On The Eve of the New Season: North of the Border Editio

Originally posted by vansmack:
Excellent. A divided Canada can only play to the Ducks favor….

a divided canada? how about a divided defense that gave up two turnover goals? :)

great game. other than the last two or three minutes of the third period, i felt emery was the better goalie… but giguere came through when it mattered. great flurry to end the game, ottawa came very close. ducks' defense was damn solid, kept the sens' first line in check rather effectively. anaheim took some stupid penalties. the last few minutes of the first period were torture, almost caused me to have indigestion - sens were lucky to hit the locker room with a tie, looked like it was going to be worse.

i watched the game at bugsy's - HIGHLY recommended. good crowd, solid pizza, and molson on tap. can't wait for game 2!

Sorry I'm late to this conversation - I slept like a baby last night and decided to even sleep in a little.

5 on 5 hockey was men among boys. When Ottawa tried to come out in the first period and play physical, it was exactly what I wanted to see. You can't play a more physical game than these Ducks. There was one stretch in the third where Pronger, Neidermier, Pahlsson and Moen simply stood at the Ottawa blue line and kept throwing the puck and the Sens back in their own zone like a one sided game of red-rover. It was silly. I'm pretty sure Cami Granato was on the ice in a Sens jersey last night, it was so ridiculous.

I'm a little concerned about the Ducks lack of discipline coupled with some dubious calls (like the phantom call on Pronger with less than a minute left), but as this series rolls on, the Ducks physical style is most certainly going to wear on the Sens. I'm cautious because it was only one game, but I'm feeling really good right now.

That was cute. All those little Senators gave it everything they had last night and still lost 1-0. Why they've insisted on playing a physical game with the Ducks I will never know. It should be clear by now that they can't do that for a full three periods.

Spread it around, use your speed and superior stick handling skills and try to beat the Ducks based on their over agressiveness. You can't take it to them, especially if you play in the sissy Eastern Conference.

hi,

if anyone has seen my senators, could you please let them know that we miss them and they really should call if they're going to take off like that? they appeared to have gotten lost on the way to anaheim - they didn't show up last night.

thanks,
a concerned fan

Yep. I saw Murray change the lines up in the first period and thought it wreaked of desperation.

With Spezza and Heatley paired with Chris Neil and Alfredsson with the Fischer line, I realized that again the Sens were trying to go pound for pound with the Ducks. All that did was create more turnovers because the Sens were lured into a false sense of space, supposedly created by Neil or Fischer. They tried to skate through the bigger Ducks which is a mistake. Find the next pass, wait for the hit, make the pass to open space and move the puck around quickly. They haven't done that, instead opting to try to bounce off the Ducks, which 9 times out of 10 left them flat on their backs.

Keep hope though - I do remember the Ducks being down 0-2 in a finals and forcing a game 7 in New Jersey in '03, but the Ducks certainly weren't as badly out-hit, out-hustled, and outplayed as the Sens have been. It will be intersting to see what happens when Carlysle has to think first in Ottawa.

the last 2 minutes of last night's game, with the sens running on desperation, looked good. but a team can't keep that up for the other 58 minutes (if only because emery was pulled for part of that time).

the game wasn't particularly interesting to watch… game 1 had me on the edge of my seat, good plays going both directions. i expect more interesting hockey than tha, ottawa just didn't play like a team that belonged in the finals (save for emery, who i still feel is a better goalie than giggy).

i'm hoping that the home-ice advantage will ensure that game 3 is closer to #1 than #2.

Originally posted by sweetcell:
(save for emery, who i still feel is a better goalie than giggy).

put down the pipe

Originally posted by pdx pollard:
put down the pipe

Agreed. What does JS have to do to get the Canadians to show him some love?

Originally posted by vansmack:

Originally posted by pdx pollard:
put down the pipe

Agreed. What does JS have to do to get the Canadians to show him some love?

perhaps play for a Canadian team?

Originally posted by vansmack:
You can't take it to them, especially if you play in the sissy Eastern Conference.

is that like the sissy National League?

Originally posted by le sonick:
perhaps play for a Canadian team?

Like the 2004 Gold Medal winning Team Canada in the World Championships?

Originally posted by le sonick:
is that like the sissy National League?

Worse. It's more like the American League where girls running the bases yell "mine" behind a third baseman catching a pop-up.

Originally posted by vansmack:
What does JS have to do to get the Canadians to show him some love?

i never said giguere isn't a great goalie - he most certainly is. check out my post-game comments for both games of the finals, in both i stated that he played great. i just happen to think that emery has put in the superior performance to date in this series - this is, in part, a function of the number and quality of shots he's faced (and giguere hasn't). i guess that was my fault for not inlcuding "… in this series so far" in my assessment.

Originally posted by vansmack:
You can't take it to them, especially if you play in the sissy Eastern Conference.

the eastern conference has won the last 3 cups, so let's not hate on it too much :)

Originally posted by vansmack:

Originally posted by le sonick:
perhaps play for a Canadian team?

Like the 2004 Gold Medal winning Team Canada in the World Championships?

what, he played 2 games? besides, wasnt Heatley the MVP of that tournament? so even then, Canadians would be rooting for Ottawa first and foremost. it would be most ridiculous of you to question why Canadians were putting down Giguere at a time like this…dont take it so personally :)

i was all about Giguere when he came on the scene, now i'm all about the …… well now i'm just all about the 36-16 Boston Red Sox. hehe.

Originally posted by vansmack:

Originally posted by le sonick:
is that like the sissy National League?

Worse. It's more like the American League where girls running the bases yell "mine" behind a third baseman catching a pop-up.

do we have enough plays for ESPN to make a top 10 Dirty A-Rod plays yet?? i've got the Bronson Arroyo ball slap, the slide into Dustin Pedroia last week….thats 3, i am sure there are plenty more.

d'oh. remember how i was looking for a hockey bar? i should have known that the Canadian embassy in DC would have the answer:

News from the Canadian Embassy

Hockey: The Stanley Cup
The Embassy proudly flies the Ottawa Senators flag on game days during the Stanley Cup final. To see a listing of Stanley Cup viewing events across the United States, click here.

<img src="http://geo.international.gc.ca/can-am/washington/images/sensflagonroof.jpg" alt=" - " />

….so I finally get to see a game on NBC last night. What in God's name has happened to the game over the last couple of years that I've been gone??? "Embelishment aka diving." There was more of that shit last night than there is in San Siro. Were's all the Dale Hunters and Rod Langways gone? Replaced by Ms Jagr and the like I suppose.

I really would like the Sens to win it but it's not looking good at this point.

Originally posted by Roadbike Mankie:
"Embelishment aka diving."

Between that and Alfredsson's late second period shot, I'd be embarrassed to be a Sens fan today. That's no way to win a hockey game, and it was clear from the start of the series that the referees were going to call a penalty any time an Anaheim player so much as sneezed on a Sen (the exception being anytime Pronger cheap shots somebody, apparently), but to so blatantly take advantage of the situation the way the Sens did from the drop of the puck showed a real lack of integrity on their part. They don't deserve to win a hockey game playing that way.

:roll: