Hoserdome 2009: Playoffs, Day 4

Having six of the seven series at 2-0 seems like a bit of a rip, especially since, as From The Rink notes, teams almost never come back after dropping the first two games in the other guys' barn.

1. It's a frightening concept, but the Chicago Blackhawks are set to sweep the Calgary Flames because of this thing called "better players." (Glove tap: Michael Schur as Ken Tremendous.)
   
   It's hard to get your mind wrapped around that after a lifetime of being spoon-fed pabulum about heart and veteran leadership by commentators on Canadian networks, so let it sink in.
   
   Incidentally, Jonathan Toews for the 2010 Olympic team? Coming Down The Pipe! wants to know.
2. Patrice Bergeron's takedown of Mike Komisarek was a laugh and a half. You have Komisarek running across the ice like an idiot to take a head shot at a player who's got a history of concussions, getting his ass handed to him and then having NESN's Jack Edwards mine it for head-injury humour: "Concuss that!"
   
   
   
   Brilliant. And people think I'm weird for preferring baseball and basketball to hockey. Then again, I'm a pansy.
3. Canadian Roberto Luongo, Swede Henrik Lundqvist, American Tim Thomas, Swiss Jonas Hillier and Russian Nikolai Khabibulin have been the best goalies in the post-season, for anyone thinking about Vancouver 2010.
   

Blackhawks 3 Flames 2 (Chicago leads 2-0) — The good news for Calgary, beyond getting to go home, is they finally scored on the power play after an 0-for-47 drought. The bad news is they were shut out while playing 5-on-5.

By the way, Patrick Sharp, who scored the second Blackhawks goal, played at the University of Vermont. Since fellow UVM product Martin St. Louis is in Tampa Bay, it's rare to see a former Catamount in the playoffs (yes, yes, there's Torrey Mitchell on the San Jose Sharks).

Rogers Sportsnet's Calgary correspondent Roger Millions is off the air for a few days after saying you-know-what on the air. It wasn't a firing offence, since it was a team mistake, but at this rate, the Flames might be done by the time he's back.

Bruins 5 Canadiens 1 (Boston leads 2-0) — The epitaph for a Habs season gone horribly asunder came from a Montreal-aligned friend who said, "The only forward they've got who's any good as Alex Kovalev and I don't want him back next season."

The Bruins likely lose Milan Lucic to a one-game suspension, but that should not hurt much in the long run.

Between Montreal getting skated out of the rink and the New York Yankees getting shelled for 22 runs, there was a run on Haterade on Saturday. The logical explanation is that the Habs overachieved in 2007-08, overplayed their top guys (a condition known as being "Paddock-ed" and didn't have enough in the tank for this season. The fun explanation is that their fans flew to the close to the sun on wings of vote-robots.

Red Wings 4 Blue Jackets 0 (Detroit leads 2-0) — Michigan have its hockey team, but Ohio is first in home foreclosures.

Rangers 1 Capitals 0 (New York leads 2-0) — Apparently, Henrik Lundqvist has decided to spoil the Capitals' season, but just less than one-quarter of the teams which lose the first two games at home actually manage to come back and win.

The thumbnail sketch of the Rangers is that the veterans responded after John Tortorella was brought in as coach. Strangely enough, Ryan Callahan, obviously a grizzled 24-year-old third-year pro, has a team-high 10 goals since the coaching change. That all comes back to veteran leadership.

(Last but not least, a tip of the cap is due to Ian Duval, who scored two goals in the Kelowna Rockets' win over the Vancouver Giants in Game 1 of the WHL semi-final series last night. Duval played triple-A midget hockey for the Central Plains Capitals, based in Portage la Prairie, Man., during two OOLFers' tenure at the Portage Daily Graphic.)