Saturday, February 3, 2007

I would like to take this moment to state...

...that I could practically live off crisped rice cereal. It has possibly supplanted beer as standard hockey sustenance.

Now on to the game. I would be the resident fan of fearsome mollusks (Hi, you will find I tend toward lame puns and overused clichés at times to mask shortcomings in the veritable knowledge department~ Enjoy! ) so I would be the one to take it upon myself to post about this disgusting example of disappointment. To preface, I actually like New Jersey in spite of everyone else's claims (which are not without base to be sure) that the Devil's play boring hockey. This game still seemed like one to look forward to though because thus far this season the Sabres-Devils match up has proved to be quite a good one.

And, in an objective sense, it was a good game. Both teams played fast and well (though I'll bite my tongue here in a few minutes). It started with a nice Drury goal in the first in spite of not being at their best. But they had just come off of two wins against Boston (granted it's only Boston but confidence can in fact do great things) and seemed to be playing a better game than they had for weeks now and I couldn't have been happier. Even Miller was back on his game after the abysmal last couple (Side note: Much as any fan would want their team to stay on top, I can't help being a little happy when Miller gets chewed up enough to cause Biron to start a few. I justify that cannibalism wasn’t always frowned upon in this continent.) They continued to step it up in the second and while they weren't scoring they actually kept to defense for once like the miracle that never seemed likely to happen.

Then in a stunning display of 'lolpingpong!' for a half period Jersey made quick work (two minutes and thirty one seconds to be exact) of three goals at the start of the third. The first two, unfortunately, were out of Miller's control. In fact the first one was kind of ridiculous with Madden just about digging it out from under the glove. He was clearly pissed and taking another a mere 20 seconds later didn't seem to help his mentality at all. I'll spare the Miller vs Biron debate though since he was still in better form for most of the game. And the rest of the team was surely not without blame because stepping up the defense also seemed to lead to "hey guys lets not play offense this time and keep the puck in our zone it'll be fun!" This is rather typical heart attack inducing play however which has been known to lead to really nice OT wins but that doesn't make the tactic any less stupid!

To finish Numminen got one more goal but victoly was not to be had though it was a good fight right up till the end and still enjoyable to watch (enjoy to keep me from damaging the tv and killing that possibility). Furthermore in case anyone is wondering why I just recapped all this when you could probably find something much more informative and witty at the Sabre's blog, which I have conveniently forgotten the name, of it's because 65% of the time I feel the need to bitch about hockey while only 5% is devoted to smiling and nodding when a team does well. And HEY! Briere got a whole vocal 'awwwww' out of me when he fell over! I hated myself just a little for that.

Oh that other 35%? Staring blankly as the season passes me by. Hey look, there goes Foppa. (On that note I may take a stab at the trade thing later but I don't follow them religiously like a certain other two members here. Eh, c'est la vie.)

2 comments:

Skye-chan said...

Hey, I'm less rabid about the trade stuff now that the trade rumors about Nikky have ended. Though I'm still kind of fretting over the possibility of Jiri getting traded...T_T Let's hope THAT doesn't come true, and that gets squashed. *sighs*

Steph said...

Babcock wants to keep the kids, I wouldn't worry too much so long as Ken Holland's head remains outside of his ass.