Our (HD) broadcast leads off with Gel-O reminding us that the Devils were terrible last night against the Sabres. Thanks, Gel-O. We’d totally forgotten. He then hands off to Doc and Chico, and Doc does a workmanlike job of sounding excited to be reporting that Yann Danis is starting tonight. We sound significantly less excited about it here at stately IPB Manor.
FIRST PERIOD
19:17 Chara doesn’t seem to read IPB – He fumbles the puck at the point, then, crumbling under pressure from Langer, falls over, leaving Langer to chug down the other way on a two-on-one. (He doesn’t score.) Silly Chara! There’s no reason to be afraid of Langer!
18:15 Our senile cat won’t stop yowling. The horribleness of listening to the racket it making us nostalgic for the Devils/Sabres game from last night. It’s just that bad.
17:02 Both teams’ fourth lines are out and Doc informs us that it will certainly be fun to watch them against each other. As we watch Peters lumber around the defensive zone, Schnookie sighs, “Just because his job is to fight doesn’t mean Andrew Peters is exciting to watch.” Boomer adds, “Even when he’s fighting.” The Bruins’ fourth line gets a grade-A scoring chance right on the doorstep, and Danis coolly stops it. We don’t think that’s what Doc had in mind.
15:12 Travis makes a typically foxy defensive move deep in the Devils zone. Pookie: “AcornsNation is just showing off how much better it is than IronBoarSylvania.”
13:54 Schnookie: “You know what I can’t spell anymore? ‘Pennsylvania’. I’m just looking at the ‘-sylvania’ on ‘IronBoarSylvania’ and thinking it looks wrong.” Pookie: “Would you prefer if I called it ‘IronBoarOpolis’?” Schnookie: “No, that’s just a city.”
13:00 The cat has not shut up yet. It seems he’s lost his kitty bearings in the front hall, and can’t figure out how to find the living room, which is right behind him. A friend recently informed us that a sign of cat Alzheimers is “inappropriate vocalization”. Meanwhile, the Devils put the puck into the net (behind Thomas, not Danis), but the whistle apparently blew. Doc and Chico have no explanation for it. It seems our officials are suffering a case of inappropriate whistling.
11:59 As we have been discussing Mahmoud’s diagnostic issues, Pookie has decided to look up why Rollie keeps developing small, unexplained bald patches. She discovers that it might be a sign of what is essentially kitty OCD. Rollie’s probably anxious because her namesake is most certainly the worst hockey player in the NHL.
10:02 Doc murmurs during the course of his play-by-play, “If they had Milan Lucic… If they had Marc Savard… If they had Jay Pandolfo… If they had Patrik Elias…” Pookie finishes for him, “This game might be interesting, and I might not be reading about cat alopecia.”
8:14 Pookie is still trying to solve Rollie’s hair-loss problems, and suggests that if she was called “Sid” she might not be so patchy. “Or maybe her secret cat name is Getzi! ‘Oops. My fur fell off.’” Pause. “Or maybe she loses a patch of fur every time Rolston does something bad. She’s just been lucky that the Devils haven’t been playing lots of back-to-backs.”
6:35 WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s time to change Rollie’s name to Clarkson! Boogerfors finds himself on a two-on-one off of a broken sequence of plays in the Devils’ zone, fires a big slapshot that trickles through a hard-challenging Thomas, and Clarkson is there to tap the loose puck all the way into the net. It’s 1-0 Devils, and the timing on this is perfect, as Chico was, just before the play started, telling us how the Devils had 12 giveaways last night and forced only 2. Our blood was starting to boil at that stat, but now we’re feeling all happy and WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
5:01 At the exact same moment that Schnookie is pointing out to Pookie that the Iron Boar got an assist on Clarkson’s goal, IronBoarSylvania suffers a terrible blow from its emperor-god taking a terrible hooking penalty behind the Devils net. Chico promises us, though, that the Bruins PP is “terrible”.
3:29 For the first two thirds of it, the Bruins PP really is terrible. We spend it discussing how a number of Nations are trying to woo Pookie tonight. Schnookie suggests BoogerforsNation is making the best pitch, but Pookie insists that will never happen. Regardless, we both like the idea of Bergfors flirting like Woody Allen in “Love and Death”.
3:01 Chico really wasn’t kidding about the Bruins power play, was he?
0:00 We missed the last three minutes of the period because we were watching clips on YouTube of “Love and Death”. We look up to see Gel-O interviewing Clarkson, and Pookie exclaims, “GOD, he’s handsome.” Of Clarkson. Not of Gel-O.
SECOND PERIOD
19:59 The game resumes with a start. One second we’re watching commercials, the next second we’re looking at an almost ridiculously handsome Clarkson on the bench, and Doc is mid-sentence.
19:38 The Iron Boar was as taken by surprise by the start of the period as we were, and he takes a slashing penalty to break up a Bruins odd-man rush.
19:01 Shit. The lousy PP Of the Bruins looks like it may have broken Whitey. He gets hit by a point shot, and, despite being pinned in the zone, looks gimpy. This PP is clearly not terrible enough.
18:19 Well, Whitey seems like he might be okay. We’re still not happy with the relative crappiness of the Boston power play.
17:28 Just as we are discussing how the Bruins PP might just be actually terrible, Iron Boar gets out of the box, the teams go to even strength, Oduya gets his stick broken by a point shot, and the Bruins score on the rebound. It’s a 1-1 game. Chico tells us that Oduya has been the victim of some bad breaks, but also has been playing like crap. Even Chico doesn’t believe in OduyaNation’s chances.
16:52 Oh for fuck’s sake. Peters and Ference jostle a bit in front of the benches, and when Ference takes a little posturing swat around Peters’s shoulders, Peters makes like he’s been butt-ended in the mouth. That’s just shameful. He should be benched for that shit.
15:25 We are informed that this is “a completely different beginning to this period for the Devils than in the first.” Yes. This period is looking a lot more Devils/Sabres-ish. It’s as if the Devils think they’re playing at home.
12:14 Any old time Zach decides he doesn’t want to be invisible anymore works for us.
11:40 By our unofficial count, the Devils have not had possession of the puck once yet this period.
11:00 Doc informs us that Andy Greene will be 27 tomorrow, and then adds “another defensemen is 56 today.” Pookie, while Doc waits for us to guess who he’s talking about: “Colin White!” (It’s Denis Potvin.)
8:51 On some rare Devils puck possession and offensive-zone pressure, the puck ends up bouncing in front of the net, with Thomas stuck overcommitted to the side of the crease, and Zach is unable to get a stick on it. Apparently our challenge to Zach to start contributing has fallen on deaf ears.
6:06 Doc and Chico are discovering the birth months represented by both teams’ rosters, and are totally puzzled that there are so few players born in the last quarter of the year. They won’t stop talking about it, and how it makes no sense to them. We do not have any Malcolm Gladwell fans in our broadcast booth, it would seem.
3:44 We both leave the room for a moment, and when we return we catch the Bruins failing to convert a scoring chance not unlike the one Zach muffed about five minutes ago. And Boomer reports that Oduya has left the game with a “lower-body” injury. If you’re thinking about buying some real estate cheap, that beachfront property in OduyaNation might be just what you’re looking for.
2:09 Whoa! All of a sudden it looks like Zach and Zubrus have realized they’re supposed to be playing hockey! They charge up the ice on a two-on-two, with Zach carrying the puck, and Chara trips Zubrus up to put the Devils on their first PP of the night.
0:00 We’re stunned — stunned! — that the Devils didn’t score on that PP. And so the period draws to a close, and to be perfectly frank, it’s not 20 minutes of hockey we’ll ever fondly remember. We will, however, very fondly remember this interview with Applesauce, who is in fine Boston-accent form.
THIRD PERIOD
18:06 We have fallen silent, as it’s starting to sink in that we are going to have to be leaving the house at an ungodly hour tomorrow morning to make the first in a series of trips into NYC for Schnookie’s work. We don’t like waking up early. In case you were wondering.
16:23 Up until this moment, we have been very impressed with Danis. (We make that qualifying statement because we realize he is fully capable of being a total pile of puke for the next 16 minutes.) Honestly, this is the first time we can remember not being terrified every time the puck goes near the net when Marty’s backup is in.
10:36 Seriously, we’re going to be on a train at 7:00 tomorrow morning. That’s just inhumane. (Now that we’re distracted by our plans for tomorrow, this game is not capturing our imaginations.)
9:20 This period has been marked by the teams taking turns racing down the length of the rink and then looking offensively inept. It’s been a doozy.
9:19 We come back from commercial to see the Bruins mascot knocking Chuck the Duck over in the parking lot during some fan fest-y activities before the game. We’re horrified. Pookie: “That bear has just rocketed to the top of my List, ahead of Butthead, and Marc Staal, and Paul Gaustad.”
4:01 Yikes! Where has this game gone? It’s almost over! We don’t have a lot to say about it, though. Just lots of yawning at this point, but that has less to do with the game and more to do with it being late in the week.
3:01 Too bad Frisby got dibs on Clarkson, because he’s had a good game tonight. Lots of sassy shots and grittiness. And handsomeness. Here he turns a nothing sort of one-on-two into a decently deceptive mid-range shot, and then he psychs Thomas into almost trying to beat him up.
1:26 WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! WOWZA! That was awesome! The Langer/Zach/Zubrus line finally decides to get going, and they have a wild sequence of bang-bang passing and wheeling one-timers, then Zach squeaks a shot under Thomas that Zubrus pounces on to tap all the way into the goal, very much like Clarkson’s goal in the first. It’s 2-1 Devils, and we’re awake now!
0:35 The Devils fail to play well against the extra-attacker-aided Bruins. After a series of failed clearing attempts, Doc and Chico get to extol the virtues of the Unseen Hand when a Boston point shot richochets in toward the goal, gets past everyone including Danis, but clanks off the crossbar. Whew.
0:20 Is this small payback for that time the Devils got called for icing while on the PK against the Rangers in the playoffs? The refs colossally blow an icing call on the Bruins, when the blow the whistle even though Whitey clearly touched the puck before it crossed the goal line. No, it’s not quite on a par with the Ranger-game icing, but it’s at least a beneficial whistle when there shouldn’t have been one.
0:00 WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! It wasn’t pretty, but it’s a win!
