A Pollyanna Retrospective On A Season That Sucked: Day 4

Okay, we had been in the throes of a week-long rundown of things we liked about this past regular season before getting distracted by America’s Next Top Model, but we’ve got one very important point that we’d like to mention. In a season that was full of the dreadfully dull and the bitterly bleak, there was one high point, one beacon of joy, one neverending fount of wonder and delight. And that thing was the All-Star Game Throne portraits. Plenty of other people wrote about them at the time, but we don’t like to be “timely” or “on the ball”. We’d rather mention, months later, that a lifesaving buoy for us this year was this series. Sure, it would have been better if more, hotter players had been at the ASG , but we’re not here to complain. This minute. When viewed through our Playoff Goggles, there’s no reason to complain! Look at them all, jauntily perched atop the set piece from the local community theater’s production of “Hamlet! The Musical”, wielding the prop hockey stick like a scepter, or a magic wand, or like an object they’ve never seen before (Eric Staal , in particular, looks like he has no idea what a hockey stick does). Of course, the very best thing about the All Star Throne Portraits, the very best shining beacon of wonder and delight, is Vinny Lecavalier, Master of the Epiphvinny (TM Josh). Vinny’s throne portrait was such a powerful force of good, it gave us the greatest gift of this somewhat (okay, very) underwhelming Devils season — hope. Hope that someday Lou will go insane and will trade Elias, Gionta, Langenbrunner, and whatever else necessary to bring Vinny to New Jersey.