First Night Hangover

Peace from Russia.

The hangover actually comes from Dimetap, but the first night of the playoffs didn't help. I watched embarrssingly little because I was in and out like Vince Chase (Season 1 version) in Entourage.

A couple of thoughts about my fellow posters to start: Phoff seems to be fixated on something (or things), anyone else notice? Moi managed to diss me and hat tip me within the same post. Wow. But still, An Ode to the Lousiana Purchase, so sweet.

As for the hockey...a couple of overtime thrillers, Calgary wins a 2-1 game (who's surprised?), the Preds show they might be able to do something with Chris Somebody in nets (and Paul Kariya apparently found Vancouver's hypobaric chamber from 1994, or Michael Jackson's, either way really), and Tampa takes 36 shots and still only score once. (See Moi, Emery can put up a decent game.)

We'll all have our attention focussed in different places geographically I'm sure, but I'm going look toward Our Nation's Capital (TM) and talk about a couple of good signs for the Sens. You know, besides Emery playing goal like he suddenly remember what those things on his arms and legs are for.

Special Teams:
Ottawa - PP: 2/7 + 1 SHG, Tampa - PP: 1/9

Ottawa's powerplay was so deadly at the start of the year, but like most other parts of the team's game, seemed to go to sleep over the last month of the regular season. A lot of that was certainly attributable to Redden and Chara being out of the line-up, so it's good to see things clicking. Also, shorties are deadly (something many Original G's can attest to) so I'm going to make a bold prediction and say any game where Ottawa scores shorthanded is a game they win.

The Core on D
Chara 24:53, Redden 21:23, Phillips 20:42, Meszaros 19:47

Why does this matter? When those first three were out of the line-up in the latter part of the season, 20 year-old rookie Andrei Meszaros was, all of a sudden, the second coming of Nick Lidstrom in terms of ice time. He's a very good young player, but his play suffered badly down the stretch when he was leaned on so heavily. Things back in order and it's good that the veteran core seems healthy enough to go deep into the playoffs.

Martin Havlat, 16:00, 1 G

Havlat's return gives Ottawa much more offensive balance (like a real second line and even an alright third unit), another player the other team has to pay attention to lest he smoke you repeatedly, and a spark of speed.


It's a good start. Tampa of course is dangerous and the road through the East is harder than in the past, but I don't happen to think the conference final is expecting too much. In fact, perhaps too little. Recently on TSN one of the the commentators was talking about Dominic Hasek and said in no uncertain terms that he's crazy. Maybe I'm alone in the wilderness (or halluscinating from the cough meds), but I'm hoping he's crazy like a fox and we'll see him back in Round 2 doing The Swim in the blue paint.