The Morning After: What Do You Mean Patrick Marleau Didn’t Score?
There were ten games on the ice last night with some exciting finishes including two shootouts and a hot dog incident. With that, let’s check out the morning after.
We’ll start in Boston where one particular hot dog took a beating last night. The poor hot dog was the victim of a classless act by one fan and the sad part is, the distraction didn’t work. Tyler Seguin scored on both attempts and the Bruins defeated the Devils 2-1 to remain unbeaten. Actually the Devils have yet to lose in regulation as well. Zach who? What really bothers me though is the fact that someone wasted a perfectly good hot dog.
The New York Rangers seemed to have turned the corner after their rough start by beating the lowly Philadelphia Flyers by a 2-1 margin. The win gives the blue shirts a .500 record at 3-3 while the Flyers drop to 2-5 on the season and are in desperate need of help given the rash of injuries they have. Could a deal be in the works to turn around the Flyers?
In Buffalo, the Maple Leafs scored the overtime winner with just over one second left, avoiding a shootout with the Sabres. Call it a band-aid win for the buds as they don’t appear to be a playoff bound team according to the Toronto media. Oh and by the way, Phil Kessel failed to score making it six games without a goal to start the year. That calls for a trade damnit.
It was the New York Islanders stunning the Pittsburgh Penguins last night by a 4-1 score. Pascal Dupuis ruined the shutout for Evgeni Nabokov with a late goal for the Pens, who fall to 3-3 with the loss. The .500 start by the Pens have a few hockey minds wondering what’s wrong with them. Is it them or are the Islanders not getting enough credit who improved to 3-2-1 on the year.
The Tampa Bay Lightning continue to roll while the Florida Panthers continue to slide. Two teams going in opposite directions met last night and it was the bolts skating away with a 5-2 win. For the cats it’s their fifth straight loss and it’s safe to say it’s panic mode for the Panthers.
Meanwhile, the Montreal Canadiens won their fourth straight without the services of P.K. Subban, clipping the Jets 4-3 at the Bell Centre. Subban is expected to suit up for the Habs this weekend and recently we looked at the idea that Subban may have ruined his welcome with the Canadiens’ players.
In Canada’s capital, the Ottawa Senators continued their fine play while the Washington Capitals continued their poor play. The Sens beat the hopeless Caps 5-2 bringing up doubts on whether Adam Oates is the guy to turn Ovechkin and crew around. The Caps have just one win on the season and only the Panthers are worse in the Eastern Conference.
For those of you who may have written off the Detroit Red Wings this season, think again. They beat the Dallas Stars 4-1 Tuesday and are now over .500 with a 3-2-1 record. This veteran team has too much talent to simply fold up shop and mail in the year because they lost Niklas Lidstrom.
The curious case of the Minnesota Wild continued Tuesday with a 3-2 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Wild, who have struggled to score consistently this season got goals from Mikko Koivu, Pierre-Marc Bouchard and Tom Gilbert. For the record the Wild sit atop the Northwest division.
Finally, in San Jose the Sharks remained undefeated thanks to a 3-2 shootout win over the Anaheim Ducks. But the bigger headline is that Patrick Marleau did not score in a game for the first time this season. Alert the presses, Marleau is in a slump! Seriously did we expect him to score 90 goals this year? Strangely enough, Marleau didn’t even shoot in the shootout.