Saturday, April 10, 2004
GAME 2 -- FLAMES 2, CANUCKS 1
Two weird goals in quick succession early in the first period somehow held up despite a decent number of chances for the Canucks, as the Flames take home-ice advantage with them back to Calgary on Sunday.
Calgary basically clamped down on defense, neutralizing the Sedins (and Naslund, except for the goal), and keeping a lot of the Canucks shots far from the net.
The first Calgary goal came only 3:06 into the game, on a Jarome Iginla goal. On the play, Chris Simon (I saw this on SportsCenter afterward, so I had a visual) tied up Dan Cloutier's stick and swiveled him to his glove side, leaving the net wide open. Cloutier argued fruitlessly, but it was probably offset later in the game (more on that later).
The second and final Calgary goal came only 50 seconds later. Sami Salo was in front of his own net and somehow lost the puck in his equipment. Matt Lombardi used skills akin to the game of pinball to wait for the puck to come down as Salo had no idea where it was. Puck came down, Lombardi jumped on it, and put it in.
These two goals held up.
The Canucks' only tally was on a power play (didn't say that many times during the season), when Markus Naslund shot into a yawning net. However, like I said, this probably offset the Simon/Cloutier play because Ed Jovanovski definitely ran into Miikka Kiprusoff on the play, and definitely interfered with him on the play.
Another thing about interference...the refs physically were in bad positions on multiple occasions tonight. One play involved a Vancouver defensemen trying to race a Flame down the rink to ice the puck, but one of the officials screened off the Vancouver player and the Flames got the puck in the Vancouver zone. Not good.
The Canucks had their seven-game (regular season included) winning streak snapped. They had little to no scoring chances in the first half of the third period, but had a ton in the latter half of the third period, but buried none of them. Martin Rucinsky had the best chance, but shot wide of the net. The Canucks had many bounces go their way during the seven-game streak, but did not manage to get the extra bounce they needed tonight. This from a team that had an insane number of points this year when trailing after three periods.
As the buzzer sounded and I realized the Canucks probably just needed two more minutes of play to tally a goal with the pressure they were mounting, I could only react with one word...
F******************************(
I know Calgary is a tough team, I know this series isn't going to be a cake walk for eithe rteam (in my case, Vancouver), but really, one big long F-word is what I thought right afterward.
These NHL playoff games are just draining if you have a rooting interest. My goodness.
Here's the Dan/Tom/John notes...
Dan: that's playoff hockey
Tom: yeah it is...the games will be tight, hard-fought...I had a feeling Calgary would be tough...they got couple of early breaks...the Canucks were all over Calgary early...Calgary goes down once and gets one...Salo lost the puck in his equipment (advice: skate away from own goal or something), then Lombardi gets it...Calgary got 2-0 lead but could have been down 2-0 just as easily
Dan: there were still 57 mins left in the hockey game after the second Calgary goal
John: no one here thought Vancouver was out of it. Jovo bumps the goalie, goal scored, game is back on. Kiprusoff was good when had to be, but the Canucks didn't test him much in the first half of third period
Dan: I never thought the 2-0 goal would be the game winner
Tom: I didn't think the 2 goals would hold up either...Kiprusoff was good, but Vancouver has to have a finish...They need to bury as many chances as they can...Vancouver was short on the finish tonight...I didn't think Vancouver would sweep the series anyway...Calgary gets split, and will see starving hockey fans in Calgary
Dan: the Canucks have not scored an even-strength goal in this series..
John: that's been their bread and butter this year, now it's the opposite...the big difference was Calgary's defense that turned it around -- pucks in skates, players to outside...
Dan: a couple more minutes, and Vancouver may have tied it. Craig Conroy took every faceoff
Tom: what they did better was getting pucks and bodies to the net in the last half of the third...Vancouver was not a good team at retrieving pucks...Calgary made the right plays at the right times to get out of trouble...the Sedin line was held in check...
Dan: about the only thing Naslund did was score the goal
Tom: Calgary believes they're a better 5-on-5 team than Vancouver; they think they're harder working
Dan: the best chance was by Rucinsky
John: Rucinsky's got to start burying some of these chances; I thought he would get some confidence from the first game. If he would have scored there, that could have been it, and they could have forced OT
Dan: Kiprusoff was the 1st star...he was much better tonight (Jovanovski was 2, Iginla was 3)
Tom: Kiprusoff bounces back from poor efforts...he was bombed three times during the regular season (DET?, DAL, COL), but responded by allowing only one goal in the games following the bad games
Vancouver at Calgary on Sunday night. Amazingly, this will be televised stateside on ESPN2, as will the Tuesday game in Calgary. Of course, it would be a crime for ESPN to let the States to see the Vancouver crowd, and it'll probably be even more lame when I realize the games at Vancouver aren't being televised because ESPN2 is running spelling bees and dog shoes in the same time slots.
Series tied 1-1.
Calgary basically clamped down on defense, neutralizing the Sedins (and Naslund, except for the goal), and keeping a lot of the Canucks shots far from the net.
The first Calgary goal came only 3:06 into the game, on a Jarome Iginla goal. On the play, Chris Simon (I saw this on SportsCenter afterward, so I had a visual) tied up Dan Cloutier's stick and swiveled him to his glove side, leaving the net wide open. Cloutier argued fruitlessly, but it was probably offset later in the game (more on that later).
The second and final Calgary goal came only 50 seconds later. Sami Salo was in front of his own net and somehow lost the puck in his equipment. Matt Lombardi used skills akin to the game of pinball to wait for the puck to come down as Salo had no idea where it was. Puck came down, Lombardi jumped on it, and put it in.
These two goals held up.
The Canucks' only tally was on a power play (didn't say that many times during the season), when Markus Naslund shot into a yawning net. However, like I said, this probably offset the Simon/Cloutier play because Ed Jovanovski definitely ran into Miikka Kiprusoff on the play, and definitely interfered with him on the play.
Another thing about interference...the refs physically were in bad positions on multiple occasions tonight. One play involved a Vancouver defensemen trying to race a Flame down the rink to ice the puck, but one of the officials screened off the Vancouver player and the Flames got the puck in the Vancouver zone. Not good.
The Canucks had their seven-game (regular season included) winning streak snapped. They had little to no scoring chances in the first half of the third period, but had a ton in the latter half of the third period, but buried none of them. Martin Rucinsky had the best chance, but shot wide of the net. The Canucks had many bounces go their way during the seven-game streak, but did not manage to get the extra bounce they needed tonight. This from a team that had an insane number of points this year when trailing after three periods.
As the buzzer sounded and I realized the Canucks probably just needed two more minutes of play to tally a goal with the pressure they were mounting, I could only react with one word...
F******************************(
I know Calgary is a tough team, I know this series isn't going to be a cake walk for eithe rteam (in my case, Vancouver), but really, one big long F-word is what I thought right afterward.
These NHL playoff games are just draining if you have a rooting interest. My goodness.
Here's the Dan/Tom/John notes...
Dan: that's playoff hockey
Tom: yeah it is...the games will be tight, hard-fought...I had a feeling Calgary would be tough...they got couple of early breaks...the Canucks were all over Calgary early...Calgary goes down once and gets one...Salo lost the puck in his equipment (advice: skate away from own goal or something), then Lombardi gets it...Calgary got 2-0 lead but could have been down 2-0 just as easily
Dan: there were still 57 mins left in the hockey game after the second Calgary goal
John: no one here thought Vancouver was out of it. Jovo bumps the goalie, goal scored, game is back on. Kiprusoff was good when had to be, but the Canucks didn't test him much in the first half of third period
Dan: I never thought the 2-0 goal would be the game winner
Tom: I didn't think the 2 goals would hold up either...Kiprusoff was good, but Vancouver has to have a finish...They need to bury as many chances as they can...Vancouver was short on the finish tonight...I didn't think Vancouver would sweep the series anyway...Calgary gets split, and will see starving hockey fans in Calgary
Dan: the Canucks have not scored an even-strength goal in this series..
John: that's been their bread and butter this year, now it's the opposite...the big difference was Calgary's defense that turned it around -- pucks in skates, players to outside...
Dan: a couple more minutes, and Vancouver may have tied it. Craig Conroy took every faceoff
Tom: what they did better was getting pucks and bodies to the net in the last half of the third...Vancouver was not a good team at retrieving pucks...Calgary made the right plays at the right times to get out of trouble...the Sedin line was held in check...
Dan: about the only thing Naslund did was score the goal
Tom: Calgary believes they're a better 5-on-5 team than Vancouver; they think they're harder working
Dan: the best chance was by Rucinsky
John: Rucinsky's got to start burying some of these chances; I thought he would get some confidence from the first game. If he would have scored there, that could have been it, and they could have forced OT
Dan: Kiprusoff was the 1st star...he was much better tonight (Jovanovski was 2, Iginla was 3)
Tom: Kiprusoff bounces back from poor efforts...he was bombed three times during the regular season (DET?, DAL, COL), but responded by allowing only one goal in the games following the bad games
Vancouver at Calgary on Sunday night. Amazingly, this will be televised stateside on ESPN2, as will the Tuesday game in Calgary. Of course, it would be a crime for ESPN to let the States to see the Vancouver crowd, and it'll probably be even more lame when I realize the games at Vancouver aren't being televised because ESPN2 is running spelling bees and dog shoes in the same time slots.
Series tied 1-1.
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