Monday, November 12, 2007
You waited for it all weekend; now you shall have it.
Weekend Hockey Update
Friday night we were sitting in a slightly different place than usual, since we had two guests with us. We were two rows back from our season ticket seats, and it’s funny how two rows seems to be a huge difference (Sunday night, back in the right seats, I felt a great deal closer). The Phantoms, curiously not wearing the new white jerseys but rather the much more attractive purple third jersey from seasons past, played 58:06 of pretty brutal hockey. Flyers’ bad hockey illness seemed to have infected the orange and purple as well. The Phantoms got behind 2-0 in the first period, and they never were able to mount any attack or make any headway, and there was a great deal of frustration at the officiating, which seemed highly suspect and inconsistent. (Apparently, one of the stripes is related to one of the Bridgeport players. How in the world did he get scheduled to serve a Bridgeport game?) When it is your team that is down you are often quick to point fingers at the zebras, but let’s face it, it really was poor going both ways. Someone back and to the left of me shouted creative abuse, suggesting that the referee bend over and look at the game with his good eye. I was frustrated by the Phantoms playing so poorly, and shouted at Bridgeport: “YOU’RE NOT THAT GOOD!!” (It made me feel better.) For 58:06, the Phantoms forced us to suffer, until 1:54 remaining when Ryan Potulny broke the scoring drought and brought the Phantoms within one. Honestly, though, we were just relieved that they would not be shut out. We did not believe they would actually mount the successful comeback. Oh we of little faith!
Munroe was pulled and there were six Phantoms out on the ice. The game was in the final 30 seconds. There was a monstrous scrum in front of the Bridgeport net. Bodies were piling and thrashing, and there was no whistle. There was more struggling, thrashing, piling, and still no whistle. It seemed to take a year, and we asked out loud, “Where is the whistle?!” Given the once or twice earlier in the game that the whistle was blown far too prematurely, ending plays that definitely should not have been ended, it seemed very peculiar for this to continue, and continue, and continue. Hey, if the ref actually had sight of the puck, then it was right for him not to blow the whistle, but I am amazed if he really was seeing it through all that flailing traffic. And I don’t like to complain when it allowed the Phantoms to score the tying goal with 18 seconds left. Potulny with his second goal of the night. We were on our feet screaming, hugging, high-fiving – you might have thought we were inches from a Calder Cup or something, rather than simply making it to overtime in a November game.
Overtime: I can hardly stand it. The Phantoms were on a power play, so it was 4 on 3, and they were handling the pressure fantastically, making good passes and moving the puck to set up a wonderful one-timer from Downie to Potulny, and it went sailing past MacDonald for the win. Potulny with a natural hat trick in under 4 minutes!! Naturally, there was madness in the arena, screaming and elation, as Bridgeport went straight to the tunnel and got the hell out of there. Textbook snatching of defeat from the jaws of victory on the part of the Sound Tigers. We all stood around congratulating ourselves, as though we had had anything to do with the feat, saying, “WHAT AN AWESOME GAME!” Which actually is a complete lie. It was an awesome three minutes and fifty-four seconds. 90% of the game was terrible.
The most amazing part of it is that Potulny was back playing his first game after having sat out injured for a while, and Coach Berube had considered scratching him.
The comeback comes in second to the comeback of 2005’s playoffs, when the Phantoms sucked until the last ten minutes of the game, scoring 6 in a row to beat Wilkes-Barre/Scranton 7-4. It surpasses the comeback I saw early 2006, where the Phantoms came back to tie Hershey and then force a shootout to win. These are great moments, but damn if it sucks sometimes having to endure crappy hockey to get to them.
It was nice to dance out of the arena in high spirits, after the drubbing of the Flyers the night before. Somehow the Phantoms stayed in it. This year my teams are doing things to other teams that were done to them, ad nauseam, last year, and it’s fascinating to understand how fans of those other teams must have felt last year. I mean, how many times did the Flyers give away a game in the closing moments? Overflowing cups of last year’s bitterness have turned to sweet nectar.
Saturday, the Phantoms traveled to Binghamton while the Flyers were at the Wachovia Center playing the Penguins. It started out on the right foot, with the Penguins taking a too-many-men penalty at 31 seconds in. A minute later, the Flyers scored. Before ten minutes had gone by, the Flyers had two power-play goals. Early in the second, Lupul scored to make it 3-0. The Penguins made it interesting, unfortunately, by scoring twice in the second period, their second coming with less than a second left. It was also a power play goal. The Pens had been given the man advantage because of a delay-of-game penalty taken by Hartnell when the puck went into the stands. I hate this penalty. I think it’s worthless. Half the time when the puck goes out it’s an accident, not a deliberate attempt to delay, and yet the penalty is called all the same. So the Flyers’ lead was cut to one because of that stupid penalty.
But the third period was awesomeness. Danny Briere scored the Flyers’ 4th power play goal and Jason Smith tried to chop off Sidney Crosby’s arms (I’m just going by what Pens fans seem to think happened) which led Criesby to throw off his glove and helmet and collapse to the ice, sliding into the boards, with a contorted grimace of unendurable agony on his face. When the referees weren’t having any of it, he got to his feet, shaking his still-attached hand, glowering, and I swear to god I thought he was actually crying, the expression on his face was that tortured. No, he was just spewing quality language and acting as though he had been wronged in the extreme, skating to the bench, shaking that hand. He and Mike Richards exchanged words and it looked to me like Richie was inviting him to make it more than words; more quality language from the Crybaby, with Philly’s announcers advising Sidney that he may not want to get into a physical scrap with Richards (I agreed, while hoping that he would be foolish enough to try). Next thing you know, he’s on the bench with the thumb being iced. Jason Smith is on his bench, grinning and shaking his head in poorly-concealed enjoyment of Sidney’s having made a complete ass of himself. And, people, he’s not laughing “because someone got hurt,” assuming that Criesby’s hand really did hurt that much, he is laughing because he probably can’t believe that the supposed best player in the world (and a team’s CAPTAIN!) would drop to the ice so shamelessly. Smith himself fell onto the ice the other night when he got cracked in the face on a slap-shot follow through, but after a few moments he got up. He didn’t flail around, scream, sob, etc. trying to draw a penalty. Give me a break, Sidney. Give me a break and grow up a little.
YouTube has the Pens’ feed’s version of the incident, and the exaggeration is comical; note particularly the comment that Sidney has a reputation in Philly for being a diver merely because ex-coach Hitchcock said it once. Um, he has a reputation for it in Philly because he does it, and not just in Philly. He is an embarrassment when he behaves like that. In today’s Inquirer, he was interviewed by Panaccio and Gormley (Courier-Post) and they mention to him that he’s been accused of diving, and he snapped back, “Accuse me of diving? Watch the play ... I don't think you'll see me diving.” Um, I think we will, Mr. Louganis. Other guys get tapped on the hands/stick all the time, and somehow it doesn’t affect their abilities to stay upright (or keep their helmets on). High comedy.
Waiting for the “suspend Smith” calls. Oh, wait, already out there (see “Gollum of the Game”, scroll down a bit). PLEASE!!! Ha ha ha ha ha!!! This dude wins the silver medal for Exaggeration of the Week (Crosby’s dive being the gold winner).
Anyway, the game was over even before Hartnell scored his first goal as a Flyer, an empty-net affair when Richards passed the puck to him – and it looked like Richards passed the puck to Hartnell so that Hartnell could score it. I loved how Hartnell stuck his tongue out and grinned and everyone came over to congratulate him. This is no Kyle Calder, folks. Don’t bail on him yet.
5-2 Flyers, very nice control of the game for the most part, a very good rebounding from Thursday’s debacle. I like that the Flyers this year can recover in strong fashion after a bad loss. Last year’s Flyers would have let Thursday snowball into six horrible games in a row. Hope they can come off Saturday’s win and roll with it tonight, facing the Islanders.
Also on Saturday: Phantoms beat Binghamton 2-0. Guess who scored the game winner? Ryan Potulny.
And then rounding out a nice weekend of hockey, I was the Phantoms/Albany game last night. After pulling Friday’s win out of nether regions, as exciting as that last few minutes was, I hoped for something a little more even. I don’t like sitting through 58 minutes of horrible hockey even if my team redeems itself in the end. We got a pretty even game, though most of it seemed to be played with one team or the other on the power play. This was reflected in the scoring: all three goals between both teams were on the PP. Albany scored first, but the Phantoms defense (and Scott Munroe, playing in his third game in as many nights!!!) kept them out for the rest of the night, though my eyes were playing tricks on me and for fractions of seconds I was sure the puck was in many times. This is not good for the heart. It is also not good for the heart when your team does not score until the third period. But the heart is soothed when your team scores again to take the lead. WHO SCORED THE GAME WINNER? RYAN POTULNY. For his five-goal weekend, three being GWGs, plus an assist on Sunday, he was named the AHL’s Player of the Week. According to the announcement on the Phantoms’ website, “he is the 11th Player of the Week honoree in Phantoms history and the first since Kirby Law won in the week ending April 4, 2004.” WOOHOOO!
It was sweet.
Munroe is 6-0 and is doing better than I expected out him as backup. He holds the AHL lead in GAA (1.68!!!). At the other end, Michael Leighton was peppered with 47 shots, stopping 45 of them. The Phantoms were not making very dangerous shots for the most part – they made a lot of ‘em but most of ‘em were right at Leighton – but as has been noted with Biron’s shots faced, when that many start coming at you, some are bound to get in, and that more did not get in is a testament to Leighton. He’s a pretty good goalie, no question. In fact, he is second in GAA (1.83) behind Munroe. Just wasn’t quite good enough last night.
Phantoms are 13-1-1, miles ahead of second place in the East (Albany sits there) and with 27 points is still 4 points better than the next team (Chicago). It’s a franchise-best start, and it’s really very fun to be part of it.
Iowa gets second billing this year because I am not there to absorb any of it in person, but I checked box scores for their games from the weekend. Two wins! Friday night it was Stars vs Rivermen, a 6-3 victory with 2 goals by Petersen (now leads the AHL with 9), Vas, Neal, Lee, and Lundqvist! On Saturday, the Stars beat San Antonio (NICE!) 3-1, with goals by Eriksson, Scalzo, and Vas. Um, when did Eriksson get sent down??* I need to pay more attention, apparently. Joel Lundqvist watch: Friday, a goal and two assists. Saturday, 1 assist. Glad he is back to his old ways. Iowa should start marching up the ranks in the West given that they’ve got all of Eriksson, Lundqvist, Lessard, and Petersen.
*Quick scanning of Dallas boards claims Loui asked to be sent down to get more playing time.
Weekend Hockey Update
Friday night we were sitting in a slightly different place than usual, since we had two guests with us. We were two rows back from our season ticket seats, and it’s funny how two rows seems to be a huge difference (Sunday night, back in the right seats, I felt a great deal closer). The Phantoms, curiously not wearing the new white jerseys but rather the much more attractive purple third jersey from seasons past, played 58:06 of pretty brutal hockey. Flyers’ bad hockey illness seemed to have infected the orange and purple as well. The Phantoms got behind 2-0 in the first period, and they never were able to mount any attack or make any headway, and there was a great deal of frustration at the officiating, which seemed highly suspect and inconsistent. (Apparently, one of the stripes is related to one of the Bridgeport players. How in the world did he get scheduled to serve a Bridgeport game?) When it is your team that is down you are often quick to point fingers at the zebras, but let’s face it, it really was poor going both ways. Someone back and to the left of me shouted creative abuse, suggesting that the referee bend over and look at the game with his good eye. I was frustrated by the Phantoms playing so poorly, and shouted at Bridgeport: “YOU’RE NOT THAT GOOD!!” (It made me feel better.) For 58:06, the Phantoms forced us to suffer, until 1:54 remaining when Ryan Potulny broke the scoring drought and brought the Phantoms within one. Honestly, though, we were just relieved that they would not be shut out. We did not believe they would actually mount the successful comeback. Oh we of little faith!
Munroe was pulled and there were six Phantoms out on the ice. The game was in the final 30 seconds. There was a monstrous scrum in front of the Bridgeport net. Bodies were piling and thrashing, and there was no whistle. There was more struggling, thrashing, piling, and still no whistle. It seemed to take a year, and we asked out loud, “Where is the whistle?!” Given the once or twice earlier in the game that the whistle was blown far too prematurely, ending plays that definitely should not have been ended, it seemed very peculiar for this to continue, and continue, and continue. Hey, if the ref actually had sight of the puck, then it was right for him not to blow the whistle, but I am amazed if he really was seeing it through all that flailing traffic. And I don’t like to complain when it allowed the Phantoms to score the tying goal with 18 seconds left. Potulny with his second goal of the night. We were on our feet screaming, hugging, high-fiving – you might have thought we were inches from a Calder Cup or something, rather than simply making it to overtime in a November game.
Overtime: I can hardly stand it. The Phantoms were on a power play, so it was 4 on 3, and they were handling the pressure fantastically, making good passes and moving the puck to set up a wonderful one-timer from Downie to Potulny, and it went sailing past MacDonald for the win. Potulny with a natural hat trick in under 4 minutes!! Naturally, there was madness in the arena, screaming and elation, as Bridgeport went straight to the tunnel and got the hell out of there. Textbook snatching of defeat from the jaws of victory on the part of the Sound Tigers. We all stood around congratulating ourselves, as though we had had anything to do with the feat, saying, “WHAT AN AWESOME GAME!” Which actually is a complete lie. It was an awesome three minutes and fifty-four seconds. 90% of the game was terrible.
The most amazing part of it is that Potulny was back playing his first game after having sat out injured for a while, and Coach Berube had considered scratching him.
The comeback comes in second to the comeback of 2005’s playoffs, when the Phantoms sucked until the last ten minutes of the game, scoring 6 in a row to beat Wilkes-Barre/Scranton 7-4. It surpasses the comeback I saw early 2006, where the Phantoms came back to tie Hershey and then force a shootout to win. These are great moments, but damn if it sucks sometimes having to endure crappy hockey to get to them.
It was nice to dance out of the arena in high spirits, after the drubbing of the Flyers the night before. Somehow the Phantoms stayed in it. This year my teams are doing things to other teams that were done to them, ad nauseam, last year, and it’s fascinating to understand how fans of those other teams must have felt last year. I mean, how many times did the Flyers give away a game in the closing moments? Overflowing cups of last year’s bitterness have turned to sweet nectar.
Saturday, the Phantoms traveled to Binghamton while the Flyers were at the Wachovia Center playing the Penguins. It started out on the right foot, with the Penguins taking a too-many-men penalty at 31 seconds in. A minute later, the Flyers scored. Before ten minutes had gone by, the Flyers had two power-play goals. Early in the second, Lupul scored to make it 3-0. The Penguins made it interesting, unfortunately, by scoring twice in the second period, their second coming with less than a second left. It was also a power play goal. The Pens had been given the man advantage because of a delay-of-game penalty taken by Hartnell when the puck went into the stands. I hate this penalty. I think it’s worthless. Half the time when the puck goes out it’s an accident, not a deliberate attempt to delay, and yet the penalty is called all the same. So the Flyers’ lead was cut to one because of that stupid penalty.
But the third period was awesomeness. Danny Briere scored the Flyers’ 4th power play goal and Jason Smith tried to chop off Sidney Crosby’s arms (I’m just going by what Pens fans seem to think happened) which led Criesby to throw off his glove and helmet and collapse to the ice, sliding into the boards, with a contorted grimace of unendurable agony on his face. When the referees weren’t having any of it, he got to his feet, shaking his still-attached hand, glowering, and I swear to god I thought he was actually crying, the expression on his face was that tortured. No, he was just spewing quality language and acting as though he had been wronged in the extreme, skating to the bench, shaking that hand. He and Mike Richards exchanged words and it looked to me like Richie was inviting him to make it more than words; more quality language from the Crybaby, with Philly’s announcers advising Sidney that he may not want to get into a physical scrap with Richards (I agreed, while hoping that he would be foolish enough to try). Next thing you know, he’s on the bench with the thumb being iced. Jason Smith is on his bench, grinning and shaking his head in poorly-concealed enjoyment of Sidney’s having made a complete ass of himself. And, people, he’s not laughing “because someone got hurt,” assuming that Criesby’s hand really did hurt that much, he is laughing because he probably can’t believe that the supposed best player in the world (and a team’s CAPTAIN!) would drop to the ice so shamelessly. Smith himself fell onto the ice the other night when he got cracked in the face on a slap-shot follow through, but after a few moments he got up. He didn’t flail around, scream, sob, etc. trying to draw a penalty. Give me a break, Sidney. Give me a break and grow up a little.
YouTube has the Pens’ feed’s version of the incident, and the exaggeration is comical; note particularly the comment that Sidney has a reputation in Philly for being a diver merely because ex-coach Hitchcock said it once. Um, he has a reputation for it in Philly because he does it, and not just in Philly. He is an embarrassment when he behaves like that. In today’s Inquirer, he was interviewed by Panaccio and Gormley (Courier-Post) and they mention to him that he’s been accused of diving, and he snapped back, “Accuse me of diving? Watch the play ... I don't think you'll see me diving.” Um, I think we will, Mr. Louganis. Other guys get tapped on the hands/stick all the time, and somehow it doesn’t affect their abilities to stay upright (or keep their helmets on). High comedy.
Waiting for the “suspend Smith” calls. Oh, wait, already out there (see “Gollum of the Game”, scroll down a bit). PLEASE!!! Ha ha ha ha ha!!! This dude wins the silver medal for Exaggeration of the Week (Crosby’s dive being the gold winner).
Anyway, the game was over even before Hartnell scored his first goal as a Flyer, an empty-net affair when Richards passed the puck to him – and it looked like Richards passed the puck to Hartnell so that Hartnell could score it. I loved how Hartnell stuck his tongue out and grinned and everyone came over to congratulate him. This is no Kyle Calder, folks. Don’t bail on him yet.
5-2 Flyers, very nice control of the game for the most part, a very good rebounding from Thursday’s debacle. I like that the Flyers this year can recover in strong fashion after a bad loss. Last year’s Flyers would have let Thursday snowball into six horrible games in a row. Hope they can come off Saturday’s win and roll with it tonight, facing the Islanders.
Also on Saturday: Phantoms beat Binghamton 2-0. Guess who scored the game winner? Ryan Potulny.
And then rounding out a nice weekend of hockey, I was the Phantoms/Albany game last night. After pulling Friday’s win out of nether regions, as exciting as that last few minutes was, I hoped for something a little more even. I don’t like sitting through 58 minutes of horrible hockey even if my team redeems itself in the end. We got a pretty even game, though most of it seemed to be played with one team or the other on the power play. This was reflected in the scoring: all three goals between both teams were on the PP. Albany scored first, but the Phantoms defense (and Scott Munroe, playing in his third game in as many nights!!!) kept them out for the rest of the night, though my eyes were playing tricks on me and for fractions of seconds I was sure the puck was in many times. This is not good for the heart. It is also not good for the heart when your team does not score until the third period. But the heart is soothed when your team scores again to take the lead. WHO SCORED THE GAME WINNER? RYAN POTULNY. For his five-goal weekend, three being GWGs, plus an assist on Sunday, he was named the AHL’s Player of the Week. According to the announcement on the Phantoms’ website, “he is the 11th Player of the Week honoree in Phantoms history and the first since Kirby Law won in the week ending April 4, 2004.” WOOHOOO!
It was sweet.
Munroe is 6-0 and is doing better than I expected out him as backup. He holds the AHL lead in GAA (1.68!!!). At the other end, Michael Leighton was peppered with 47 shots, stopping 45 of them. The Phantoms were not making very dangerous shots for the most part – they made a lot of ‘em but most of ‘em were right at Leighton – but as has been noted with Biron’s shots faced, when that many start coming at you, some are bound to get in, and that more did not get in is a testament to Leighton. He’s a pretty good goalie, no question. In fact, he is second in GAA (1.83) behind Munroe. Just wasn’t quite good enough last night.
Phantoms are 13-1-1, miles ahead of second place in the East (Albany sits there) and with 27 points is still 4 points better than the next team (Chicago). It’s a franchise-best start, and it’s really very fun to be part of it.
Iowa gets second billing this year because I am not there to absorb any of it in person, but I checked box scores for their games from the weekend. Two wins! Friday night it was Stars vs Rivermen, a 6-3 victory with 2 goals by Petersen (now leads the AHL with 9), Vas, Neal, Lee, and Lundqvist! On Saturday, the Stars beat San Antonio (NICE!) 3-1, with goals by Eriksson, Scalzo, and Vas. Um, when did Eriksson get sent down??* I need to pay more attention, apparently. Joel Lundqvist watch: Friday, a goal and two assists. Saturday, 1 assist. Glad he is back to his old ways. Iowa should start marching up the ranks in the West given that they’ve got all of Eriksson, Lundqvist, Lessard, and Petersen.
*Quick scanning of Dallas boards claims Loui asked to be sent down to get more playing time.
# posted by crusher @ 4:29 PM 
