Lightning Up

 

Sometime during the night following the Flyers’ elimination from the Stanley Cup playoffs, I decided to root full bore for the Tampa Bay Lightning. Originally, I only supported the Bolts until they served their purpose by punting the Bruins in their second round series, but I had also hoped Philly would do in the Islanders and proceed to face Tampa in the eastern conference final.

Dreamer! Silly little dreamer!

Without getting into it (because it still makes me furious), the Flyers pushed their series against New York to a seventh game, but it was only by the grace of Carter Hart that they got that far. We had no offense unless you count lucky bounces, though the defense was solid (Ivan Provorov’s got a great future), and we had a fairly effective penalty kill—but an utterly piss poor power play. The PP was so pp, in fact, that I groaned aloud whenever we drew a penalty. It got worse when, hoping to break the NYI shutout, Alain Vigneault pulled Hart with six minutes to go in the third period. “What are you doing, you fool?” I screamed. “The goalie’s the best man on our power play!”

So, the boys are off to the golf course and Basher is off to post-playoff therapy. Of course I’m a Bolts fan for the eastern final—I can’t abide the Islanders in any way shape or form. And in the west, I’d have chosen Vegas over Dallas, but now I don’t care. My Plan B preference had been for Vegas to go all the way, until I witnessed a cheap-o WTF? move by the Knights when they put out Vancouver in game seven of their series.

Give the Canucks credit—they went further than any other Canadian team and I’d have been delighted to cheer them to the Cup, if only. They had to call on their backup goalie when Markstrom was hurt in game four, and darned if Thatcher Demko didn’t stop all but one of something like a hundred and twenty shots over two games. You start to believe anything is possible when a team comes back from a three game deficit to force a seventh. But Vegas came to play, and they play rough. Not good rough, either. Not only did they out-bang the Canucks, they got away with some sneaky shots and won by a score of 3 – 0. They only beat Demko once, though. The insurance goal was into the empty net after Vancouver pulled him to get the extra man on in the last few minutes of regulation time. With eighty-some seconds left in the game, Vegas potted a second empty-netter and celebrated like they’d come from behind in the nick of time.

Really? A second empty net goal? Talk about rubbing it in—and while I may be a fan of the old Broad Street Bullies, I vehemently disagree with such poor sportsmanship. In my mind, what the Knights did in that last minute was naught but a poke in the collective eye of Canuck players and fans alike. Boo, hiss!

But, Ru, you ask, what happens if the Islanders beat the Bolts?

Don’t ask.

The bears console Basher after the Flyers are eliminated