Thursday, April 26, 2007

PLAYOFFS? PLAYOFFS?! DAY 15

A lot of people would want to believe we see a preview of the finals tonight -- Anaheim and Buffalo won big.

Ducks 5 Canucks 1 (Anaheim leads 1-0): To employers in Strathroy, Ont., hometown hero Andy McDonald (AKA Kingston's forgotten NHLer) might not be the most popular guy today since he kept the folks back home up late to wait and see if he would record a playoff hat trick, which he did with a mere 52 ticks left after scoring twice in the first period. The momentum from Monday's Game 7 win over the Stars fueled the Canucks to play with energy, passion, drive -- all the Pierre McGuire buzzwords -- for about nine minutes. Vancouver is better than this. By the way, did you see CBC's Kelly Hrudey wonder if Vancouver's Alex Burrows had intentionally high-sticked Teemu Selanne on a play behind the net? It actually seemed fairly innocent, but that might since we're so used to seeing sticks carried at shoulder height.

Sabres 5 Rangers 2 (Buffalo leads 1-0): Yes, after hearing Dave Hodge's acidic commentary on TSN about people who take the favourite to win in six wins not having the wontons to make a five- or seven-game call, we feel like total squares -- especially since Buffalo had so little trouble once Thomas Vanek tipped in the first goal. Given the way this game went, eschewing the traditional bet between politicians might be the smartest move of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's political career. Granted, that's not saying a whole lot.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The Canucks' lack of depth was cruelly exposed last night, what with the absence of both Salo and Bieksa. They don't have the horses up front to trade chances with the Ducks, and need to play stifling defence, and get great goaltending, in order to have a shot. Luongo looked pretty ordinary last night, and I guess you can give Vancouver a Game 1 mulligan given that they had played a Game 7 48 hours earlier in another city. Still, it's tough for even the most die hard Canuck fan to construct a scenario whereby they win this series.