the going gets tough. I've said it before and I'll say it again: having a big ass in clown pants isn't particularly impressive. It's the fact that he's got such incredible skills that sets him apart. I didn't pay much attention to him before, but there were a couple of great opportunistic goals I've seen him score in the post season that were unreal. Right, but games *should* be called fairly to begin with. Should doesn't mean much. But I also don't think the refs should or did allow previous games to influence calls in this one. I just thought it was funny that the wings got so fabulously screwed by the refs. Thankfully it wasn't a decisive factor in the outcome of the game. I agree that the Ducks got away with a lot. I hope the officiating gets better because it's surprising that this wasn't a decisive factor in the game.

As a Shark's fan, I'm thinking of this as team zebra paying Detroit back for the last game against the Sharks. Not that it would have changed the outcome (the Wings CLEARLY had the Sharks figured out by that point and the series was done), but when the bench is allowed to say a call should have happened on a play 20 seconds ago that neither ref saw, well, you do have to wonder. Or when they have 9 men on the ice during a line change. Seems like that's the sort of thing a ref might notice - if not the first time then surely the second. THAT was a horribly officiated game. This one slightly less so in that they were enforcing a set of rules on both teams (just not ALL of the rules). I don't think the refs are biased in hockey games, but I do think they can be overly human in their calls. Yup. I give a lot of credit to Babcock and the Wings for scouting other teams well and being able to adapt to them. I'm not in the locker room so I don't know how much credit falls where, but this team has been stellar at taking away their opponent's game in the playoffs. The PK squad has been particularly good at this, and even if the Ducks changes the look of their PP dramatically, it's going to be hard for them to get it going. I'm not sure how dramatically they can change it, either - as you point out all season they've been playing it with these 2 shooting and everyone else trying to clean up.

I thought that was hilarious! Does that even qualify as trash talk? I mean, it sounded like he was ordering a pizza or something. "Tell Sammy to go get it." It would've been even better if he'd said, "Tell Sammy I know someone who likes him," or just passed him a note. Then the ref could have made him read it in front of the whole stadium. I'm still laughing that he had a mic on for that strange attempt at toughness. Couldn't get better. Perry's a great player and can score some real beauties, regardless. He can put some great play out on the ice. This seems like something he was told to do in the locker room, though, because he was so clearly stretching.

Please read his other posts. He owns a '91 Toyota. He's gambling on this game so that he can get a blower added to the hood and maybe even carpet the interior. If he loses he's giving up his apartment and living in a Winebago in the desert (I hope there's a parking space big enough for it at the law firm). The damage-causing fumes are not from his car. His mouth has been over the exhaust pipe of someone else's Hummer. Billy Guerin said that Chelios is in such good shape he rides his bike in the sauna. Since this zinger was his only contribution to the Playoffs, I'm going to repost it every opportunity I get.

I love the fact that to back up his attitude he claims to be a paralegal - not a lawyer. Or a sniper, for that matter. I'm hoping he doesn't get banned. I find his dubious Englishing and weird posturing to be strangely fascinating. I have no doubt that Canadians hate the Wings fans (and where did all the "s"s go from Duck fans? Is the concept of the plural verboten down there?), but perhaps that has to do with them being dependably good at the national sport of Canada and not being Canadian. Imagine if Cuba had a baseball team that played up here, fer instance. Hated in most of the US? I don't pretend to know most of the US, but people I know like them just fine. And the people on this forum are great. The Kings are indeed quite precious. Pretty Pony precious, even.

And our grammar and spelling are impecable. Is The Booth not a regular user of the English? Or am him fume damaged? Good luck with adding that blower to your Toyota. You guys have gotten the best of the worst in these duck fans. As much talent as they have on their team, it's these idiots that make me dislike them. And the fact that they're a Disney product.