It’s not news that
the Flyers went out in six games after the regular season. The second round of
the playoffs is now underway and my lads are watching on their smartphones at
the golf course. I could stomp and scream and make generous contributions to the
swear jar, but even if the visually-impaired ref had made the appalling “I-can’t-believe-it-was-missed”
call on Kris Letang kicking the skates from beneath Sean Couturier in the third
period, the boys likely wouldn’t have survived a game 7 in the first round. Not
against Pittsburgh. Not this year.
This isn’t news
either, but a hockey team needs more than one scoring line, otherwise it’s too
easy for the opposing team to shut you down, and that’s exactly what the
Penguins did to the Flyers. Mind you, Captain Claude was invisible, and Jake Voracek
wasn’t worth much, either. The two top point-getters in the regular season did
nothing in the post unless you count letting the kids do all the work, in which
case you might be inclined to commend them for creating what public servants refer
to as “learning opportunities”.
I learned that the
next generation has all kinds of potential if Ron Hextall can afford to keep the
current roster in place. Nolan Patrick in particular, but there’s a handful of
other twenty-somethings who will make Philadelphia a force to be reckoned with in
the next few years. And they should give Couturier the captaincy. He more than
earned it in games 5 and 6. He was a horse through those two games, and only
when it was over did we hear that he’d been playing on a torn ligament and will
need surgery this summer. I love Claude Giroux, but come on. It was Coots who
played like a captain.
More not-news: I
harbour fantasies about the Flyers going the distance each time they make the playoffs;
what hockey fan doesn’t? And the same fantasy was harboured this year, though I
had no illusions against Pittsburgh, who has three scoring lines and way more experience
than the fledgling Flyers. Plus, Sid Crosby is on a mission from God every time
he plays his Pennsylvania state rivals. Honestly, his stats against Philly
alone are astonishing … and nauseating to a gal who bleeds black and orange. I
knew if we could get past him, we’d be all right – but he knew it too, and he
used the negative energy of the home crowd to kill the home team in all three of
their home games.
Following the
non-call on Letang, when the fragile Flyer lead was lost with two quick Penguin
goals and my boys were eliminated in the first round, Ter said to me, “I don’t
think I can support the Pens after that crappy non-call on Letang.”
“Agreed,” I
replied. “I’m going for the western conference team in the final (unless it’s
San Jose), and in the east, it’s ‘go, Leafs, go’.”
Well, that was
short-lived, too. The Leafs pushed it to game seven, but the Bruins are, well,
the Bruins. ʼNuff said about that. And I must admit, I loosed a silent cheer on hearing that the
Pens beat Washington in their first game of round 2, so …
$*^&#%
No comments:
Post a Comment