Devils vs. Flyers, 01/04/08

We’re super-giddy tonight because we’re watching the game with Katebits, who, still invigorated by meeting Staffy and Crunchy and attending the Ice Bowl, hopped in her car on an impulse this morning to visit stately IPB Manor. So, while we’re going to try to keep a good game diary, we can’t promise we won’t lose focus midway through while collapsing in fits of giggles while discussing things like whether Soupy wears his sweater when he goes to Blockbuster in hopes of being recognized, and whether Pookie’s Zach Goggles are blinding her to the real quality of his play.

The biggest news we notice during the pregame is that Patty’s back from his groin injury, but has given himself an out by saying that he’s healthier than before, but not quite 100% per se. Sigh.

FIRST PERIOD

18:23 We are horrified to discover Paulie is skating with Oduya here on his first shift. First he loses his A, now this… Does Sutter hate him?

17:35 Marty makes an awkward glove save, then drops the puck in his feet with a Flyer standing literally on top of him. Then the Flyer shoves Marty over repeatedly, jostling the puck loose while somehow not getting penalized, but Greener is on the ball enough to get to the rebound and clear it.

16:49 Downie gets called for hooking on an infraction against the fourth line after some modest offensive-zone pressure.

14:49 Disappointed that they snapped their power play drought, the Devils start a new one.

12:52 We are doing a terrible job of watching this game closely. Right now we’re comparing notes between the AmazingLeague and the SuperLeague. It seems the FancyBits are not a very good team, in case you’re wondering.

12:30 As the teams trade decent chances, Katebits notes that we always seem to be watching the Flyers playing the Devils when we’re in the same place. We spend a gloomy moment remembering the beatdown the Flyers gave the Devils early this year when we were in Buffalo.

10:16 WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Paulie has been jumping up so much tonight, repeatedly darting down the goal line as if he really, really wants to get that 100th career point. Well it pays off on this play, with Zubrus drifting into the crease and then getting pinned there by Coburn so that Biron can’t follow Paulie’s power move, and PaulieMartinNation absolutely loses its mind when he buries the puck to make it 1-0 Devils. FSN then treats us to a long look at an elated Paulie on the bench; Pookie and Schnookie think he looks adorable, laughing and smiling and being happy with breaking the 100 points, but Boomer and Katebits suggest he looks like he has no teeth. To illustrate her point, Katebits even mimes how he would gum his food. She is now making the long and lonely drive back to Buffalo.

10:10 We end up falling a bit behind when we pause for our pizza delivery. While loading up our plates, Boomer suggests that Soupy could do a commercial for Paulie’s toothlessness condition: “Do you suffer from excessive toothlessness?”

9:14 The Devils get called for too many men. Doc is utterly baffled by which team this is on because the Flyers have the puck when the whistle is blown.

8:33 What the fuck? We look up from our pizza to see the Devils on a shorthanded three-on-one. Mottau’s shot is blocked by Timonen. When Chico telestrates how the play happened, he points to Marty’s outlet pass by saying he “hangs a candy out there”. Right. Of course. That’s exactly how we were going to describe it.

6:39 Doc goes to great and florid lengths to tell us all the players out on the ice for both teams, and as soon as he finishes he sighs that they’re all now changing. We love that he sounds just the tiniest bit peeved, as if he’s wondering, “Why do I even bother?”

5:55 Zach tries to bank a shot in from behind the net, but doesn’t come close to scoring. Pookie informs the room that her Zach goggles are so well in place that she now firmly believes it’s 2-0 Devils.

5:38 Langer gets called for hooking, and replay shows that he really got his money’s worth on it, hugely hooking a Flyer all the way up the rink and then all the way back the other way. Nice, Langer.

3:32 Marty makes his umpteenth great save on some scrambling shots in front, and Madden takes a hooking minor on the rebound. Before the penalty is announced, though, Chico tells us it was on “White. Zajac. Brylin.” Pookie says it’s the play-by-play equivalent of the French teacher she had in middle school who allowed her students one opportunity a year to not actually put the accents on any letters on quizzes, but instead to list all possible accents at the top of the sheet and say, “Insert as necessary.”

2:40 Lupul gets called for unsportsmanlike conduct for something we don’t notice, but Patty is every which kind of pissy about it and gets as much of a shot in at him as he can without getting penalized. It’s almost like he’s trying to tell us, “‘Captain Hugs’ this!”

2:29 WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dogs and cats are living together! Travis receives a gift from Coburn when the Flyers D falls over just inside the Flyers blue line and coughs up the puck. Travis then skates in alone on Biron, rips a little shot that it looks like Biron stops, and then suddenly we realize the puck dropped in behind him and over the line. It’s the rarest rare sighting of them all – an acorn! 2-0 Devils (or 3-0 by Pookie’s Zach Goggles count).

0:23 Briere gets called for a ridiculously ticky-tacky hooking infraction. We are distracted by trying to decide which Devil we’d rather see interviewed at the start of the intermission, Travis or Paulie.

0:00 We get Travis. He is now sporting the Scott Clemmensen haircut instead of the floppy-haired Waldorf look we love so well. It kind makes him look… less cute. This is going to take some getting used to.

FIRST INTERMISSION

Some random “celebrity” dude shows up to be interviewed after having participated in a ceremonial puck drop at the start of the game. We take this opportunity to catch up on the live feed.

SECOND PERIOD

17:57 During a stoppage after a Devils offsides, Chico mentions that there are a lot of Flyers fans in the building, but they’re a bit quiet now, after having been boisterous before the game started. He says it in that sweet Chico way, but still, it delights us.

16:23 Cote gets called for some kind of infraction against some Devil (no one involved in the broadcast has any idea), and we get to see Mottau looking like he was the guy who suffered the brunt of the penalty. He goes to speak to Whitey about it, and the two stop their forward trajectories by bumping into each other. Pookie: “This is why I couldn’t be a hockey player. Could you imagine if your coworkers bumped into you every time they walked up to you to chat?”

15:43 After a staggeringly ineffectual start to the power play, Mottau ends up having to hook Carter on a shorthanded mini-break.

14:49 Pookie tears off her Zach Goggles and smashes them to smithereens after he completely shanks a perfect on-the-doorstep set-up by Paulie at the tail end of a short two-on-one play.

13:35 Marty makes a fantastic toe save on a lightning-fast shot from Briere in the slot after a long delay on a penalty call against the Devils. The replay shows that the penalty is on Madden for touching a Flyer with one hand up at the point. The officials tonight are raising the concept of “ticky-tacky” to new heights, but Pookie points out she’s not complaining that none of this game has been at even strength “because it means Rupp isn’t getting any ice time.”

12:04 When Briere wipes out on a loose stick next to the crease, Doc says, “This is like Angels In The Outfield for the Flyers, but in reverse.” Chico cracks up, then adds, “It’s not funny for the Flyers, though.” Hee!

9:41 We come back from commercial to see a Chuck The Duck montage with a banner title announcing “Duckmail Coming Soon!” The montage concludes with a shot of Chuck being outfitted with a newly-rolled cigar, and then carried away from the cigar-rolling table by two beautiful women. Does it even need to be mentioned that we adore Chuck The Duck?

8:28 Stan reports that Travis was slashed on the thumb after a goalmouth scrum, but then reports that he “thinks” Travis isn’t on the bench. Thanks, Stan, for being so sure that there’s an injury to report when reporting an injury. Doc then counts the guys on the bench and concludes the Devils are, in fact, two players short.

8:27 Another Flyer gets called for a penalty, this time for holding, and Chico has no idea whether the Devils are going on a power play or if this is four-on-four.

7:11 WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The power play engages in some zippy little passes, the penalty kill stands around hoping the Devils won’t try pursuing loose pucks, and Patty ends up burying his own rebound (after drifting unimpeded diagonally down the entire width of the zone with Hatcher passively watching the whole time) to make this 3-0 Devils. Paulie gets an assist, and Pookie announces, “Paulie’s never going to not score again!”

5:18 We come back from commercial to see the Zapruder film of Travis’ finger injury, and after watching it once, Chico concludes that he “broke a fingernail” on the sequence. Um, right. A second viewing of the incident leaves us all confused. Pookie wonders if Hatcher bit Travis, and as we make fun of the thought of a guy leaving a game for a broken fingernail, she optimists, “I bet his entire thumbnail just came off, he’s gotten a horrible staph infection, and will miss the rest of the season.”

2:46 How did that not go in? Katebits has her Madden Goggles on and is convinced his shot that banged off the post went in. Twice. She insists it’s 5-0 now.

2:23 Vandermeer takes offense to Gio skating down the wing and shooting on Biron, and in the ensuing bitch-slapping Gio tries to kick Vandermeer into submission, then Pelley flies in to his smurfen colleague’s defense. Vandermeer and Pelley get the matching minors.

0:53 The Devils are playing like they also had Katebits’ Madden Goggles on and think it’s 5-0 (she insists now that it would be 10-0 if he’d buried that shot). Marty has to make about 6,000 saves while the Flyers skate with impunity in the Devils zone while the rest of his teammates think the period has already ended.

0:38 Hatcher finds the process of skating the puck near the boards too much to handle, and he opts to just shovel the puck out to Zach in the high slot. Briere then pounds Zach face-first into the ice with a crosscheck to the back of his neck, and the Devils get back to the power play. FSN tells us the call is for delay of game. We posit that perhaps “delay of game” comes up right next to “cross-checking” in the drop-down menu on the FSN graphics screen.

0:00 We get an interview with Patty, and in typical Patty fashion, he sounds surprised at his own dumb luck that he scored while watching the replay of his goal. He also barely suppresses the impulse to roll his eyes after telling Stan how to say “welcome back” in Czech.

SECOND INTERMISSION

We don’t listen to the intermission because there’s no Duckmail. Schnookie was fully expecting to see Duckmail tonight, and she is wistful and not a small bit crushed when Pookie explains that the “Coming Soon” made it sound like a feature that will be introduced in later games. That blows.

THIRD PERIOD

“Chico Eats” tonight is a cheesesteak from “On The Boardwalk”; Chico demonstrates how to stuff nearly half of an entire cheesesteak into your mouth at once, and then narrates all the poor manners he demonstrated in the clip. Included in his list of transgressions is “talking with my mouth full. That’s a no-no.” He also discusses how the cheesesteak was “a flavor explosion in my mouth”.

Travis is also back on the bench, looking very adorable and pleased with himself. From half-listening to the chit-chat between Doc and Chico, we think he lost an entire fingernail.

18:02 Doc, in discussing the possibility of hockey players wearing “acrylics”, sounds very familiar with the process of manicures and false fingernails. Pookie remarks that, for all our laughing at how this is being discussed by our broadcast team, if Travis lost an entire fingernail and his full response was to look at it casually, then turn to the official and calmly display it, he’s pretty damn tough. Schnookie: “Or he took a lot of greenies tonight, and turned to the official and said, ‘I’m going to feel that in about six hours. WOOOOOOOO!’”

17:12 Pookie, thinking back to the way it looked like Hatcher bit Travis, says, “I’m imagining Hatcher, a few hours from now…” She then makes some hacking noises and mimes hacking up a furball. Boomer, “Yeah, he’s going to hack up the nail and then add it to his collection.” Pookie: “He strings them onto a necklace.”

16:35 Stan delivers the much anticipated report on “Tray-vis, um, Zajac”: he “split a finger.” The whole thing?

12:31 We are off on a tangent about Soupy wandering Buffalo in full uni, and realize four minutes have passed and we haven’t been paying attention. We suddenly wish, Gentle Reader, we were podcasting this, because we think it would make great listening to hear us all shrieking and shouting over each other.

10:06 Brylin crashes Pando-esquely into the end boards after wiping out on a two-on-one.

9:06 Clarkson carries the puck down on a long two-on-one with Patty, and opts to shoot. He hits Biron square in the Flyers logo, and Schnookie grumps, “I don’t agree with his decision-making process there.”

9:02 We go to commercial with Schnookie and Pookie arguing about whether Zach scrapbooks. Pookie: “He doesn’t! Okay, yes he does, but with his own fingernail clippings. He’s a very gifted outsider artist.”

8:10 We can’t stop talking about Travis’ injury; Katebits intones, “Do you suffer from excessively split fingers?”

There is all manner of undisciplined play going on during a stoppage. Cote and Downie are spoiling for fights, and Rupp and Greener (???), respectively, are not interested. Downie attempts to push Greener’s skates out from under him with his stick, from behind. Chico becomes despondent as he spirals downward in his efforts to explain why a guy would make that kind of play, and concludes with that always-pathetic, “but he actually does have skill” chorus we always hear about worthless goons.

8:06 Immediately off the faceoff, Gio highsticks Umberger.

6:59 Marty punches a rebound into the high slot and it sits for a moment between a Devils defender and Briere, but instead of moving his feet and trying to pursue the puck, it’s as if Briere looks at it, then the defender, and says, “No, no. You take it.”

6:33 PaulieMartinNation is just shrieking with glee when he puts on a “killing a 4-on-3 power play” clinic, first racing across the zone to beat the Flyers to a loose puck at the point, then muscling through the Flyer forward in the Philly zone to push the puck further netward. He’s a beast!

5:02 Hey look! It’s another power play, this one for the Devils. Jones is called for hooking. Chico thinks the Devils need to be thinking goal here, so they can “keep producing bad memories for the Flyers.”

4:00 Paulie mishandles a puck at the point. Pookie, as Paulie: “See! I just created a bad memory, for everybody!”

3:39 Sutter doesn’t agree with Chico about thinking goal, and puts the fourth line out on the PP.

2:29 Marty makes his zillionth grade-A save of the night, and as the crowd cheers his effort, Chico says, “The fans are rising to their feet.” Katebits snorts, “Yeah, look at that!” Indeed, FSN is giving us multiple views of the appreciative fans… all of whom are still seated. Chico lamely adds, “They’re starting to get up now.” Chico, no they’re not.

0:00 Okay, now the fans are standing. WOO HOOO! The Devils’ 11th straight home win against the Flyers is a shutout for Marty. Pookie puts it best when she chirps, “Well that was pleasant and unexpected!”