NHL Playoffs, Round *ing 3

[Guynemer]

Flames!

Is there any doubt left that Jarome Iginla is the best hockey player in the world right now?

I don't mind when my Wings lose to a team that outworks and outplays them on almost every level (unlike last year with the ****ing Ducks). I sincerely hope the Flames win the Cup.

[Asher]

The great thing about Iggy is he's always an awesome player, but when it comes to crunch time (ie, game 6s and 7s), he's just incredibly lethal. I don't know how he does it.

In Game 5's second intermission, CBC showed old video footage from when he was playing hockey when he was 8. Even then, he played way differently than all the kids around him.

[Asher]

[-Jrabbit]

Congrats to Calgary.

In fact, congrats to Canada -- for finally getting a team to the Cup finals after the longest drought ever.

[Asher]

Paul Martin called Sutter after the game:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/05/20/RATTO.TMP

In the end, the better team will be playing for the Stanley Cup

Ray Ratto
Thursday, May 20, 2004

Calgary, Alberta -- Darryl Sutter was trying to celebrate what just happened to the Calgary Flames while at the same time trying to plan what is about to, when he got a phone call.

"It was the prime minister (Paul Martin)," the head coach said with one of his best you-can't-make-this-stuff-up smiles. "And the thing is, he's a Liberal, and out here, we're not. So I had to watch what I said. I didn't want to say something like, 'What are you gonna do about this mad-cow thing?' "

So he held his tongue, accepted gracefully, and went back to preparing for Canada's first Stanley Cup Final in 15 years.

And it is a richly merited invitation, too. Beating the Sharks in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals 3-1 was a signature game by a team that lived the Sharks' lives all year long, and proved in the end that it was simply better wired to finish the deal than San Jose.

Oh yes, the better team won, and not even the most devoted Sharks fan can complain about what might have happened if this, or that. The Flames covered all the possible ifs, and are playing for the Cup instead of San Jose because they earned their way in.

Too bad, too, at least in the sense that it would have been interesting to see how the Bay Area would have handled Barry Bonds disabled, Eric Musselman fired, Mike Montgomery hired, and the Sharks beating the reaper one last time.

Actually, we know exactly how it would have been handled, so in that small sense, maybe the Sharks got out of the way just in time.

Then again, maybe facetious isn't the way to go just now. The Sharks went light years further than anyone thought they would at the start of the year, about as far as you figured they could when the playoffs began, and not as far as the Julian Street Bandwagon Irregulars expected when they learned that the last obstacle before the finals would be Calgary.

In other words, they far exceeded, met, and landed short of expectations, all at once. You can't be busier than that, kids.

Indeed, they couldn't seem to agree when they lost this series and their dream. Head coach Ron Wilson thought the difference was Game 1, when they had all the play but one fewer goal, a 4-3 loss that "would have really put the pressure on them and off us."

Goalie Evgeni Nabokov thought it was Game 2, the 4-1 loss at home, "because it wasn't a good game, it wasn't a good effort, and it really put us in a bad spot. To me, that was it."

And everyone else seemed to think it was the lay-down in Game 5, a 4-2 loss that earned them the disgust of their customer base in ways that even last year's last-place finish didn't match.

But every Shark seemed to be with Mike Ricci, who said, "It's hard to talk about right now. It was real quiet in here afterward. Nobody could say anything. We're just very disappointed. There really isn't anything to say."

Thus ended a strange and often wonderful season, with a bilious aftertaste and regret-stained accomplishment. They didn't know whether to be thrilled at their progress, satisfied with exceeding their previous bests, or wonder in frustrated bafflement how they could lose six of their last nine games and their last four at home, when every game was beyond merely vital.

Game 6 was in many ways the most honest game of them all, because it was the one that most resembled a playoff game. All 17,000 square feet of ice were contested bitterly, but it became clear fairly quickly that the Flames would do the dictating. They challenged the Sharks in the San Jose zone, forcing them to either skate through traffic or play chip-and-chase and hope their forwards could beat Calgary's defensemen to the puck.

They hung for a while, giving rise to hope that anything could happen for them, but to their great and summer-long regret, the something that did happen was Calgary's brilliant-to-the-point-of-inspirational Jarome Iginla.

He took a smart pass in traffic from center Craig Conroy, who had a sensational series of his own, while San Jose's Curtis Brown was cooling his CCMs on a double-minor for high-sticking Marcus Nilson. Iginla bull-rushed to the left faceoff dot and let go a screamer that evaded both defenseman Scott Hannan and Nabokov 1:08 from the end of the first period.

That was instructive enough, but when Martin Gelinas scored Calgary's second goal at 13:02 of the second, after Conroy outdrew Marcel Goc in the faceoff circle to Nabokov's right, Alberta ordered drinks on the house. San Jose wanted the Cup Final, no matter what the rest of the news might be, but Canada needed it in a visceral way, and Calgary delivered it to them by playing a near-perfect third period, allowing San Jose only one shot in the final 9:45.

And you can make what you will of the ending, Alexander Korolyuk throwing a pass into the slot for Jonathan Cheechoo, who fanned on what would have been the last shot of the year, and the puck rolling slowly but truly into the San Jose net in the final second.

It was a fine year for the Sharks, ultimately, but for the moment, they will only remember that it wasn't great.

As for the Flames, their next duty will be to win the Stanley Cup. And maybe then, Darryl Sutter can get Paul Martin to straighten out the mad-cow thing. I mean, the government would surely owe them that much.

[Ben Kenobi]

W00t!



San Jose proves the value of the second seed is just as good as the first, and not as good as the third in the lopsided West.

Now, time to win another cup for Canada.

[joncha]

Primeau's tied it 4-4 with less than 2 minutes to go!

[Asher]

Go Philly Go! w00t!

[joncha]

Gagne scores! Philly wins, 5-4...

[Asher]

Awesome game!

I hope they tire themselves out in Game 7!

[joncha]

I hope they both score lots and lots of goals so that I trounce you in the hockey pool.

[Guynemer]

That was an amazing goal by Primeau to tie it up.

I can't believe I'm actually rooting for the Philadelphia Flyers.

[Asher]

Originally posted by joncha
I hope they both score lots and lots of goals so that I trounce you in the hockey pool.

My #1 priority is for the Flames to win the cup, not some silly online hockey pool.

[Flubber]

Philly looked real good in game 6-- Only the mediocre play of Esche made it close-- He has to bring it ion game 7 though as I don't think the Flyers will bail him out again

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Guynemer
That was an amazing goal by Primeau to tie it up.

I can't believe I'm actually rooting for the Philadelphia Flyers.

Theres hope for you yet!