Off Wing Opinion

Devils 3 Senators 2: Over in New Jersey, the Devils have just qualified for their third appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals in four years. Meanwhile, the New Jersey Nets, their co-tenants at the Continental Airlines Arena, have a 3-0 lead over the Detroit Pistons in the NBA Eastern Conference Finals, and are on the brink to returning to the NBA Finals for the second year in a row.

What do they have in common? Why Lou Lamoriello of course, the no-nonsense, bottom line major league sports executive that's led the Devils, and now the Nets, out of the professional sports wilderness. Plenty of people doubted that Lamoriello had what it took to jump-start an NBA franchise, but he's done just that -- even to the point of convincing the Nets principal owner that he had to trade Stephon Marbury for Jason Kidd.

Game One of the Stanley Cup Finals will be played Tuesday in New Jersey. Look for a Finals preview come sometime on Monday.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 24th, 2003 at 12:38 pm by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Senators 2 Devils 1, OT: The Senators deserved to win this one, and here's how it happened:

With a little more than four minutes remaining in OT, the Senators' Marian Hossa scoops up a rebound from a Scott Stevens slap shot in the defensive zone, and begins to stumble up the right wing side of the ice.

The aforementioned Stevens picks up Hossa at the blue line one on one. Hossa knows that he can't just blow by Stevens, a great positional defenseman who allows Hossa just enough room to skate, but not enough room to get by.

And here's where he makes a simple move and springs himself free. Hossa chips the puck past Stevens and up the right wing boards. But instead of simply chasing the puck and trying to outskate Stevens, Hossa takes a quick step back toward center ice.

Stevens, forgetting to play the puck, and not the man, takes a step back to the inside to block Hossa -- which is when Hossa, realizing Stevens has fallen for the deke, cuts back to the outside and up the right wing boards to pick up the puck.

Stevens is soon in hot pursuit, desperately straining to catch up with Hossa and strip him of the puck, but it's no use -- Hossa is a half stride ahead of Stevens all the way down the ice.

With a burst of speed, Hossa finally turns the corner on Stevens deep inside the faceoff circle to the left of Devils goalie Martin Brodeur. Hossa cuts the corner sharply, and drives to the net roughly parallel to the goal line.

And here's where the Devils make a second mistake.

While Hossa and Stevens were racing down the right wing side of the ice, the Devils other defenseman, Colin White, has been doing his job shadowing Ottawa forward Vaclav Varada. But once he sees Hossa turn the corner on Stevens, he leaves Varada to join Stevens in a vain attempt to strip Hossa of the puck before he reaches Brodeur.

Varada is all alone, driving to the net.

And that's where Hossa finds him with a one-handed centering pass. Shot, save Brodeur, rebound, shot, score.

See you in Ottawa Friday night.

Series tied, 3-3.

CORRECTION: It was Devils defenseman Colin White who was on the ice for the OT goal, not Brian Rafalski:

"I shouldn't have gone over into Scotty's side of the ice," White said. "The guy (Hossa) was driving wide. Scotty had him and I went into his lane to hit Hossa. It's my fault and I blame myself."

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2003 at 12:35 am by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Senators 3 Devils 1: Two seasons ago, the New York Islanders made two trades desinged to raise the team from the depths of the NHL -- a place where they had more or less dwelled on an ongoing basis since the early 1990s. On draft day 2001, beleaguered Islanders general manager Mike Milbury dealt gritty forward Bill Muckalt, defenseman Zdeno Chara and the Islanders first round draft pick to the Ottawa Senators for the talented and tempermental center, Alexi Yashin.

Along with the deal Milbury made to acquire Yashin, he made another to grab Buffalo Sabres center Michael Peca, giving the Islanders strength up the middle they had lacked since their Stanley Cup run in the early 1980s.

After a spectaculr rise during the 2001-02 season, the Islanders drifted back to the pack in 2002-03 -- in part due to a sub par performance in the regular season by Yashin.

Now, I'm not suggesting that the trade is a bust for the Islanders. Know this, though: to get something, you have to give up something. Because it's only now that we're beginning to understand what the Islanders gave up.

Chara, along with Wade Redden and Chris Phillips, has helped solidify the team's blue line. It certainly hasn't hurt that the immense Chara has seemed to develop a real mean streak in his game since arriving in Ottawa.

Muckalt now struggles for ice time in Minnesota. But it's that draft pick that was the real wild card -- and last night the Senators turned it over.

That draft pick was Jason Spezza, a player that was widely touted as the top pick in the 2001 NHL Entry Draft from the time he was 15 years old. It was only the emergence of Ilya Kovalchuk that pushed Spezza to number two, where the Senators were happy to grab him.

Unlike Kovalchuk, who the Thrashers immediately rushed to the NHL, the Senators have brought Spezza along slowly, keeping him with his junior team in 2001-02, and in the minors for most of this season. As loaded as the Senators are up front, they could afford to bring Spezza along slowly. Still, in even limited duty with the club this year, he had 21 points in 33 games -- more than respectable for a rookie playing part-time.

Facing elimination against the Devils last night, the Senators recalled Spezza from the minors and gave the team the boost it needed, grabbing a goal and assisting on the game winner by Martin Havlat. It was the first time in seven tries in franchise history that the Senators had won a playoff game when facing elimination.

Something tells me Spezza will be back for Game Six. And he won't be going back to the minors again, ever.

Devils lead series, 3-2.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 20th, 2003 at 10:13 am by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

My apologies to everyone who might have stopped by on Saturday for the Roundup. It was a long day, as I joined a number of my friends up in Baltimore at Pimlico for a day at the races that culminated with the 128th running of the Preakness Stakes. I'll have some thoughts on my experience at the track later on tonight, but for now, let's turn back to this weekend's games.

Ducks 2 Wild 1: The Wild finally scored a goal, snapping J.S. Giguere's scoreless streak at 217 minutes and 54 seconds. Heck, they even had a lead for a little while, as gutty Andrew Brunette scored on a first period power play.

Not that it mattered a damn, as Adam Oates scored twice (and nearly had a hat trick) to help the Ducks come from behind for the 2-1 win, and a 4-0 series sweep. Giguere stopped 122 of 123 shots in the series, compiling an insane .992 save percentage. Now he and the Ducks will get a few days off before taking a transcontinental flight to either Newark or Ottawa for the first trip to the Finals in the franchise's history.

For some reason that escapes me now, I picked the Wild to win this series in seven games. In retrospect, how in the world could I pick against a team that disposed of the top two seeds in the Western Conference without much trouble -- especially when the Wild endured back-to-back seven game series to claw it's way to the third round?

One good sign for Anaheim: following the game, Ducks captain Paul Kariya was awarded the Clarence Campbell Bowl, and has now become tradition, he refused to touch it. Why? The current superstition now holds that any team that even touches the tropy they win for the Conference Championship (with the Campbell Bowl or the Prince of Wales Trophy in the East), won't win the Stanley Cup. It's just another nice touch that makes ice hockey the greatest sport on earth.

Ducks win series, 4-0.

Devils 5 Senators 2: The Devils win to take a 3-1 lead in the series. John Madden scored a shorthanded goal for the Devils, but you knew that already, didn't you?

Until the end of the second period, this was a game that the Senators were more or less dominating -- that was, until Jay Pandolo scored at the end of the second period to tie the game at 2. The Devils scored again on a power play that carried over from the second period into the third, as they slammed the door on the Senators again. In this playoff, the difference for the Devils has been their play in the final stanza, as teams that managed to stay close through two periods had their hopes dashed consistently in the third period.

As well as the Devils have been playing, there's one piece of news buried in the wins that hasn't grabbed too much attention: the apparent end of the career of Devils stalwart, Ken Daneyko. Before this season, Daneyko had appeared in every Devils playoff game in the team's history. But this year, Daneyko has been a healthy scratch four times, including the last three straight games against the Senators -- a team that simply has too much speed for him to handle.

I can't imagine him getting into another game in this series, and have to wonder out loud about his potential appearance in a Stanley Cup Final either. If the Devils do close this out Monday in Ottawa, one last chance at Lord Stanley would be a great way for the 20-year veteran to close things out.

Devils lead series, 3-1.

POSTSCRIPT: Joe Thornton, who assaulted Bruins fans with his sub par play in the postseason this Spring, was arrested for assaulting a police officer in Ontario. Eight others, including Thornton's brother, were arrested in connection with a bar fight.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 18th, 2003 at 12:26 pm by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Devils 1 Senators 0: The Devils slipped out to a 2-1 series lead on a solid defensive effort, but the focus of the chatter after the game was the goal that didn't count. Let's go back to the first period:

It happened just 1:22 after Brylin scored. Jay Pandolfo beat goalie Patrick Lalime off a quick pass play with Jamie Langenbrunner in front. Langenbrunner raised his arms and the crowd cheered, but the goal light didn't come on. Veteran referee Kerry Fraser, who was positioned in the right corner, did not see the puck go into the net.

"I was kind of in disbelief," Pandolfo said. "I could have sworn I saw it go through his legs."

Replays courtesy of ESPN's goal-cam supported Pandolfo's claim; they showed the puck go under Lalime as he did a split, then ricochet off the right base pipe and back under Lalime. During a 36-second delay in action the goal was reviewed independently in the video booth. But Fraser wasn't awaiting a video replay decision. By the time the goal-cam angle was seen, the puck had been dropped to resume play.

And, as the NHL rule book states, once the puck is dropped to resume play, video replay cannot overturn the referee's decision on a disputed goal. Later, the NHL announced that they had goofed.

Game Four is Saturday afternoon in New Jersey. With last night's win, the Devils remain undefeated at home during the playoffs (7-0). With last night's tight defensive effort, it looks as if New Jersey is taking control in this series.

Devils lead series, 2-1.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 16th, 2003 at 11:48 am by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Ducks 4 Wild 0: First, the bad news for Minnesota. J.S. Giguere posted his third straight playoff shutout, and hasn't let up a goal now in 213 minutes and 17 seconds. The last goal he did give up was in the third period of Game Six in a second round series against the Stars.

He's only 35:15 from breaking the NHL playoff record set by Detroit's Nonnie Smith in 1936. It's one thing when a team or individual breaks a record that was set in the post-expansion era that began in 1967. It's quite another when a record is broken from the era of the Original Six. But a record from before WWII?

Forget Nonnie Smith (as the Web seems to have), we're in serious Orel Hershiser territory here.

Safe to say, things are not moving Minnesota's way.

So what's the good news? Actually, there isn't any. There's just more bad news: the Ducks' Paul Kariya, the only name superstar left in this bracket of the playoffs, seems to have awakened from his post season slumber -- scoring twice in the second period.

The Ducks are now 11-2 in the playoffs, and their appearance in a first Stanley Cup Final, is all but assured. Now, they'll lay in wait for the winner of the Senators-Devils series, most likely with plenty of rest. In fact, they'll probably have enough time to travel to the city of the Eastern Conference winner a little early so as to mitigate the effects of a cross-continental flight.

Not that they'll need it terribly, as at that point they'll probably have played 2-3 games fewer over the course of the playoffs than their opponent in the Finals.

By the way, this team is for sale, with Disney ready to sell at a loss.

Ducks lead series, 3-0.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2003 at 6:33 am by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Devils 4 Senators 1: Tuesday night is bad for playoff hockey viewing. With things winding down on Buffy and 24 (rather mercifully in the case of the latter), I wasn't able to tune in until well into the third period. By that time, the Devils had already done their damage.

Quite predictably, John Madden scored a goal just as an Ottawa power play expired -- a score that gave the Devils a lead only minutes after Ottawa had tied it up.

Two playoff firsts for Ottawa: it was the first time the Senators lost a game when scoring a goal (their previous three playoff loses came by shutout); and it was the first time goalie Patrick Lalime had given up more than three goals in a game -- and only the second time he yielded more than two.

The series heads back to New Jersey for Games Three and Four, where the Devils are undefeated (6-0) in this playoff year.

Series tied, 1-1.

POSTSCRIPT: Brad Hudson of The Hockey Pundits has a nice summary of the lessons we've learned so far from the 2003 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2003 at 6:16 pm by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Ducks 2 Wild 0: You can't win if you can't score. And if Dallas and Detroit had trouble scoring against J.S. Giguere in the first two rounds, you can imagine what it must be like for the Minnesota Wild, a team with far fewer offensive weapons. Two shorthanded goals later, and Anaheim was headed home with a 2-0 series lead.

Not that Minnesota should mind all that much. They're 2-4 at the Xcel Energy Center in the postseason, but 6-2 on the road. And after the way I've seen them play in the first two rounds, I'm pretty confident they won't give up trying to put a puck past Giguere. As Steve Ovaida said, this series matches the irresistable force (Wild) against the immovable object (Giguere).

Ducks lead series, 2-0.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2003 at 5:42 pm by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

What a start to the conference finals: two OT matches that ended in exciting fashion.

Ducks 1 Wild 0, 2OT: J.S. Giguere stopped 39 shots as the Wild dominated the scoring chances all afternoon (and into the evening) long. The game hinged on two mistakes that occurred just seconds after one another in the second OT.

First, Wild defenseman Filip Kuba was "pinching" in from the point, in order to keep posession of the puck, and keep the Ducks trapped in their defensive zone. Depending on where you are in the game, "pinching" can be a good calculated risk for a defenseman -- especially if your team is behind a goal or two. Unfortunately, if you fail to gain and keep posession of the puck, you often create an odd man rush for the other team -- and that's exactly what happened yesterday.

Ducks center Adam Oates chipped the puck up the boards, past Kuba, where it was picked up by a streaking Mike Leclerc. Coming up the center of the ice was Ducks winger Petr Sykora, creating a 2-on-1 breakaway against the Wild's Lubomir Sekeras.

Then there was the second mistake. One of the early lessons you learn in hockey as a defenseman concerns this very situation. On the 2-on-1 breakaway, the defenseman takes the responsibility for cutting off the pass, and forcing the puck carrier to shoot. Instead, Sekeras closed on Leclerc, who threaded a pass to Sykora as he's skated in all alone on Wild goalie Manny Fernandez. A moment later, it was time to go home.

Ducks lead series, 1-0.

Senators 3 Devils 2, OT: Didn't get to watch this one, as I was out at a party until the wee hours of Sunday morning. One thing I couldn't help but notice: the Senators usually cruise to victory when they get an early lead, and yet they still needed an extra period to put away the Devils.

Senators lead series, 1-0.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 11th, 2003 at 5:45 pm by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Wild 5 Canucks 1: With the Wild leading 2-0 in the third period, I stepped out of my house for a few minutes to make a quick run to 7-11. By the time I came back about ten minutes later, the Wild were leading 5-1, forcing their front office to charter a return flight to Vancouver for Game Seven.

Hence, we're one game away from a Western Conference Final matching the Wild and the Ducks -- a prospect that cheers few outside of those who work for Eddie Bauer or LL Bean.

Then again, there may be some interesting sponsor tie-ins: The NHL Western Conference Final brought to you by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Outside Magazine, and Coleman Lamps.

On the "serious" side, the Wild have beaten on the Canucks by a combined score of 12-3 over the past two games. If they win tonight in Vancouver, they'll not only become the first team in NHL history to come back from 3-1 deficits twice in the same playoff year, they'll also have done it when forced to play Games Six and Seven on consecutive nights in both series.

Whether or not Minnesota wins tonight, they have a pretty serious beef with the schedule makers at NHL HQ in New York. Not that they'll be complaining anytime soon if they manage to win.

Series tied, 3-3.

UPDATE: To answer Ted at Women's Hoops, yes, I believe the Wild will win tonight.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2003 at 1:45 pm by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Clearly, my powers of prognostication are simply not up to snuff. Instead of Vancouver closing out Minnesota, it's now the only second round series that isn't over yet. Remember, predictions made here are for amusement purposes only, and should never, ever, be used as the basis for an actual wager, legal or otherwise.

Senators 5 Flyers 1: I really wanted to watch this game last night, but instead I had to present an academic award to a deserving high school kid from Bethesda, Md. Sitting on the auditorium stage at Walter Johnson High School (when I have kids, I want to send them to places like the Terry O'Reilly Middle School, or the Adam Oates High School for Science) it was funny and terrifying all at the same time to realize that I was creeping up on my own 20th high school reunion.

By the time I made my way back to Virginia, and sat down in a local bar to grab some dinner, the Senators already had a 2-0 lead. When my glass of Chianti arrived, it was 3-0; and before I finished my dinner, 4-0.

How could such a talented, veteran squad go down to defeat so easily on home ice in an elimination game? Flyers goalie Roman Cechmanek was only part of the problem (though he's finished as a starter in Philly anyway), as the team went 0-17 on the power play, and conceded two shorthanded goals to Ottawa over the course of the series. Players like Mark Recchi, Jeremy Roenick and Tony Amonte all came up small; but worst of all, John LeClair was all but invisible.

If you're Flyers GM Bobby Clarke, you've got some explaining to do to onwer Ed Snyder. For starters, you need a new goalie. And then you have to figure out how to pare down a payroll that isn't getting it done in the postseason.

On the bright side, if you're a pre-petition creditor of the Ottawa Senators, the chances of re-couping more of your investment has increased dramatically.

Senators win series, 4-2.

Wild 7 Canucks 2: I know I picked the Canucks to go to the Finals, but somewhere deep inside me I can't help but root for the Wild -- a team now bidding to become the only team to rally from two 3-1 deficits to win a playoff series. How can you not love a team that scores seven times on enemy ice while facing elimination? Talk about playing without fear. Now the Canucks have to go back to Minnesota for Game Six on Wednesday. If the series is pushed to a Game Seven, it'll be played on Thursday night in Vancouver -- the same back-to-back format we saw in the Avalanche-Wild series.

BTW -- if the Wild manage to win this series, they'll actually enjoy home ice advantage over the Ducks in the Western Conference Final. Amazing.

Canucks lead series, 3-2.

Ducks 4 Stars 3: I knew the Stars didn't have enough juice to get to the Finals, I just didn't know it was the Ducks who would play them to a standstill. Say what you will about the playoffs, but you're insane if you don't at least watch the third period of every playoff game -- you're liable to miss something. Last night's third period had three lead changes, two goals reviewed, and one disallowed -- a decision that is liable to cause a few changes in league meetings during the offseason. Bottom line: the Stars got jobbed, and this series ought to still be going on right now.

Funny, but at the end of the game, the Stars had the same sort of stunned look on their faces that I remember the Red Wings had after dropping their series to the Ducks in the first round.

Then again, so did I.

Ducks win series, 4-2.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 6th, 2003 at 12:29 pm by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Senators 5 Flyers 2: Ah yes, another piece in the human puzzle that is Flyers goalie Roman Cechmanek disappears. Play one game like Terry Sawchuck; play another game like Darren Pang. One interesting point made by Colby Cosh -- Flyers coach Ken Hitchcock seems to be the master of the line change, something that came back to bite him when the Senators scored their first goal:

For the first seven minutes of the game he [Hitchcock] always seemed to have fresh legs out there because he's willing to take players off at the strangest junctures in the action: not for Hitch is the habit of leaving the trailing defenceman to revolve in lazy circles while inbound and outbound players bustle about changing places on the bench. He puts huge, huge stock in counterpunching, and will use those line changes to sneak a guy behind the defence unseen. His team's quality of relying on defensive mistakes is so extreme that Philadelphia never does seem to carry the puck out of its own end all the way into Ottawa's.

But--as I say, about seven minutes in--Hitch's clever-clever line changes broke his team's back. With the Flyers up 1-0, something went screwy, there was a traffic jam at the Philly bench, and Bryan Smolinski raced to open ice unfettered and popped a slapper past Cechmanek high on the glove side. Yeah, it was deflected very slightly by a Flyer defender's stick, but only by about two degrees: lots of goalies would have made the stop.

My contention is that Cechmanek actually is the sort of goalie that makes that stop -- but only every other game, a percentage that, more often than not, will sink your team in the playoffs. My money is still on Philadelphia to win this series. At the least, they'll win Game Six back in Philadelphia, and force a Game Seven back in Ottawa.

Senators lead series, 3-2.

Stars 4 Ducks 1: Twice in the regular season the Dallas Stars chased Ducks goalie J.S. Giguere from the net to the bench. They did it again yesterday, as the Stars extended their series to a sixth game back in Anaheim.

For anyone who has watched or played the game of hockey with any passion, one of the game's axioms is that there isn't a more dangerous situation than a two-goal lead. For the team that holds the lead, that is. If your team lets up, or makes a mistake, suddenly you're in a dog fight. Perhaps in the playoffs, it's far past time to say that there isn't any more dangerous lead in a series than a two-game lead -- in partcular, a 3-1 lead. Maybe it's because I've seen the Washington Capitals blow more two-game leads than I care to remember, but I still think Dallas is going to come back and win this series.

Excuse me, not think they'll win, I know they'll win.

Ducks lead series, 3-2.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 4th, 2003 at 1:34 pm by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Devils 2 Lightning 1, 3OT: How screwy is the NHL playoff system? Screwy enough, that the second seeded New Jersey Devils were matched up against the Lightning in the second round; meanwhile, top seeded Ottawa is still stuck in a steel-cage match with Philadelphia in the remaining Eastern Conference series. It's all courtesy of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman's last league re-alignment that created a third division in each conference. Hence, the Lightning, which finished the regular season with a whopping 93 points and a Southeast Division title, are seeded higher than the Flyers, who finished with 14 more points over the course of the regular season. So much for the value of the highest seed, which Ottawa took in the East over New Jersey by five points.

By the way, Grant Marshall won this game in the third OT after nearly missing the bus to the arena. Don't blame the driver; before the playoffs started, I had forgotten what team Marshall was playing for too.

Devils win series, 4-1

Canucks 3 Wild 2, OT: In this playoff year, all the Minnesota Wild really needed was a lead heading into the third period, and they would get the victory. They had their lead heading into the third last night, but they didn't get the win. Instead, we got another exciting third period of hockey, culminating in Ed Jovanowski's game-tying goal with a little more than two minutes to go. In the OT, the Canucks took advantage of a rare double minor penalty, and got the game-winner on a slapshot from Brent Sopel.

By the way, Sopel is starting to look like Chris Simon circa 1998 with his hairstyle.

Down 3 games to 1, it's clear the Wild have Vancouver right where they want them.

Canucks lead series, 3-1.

This afternoon, we've got Stars-Ducks from Dallas, and Senators-Flyers from Ottawa. Something tells me the Ducks won't be able to close out the Stars in Dallas.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 3rd, 2003 at 12:01 pm by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Flyers 1 Senators 0: Not a whole lot to say here, especially when the difference in the game is just one freak deflection off of the stick of Flyer Michael Handzus -- a shot Senators goalie Patrick Lalime couldn't ever have hoped to stop. We shift back to Ottawa for Game Five on Sunday.

Series tied, 2-2.

As for the rest of the schedule, things are starting to look a little cock-eyed for the next few days. Because ABC needs to have two regional games to broadcast on Saturday, both the Duck-Stars and Canucks-Wild series are taking an extra day off -- a change that might eventually mean both series might have to play a potential Game Six and Seven on back to back nights.

The only game on the schedule tonight is Game Five of the Devils-Lightning series, as New Jersey tries to close out another series in only five games. I have no doubts that they'll do just that. I've been thinking over some of the things I said about Scott Stevens' departure from Washington back in 1990, and I ought to have more to say over the weekend.

UPDATE: Some interesting items over at Puck Update: the plane carrying the Senators back home to Ottawa last night was forced to return to Philadelphia after an engine blew out after takeoff. Luckily, no one was hurt.

On the less imporant side of the ledger, the Canadian Broadcast Company and ESPN Canadian subsidiary TSN are locked in a death struggle over NHL broadcast rights for the remainder of the regular season.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 2nd, 2003 at 10:18 am by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Devils 3 Lightning 1: Showing no ill-effects from the puck that struck him in the left ear on Monday night, Scott "Van Gogh" Stevens scored a goal and led the Devils to victory in Tampa. As great as Jamie Langenbrunner and John Madden might be playing in this playoff, it's clear that Stevens remains the rock of the Devils franchise. He's been an integral part of two Stanley Cup winners (1995, 2000), and has proven over the course of his career that he's a franchise player.

It's important to remember just how Stevens ended up in a Devils uniform. He broke into the league in the 1982-83 season here in Washington, coming to town with the reputation of being the complete package -- a defenseman who could score as well as hit. Perhaps his greatest season in Washington was the 1984-85 campaign where he scored 21 goals (16 on the power play), and racked up 221 penalty minutes -- not all of them exactly worthwhile.

The highlight of his Capitals career came during the 1990 Stanley Cup Playoffs. It was that year that Stevens helped lead the team to the Eastern Conference Finals against the Boston Bruins. For the Caps, it was the first time they had advanced out of the second round of the playoffs, and at the time was easily considered the best season in the history of the team.

But for Stevens, the good times in Washington were rapidly coming to an end. Only a few days after the Bruins swept the Caps from the playoffs, the team enjoyed a post-season party in downtown Washington, D.C. to celebrate their success. It's what happened after the party that helped end Stevens' stint in Washington.

After the game, Stevens, along with fellow defenseman Neil Sheehy, and forwards Geoff Courtnall and Dino Cicirelli, climbed into a limo for some late-night fun. We also know that sometime during the course of the evening that, an unidentified woman encountered the four.

As to what happened next, nobody really knows for sure. What we do know, is that woman contacted D.C. police and claimed that she had been sexually assaulted over the course of the evening. Though no charges were ever filed, all four players were shipped out of Washington over the course of the next year, with Stevens leaving only four months later.

In the offseason, when the St. Louis Blues signed Stevens to a free agent contract that the Caps had the right to match, Caps owner Abe Pollin and GM David Polie decided to let him go. As compensation for losing Stevens, the Capitals received five first round draft picks in compensation. Though it sounds great, only two of those draft picks (Sergei Gonchar, Brendan Witt) made any sort of impact with the Caps. In light of what Stevens has achieved since, one has to rank it as one of the greatest mistakes in Capitals history.

His stay in St. Louis, however, would be painfully brief. Back in the early 1990s, the Blues front office was awfully aggressive on the free agent front, and after the 1990-91 season, it signed then-New Jersey Devils winger Brendan Shanahan to another free agent contract. But on September 3, 1991, an arbitrator awarded Stevens to the Devils as compensation for signing away Shanahan. Back then, a team could choose between being awarded draft picks or players as compensation for losing a free agent, and it should be clear now that Devils GM Lou Lamirello made the right call. Don't feel too bad for the Blues. Eventually, they traded an unhappy Shanahan to Hartford for Stevens clone, Chris Pronger.

Though his offensive skills have gradually eroded over the last decade, Stevens remains one of the hardest hitters, and best positional defenseman in the game today. And five years after he retires, the Hockey Hall of Fame will open its doors to him eagerly.

Devils lead series, 3-1.

Ducks 1 Stars 0: Mike Leclerc is an anonymous and easily interchangeable NHL winger. For his career, he is a collective -47 over his seven years in the NHL, all with the Ducks. Yet, during this playoff, Leclerc has not one, but two game winning goals. The first came in Game Two of this series with the Stars, as he scored on an Adam Oates pass in OT. The second came last night with only 1:47 remaining in the game, breaking a scoreless tie.

How and why does someone like Leclerc get to be an NHL hero? Well, somebody has to score eventually when two goalies like J.S. Giguere and Marty Turco get together -- so why not Leclerc? That the Stars have allowed him to beat them twice in this series is a crime. Despite being down 3-1, and needing to win three straight, the Stars do have Games Five and Seven at home. This series isn't over yet.

Ducks lead series, 3-1.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2003 at 11:01 am by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.