Kevin Smith's NHL Blog - One too many frames in these playoffs
Originally posted on April 13, 2008
Kevin is perhaps best known for his movies Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Mallrats, Dogma, and Clerks. He also played "Warlock" in last summer's action hit, Live Free or Die Hard. An avid hockey fan, Kevin references hockey in all his films. Born and raised in New Jersey, Kevin will be analyzing his home-state Devils throughout the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Show of hands, Devils' Legion: who votes that playoff games should now be limited to two periods only?
Game one and game two have provided us with nothing short of stellar, old time hockey: both teams playing full out, hitting hard, and, between Avery's puck to the face in the first go-round and Parise's Backman-induced dental plan in Friday's game, we've seen more bloody periods than Tampax.
It's just been those thirds... those maddening, heartbreaking, lucky-for-them, @%-for-us, terrible thirds that've made the playoffs so tough to watch thus far.
Quick poll – what was more sickening: the Devils failing to capitalize on the four minute major that would've avenged Zach's sudden lack of fronts, or watching tried-and-true Devils' strategy that's been routinely criticized by the media as "boring" executed to perfection... by the stupid @% Rangers?
Where's all the bi-otching about the defense-heavy, "opportunistic" hockey I've had to read for years at the expense of our boys now that New York is doing it? The Rangers are suddenly playing like the Devils, and I don't hear a peep out of the Devils-critical NY media. Figures.
I love me some Colin White when he's hitting on the other team (during the game, mind you; not afterwards), but when he (accidentally) hits Marty and creates a pocket just wide enough for Jagr to unintentionally Hail Mary some lucky crap through, I wanna pull my own eyes out and hurl 'em at the screen. How come Dubinsky couldn't have nudge Lundqvist's shoulder, so that giant @% could create an opening big enough for Elias to find the back of the net?
Any marriage is never smooth-sailing a hundred percent of the time, because committing your entire life to just one mate is not a natural state of the human condition; it's a choice that goes against eons of DNA programming (spread the seed as much, and as diversely, as possible). But we overcome our hardwiring and marry ourselves to one another knowing that, from time to time, we're gonna get pissed at our beloved. Fandom is like a marriage, too – except I'm sure Johnny Madden would never turn me down for sex at three in the morning like my wife. So as deep as our love runs for the black and red, when they allow the Rangers to score twice in twenty three seconds, we wanna scream "YOU'RE SLOWLY SAPPING MY WILL TO LIVE AND MAKING ME QUESTION EVERY DECISION I'VE EVER MADE!" just like we scream at our wives at three in the morning when they turn us down for sex. Or maybe that's just me.
But we endure. An hour later, things never seem as bad. It takes four games to put a nail in any playoff, and we're only down two. The Devils have been known to bounce back from worse; we just need them to bounce back IN THE THIRD PERIOD.
It's not unheard of: everywhere else Friday night, teams were doing it. The Caps came back from a 4-2 deficit at the top of the third to remind Philadelphia area sports fans why they drink as heavily as they do. The Penguins may have let the Sens tie by the end of the second, but they put 'em back in their places in the third. Where's the Devils' storybook ending for game one or two?
God-willing, they've just been holding it for game three.
I love you, gentlemen. And I'm keeping the faith: before I go to sleep tonight, I will say a Rosary that you Cripple Gomez, neuter Avary, make Shanahan start wearing a shield, and bury the Blueshirts in the third of the third. Even though you're Devils, I'm praying you keep holy the Lord's day.
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