Stanley Cup Final, Game 2

So is everyone ready for Game Two of what we’ve all been promised is going to the Greatest Stanley Cup Final EVAH? Yeah, us neither. And if this series is going to live up to the hype, it’s got a lot of “Greatest EVAH” to fit into the remaining six games, after game turned out to be hardly the evenly matched barnburner we were promised. We’d try our hands at a game diary for this one tonight, but with all the time off since our last one, we’d probably just faceplant out the gate just like Marc-Andre Fleury. Instead, we’ll be posting our musings as the game progresses. Stay tuned!

– We wholeheartedly approve of the person in the crowd who perched a tiny stuffed octopus atop her twirling goal light hardhat in such a way that the octopus danced like a music box ballerina. We still wholeheartedly disapprove of the ridiculously undignified giant inflatable octopus that descends from the ceiling. For an organization as reliably staid as the Red Wings, the insistence on rolling out a giant cartoon octopus seems very out-of-place. I mean, if the Toronto Maple Leafs had a giant inflatable Carlton the Bear come down from the Jumbotron before every game, they’d be laughed at almost as much as the Sens for that centurion debacle. Just because the octopus is an unofficial mascot, doesn’t make it any cooler than any official mascot. Bah! Humbug!

– At various times during the season we’ve mentioned how we’d be happy to have the choice to get a Pay-Per-View version of games that feature all open mics and no broadcasters; we’d now like to suggest an alternate channel for this game that will be guaranteed to feature absolutely zero close-ups of Sid’s facial hair.

– So is it a good sign or a bad sign for Detroit that their first goal wasn’t waved off for no good reason?

– Is is just us, or does this series have a heavy air of “1997 SCF” to it? In that the lead-in to the series was everyone in the hockey media establishment talking up the team from Pennsylvania while we were sitting there thinking, “Have none of these people watched the Red Wings?”

– If there’s a questionable play where there’s a chance that possibly Hal Gill did something stupid, chances are… Yeah. Hal Gill did something stupid.

– So if this is the 1997 SCF revisted, is it safe to say that Sid is in a choking situation right now?

– In honor of the excitement we’re supposed to feel for the SCF, we opened a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon to go with our frozen pizza gourmet meal (*shifty eyes*) but after a few sips it was determined it sucked. That’s right, this SCF is such a let-down so far, it turned our wine to ash.

– As we go to intermission, the overriding opinion here at stately IPB Manor is that that period did very little to convince us that the Pens came to play.

– Almost midway through the second period, it is deathly quiet at stately IPB Manor. Boomer is working on a crossword puzzle. Pookie is absently troving the interwebs. Schnookie is puttering with photoshop. Every now and again we hear Edzo saying something about how the Pens “need to create something” and we just nod to ourselves, because this is playing out exactly how we expected it to.

– Any minute now we expect the Red Wings to announce “Now, for the next period, we’ll all play left handed! Just, you know, to make things interesting!”

– The Pens get handed the perfect chance on a fucking golden platter when Wingy McWing falls over, leaving the puck alone for Gary Robert to skate in and make up for his stupid penalty earlier in the game. He sends the puck toward the net, giving Jordan Staal a chance to make up for being entirely invisible since the second round. The end result? The puck bounces off a confused Osgood and ends up on the goal line in front of an empty net… Where another Wingy McWing calmly knocks it away, completely defusing the situation. This is not the series we were promised!

– Here in the second intermission, the overriding opinions are: one, that the Pens still haven’t shown up to play; two, that the Wings should skate as if it’s four-on-four to spice things up in the third; and three that the unimaginably terrible episode of MacGyver we watched to kill hockey-less time last night was slightly more interesting television than this even though the golden eagle Mac performed emergency Swiss-army-knife-surgery on died.

–At the start of the third period, Doc remarks that Edzo said before the second period that Sid needed to play more in order for the Pens to get back into the game. “So did he?” he asks. Edzo looks smug and replies, “No he did not. He played 12 seconds less.” Is Edzo trying to make some sort of statement about what a better coach he is than Therrien?

– When Ryan Malone takes a goaltender interference penalty midway through the third period, to take the Pens off the power play, we are left wondering two things. First, is Malone deliberately working to drive down his asking price on the UFA market this summer? And second, why is Eddie Olczyk allowed to call Pens games on VS? He spends the first few replays of the infraction spluttering that Malone was being wronged, and when a third replay proves that Malone was guilty, guilty, guilty, he just sits in sullen silence.

– Stay classy, Gary Roberts. Sucker-punching a player with a recent concussion, what a guy.

– Stay classy, Ryan Whitney. Target Franzen’s head once, shame on Roberts. Target Franzen’s head twice, shame on Therrien.

– When the final horn sounds, it seems like nothing but a formality; this game was over three hours ago. The only real surprise is that the Pens managed to make themselves look goonish and idiotic instead of just outclassed from a hockey perspective. Well played, Penguins. Well played.

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