These guys again? And the Sabres too? Well, here we go, we guess. That’s the one problem with it not being the offseason – sometimes you have to watch some pretty awful hockey.
PREGAME
– We spend a delightful half an hour before the broadcast starts playing Super Mario Brothers on the Wii. There’s nothing like watching Mario cheerfully plummet to his doom repeatedly in world 7-1 to put everything into perspective. The elephant seems to be trending highly unlucky, but miracle of miracles, Mario eventually pulls it out and clears the course. Lucky elephant, indeed!
– We spend a slightly less delightful few minutes in the broadcast’s intro wondering why our dinner isn’t ready yet. How long can it take baked potatoes to cook? This elephant wouldn’t know luck if it kicked him in the face.
– Tedenby sighting! We have a Tedenby sighting! The elephant is less pachyderm and more hummingbird-on-crack.
FIRST PERIOD
19:06 The arena looks laughably empty. The elephant is too lonely to bother choosing sides at first, but swings negative when Kovalchuk fancy-pantses his way through the entire Sabres team, gets Enroth sliding out of position, but shoots wide. Pookie: “Well, Enroth is really intimidating.”
13:05 We miss some action because our potatoes are starting to come out of the oven. You know what’s exciting? We’re eating with our new sporks!
The elephant thinks our flatware is trending stylish.
10:27 There’s not a lot going on in this game, so Chico decides to pump us up by pointing out that Hedberg made a stop on the first shot he faced tonight, which is a big step up from the last time these two teams played. The elephant, like the crowd, is asleep.
9:46 WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Enroth juggles an Elias shot from long distance, and Arnott is at the crease — being casually and politely observed by a Sabres “defense”man – to just be able to chip the tiniest bit of the puck into the net while drifting off into the corner. It’s 1-0 Devils! And Tedenby got the secondary assist! WOOOOOOOOO!! Schnookie: “That was all elephant.” Pookie: “Yup. That was the unseen trunk. It gonged in off it.”
7:26 The Sabres very nearly put the puck into their own net from the entire length of the ice on a delayed penalty to the Devils. Alas, the elephant is napping on the job, and luck isn’t with that slowly creeping puck – it taps the outside of the goalpost before coming to rest and drawing the whistle.
0:28 There’s a stoppage for some reason, and MSG+ takes the opportunity to plug their intermission content, including LICENSE PLATE REVEAL! EEEEEEEE! Pookie: “The elephant is looking up, up, up, baby!”
SECOND PERIOD
20:00 We get our Trenton Devils update before the puck drop, and Schnookie sadly laments about Doc’s calling them “the T-Devs”, “I wish he called them the TrenDevs.” Lucky elephant: “Me too.” Also, just for the record, we think it’s hilarious that Gel-O spent the intermission talking about how great the first period was. The Devils are up by one goal against the second-worst team in the conference. Pookie: “And a fluky goal at that.” Let’s not go crazy here, people.
14:36 The elephant mocks the MSG+ team’s crowing about how awesome the Devils are for having a whopping one-goal lead (Chico even goes so far as to call it a “cushion”) against the Sabres, and Pominville makes it 1-1.
14:23 The elephant says, “Soon I’ll be dancing on your graves, losers!” as Hedberg gives up a long-range goal to Roy-Z. 2-1 Sabres. Chico: “Whoa! That’s a shocker!” Pookie: “Chico. How is that even remotely shocking? Tell me when you were shocked.” Chico starts the replay by suggesting maybe the goal wasn’t wholly shitty, because maybe the shot was tipped ever so slightly by Tallinder, but you know what? That would only make it worse.
10:53 The diarist is not in the room when the Devils score. She comes back to find a 2-2 game, and says, stunned, “The Devils scored?” The other -ookie: “Yup. On a Vasyunovaround that bounced in off Clarkson.” The elephant is stunned – it doesn’t know what to think anymore.
9:32 Doc has a moment where he realizes his own looming mortality as Clarkson celebrates in front of the net after a Volchenkov shot, prompting Doc to shout “SCORE!”… except the puck is in the corner. The elephant chortles evilly.
8:16 Langer gets spun headfirst into the boards at the bench, and we will admit – we gasped with horror. Even for Langer. See? We’re not monsters. Ennis gets called for hooking on the play, so the one-for-the-last-33 Devils PP takes the ice. The elephant is like, “I don’t actually need to bother here, do I?”
7:58 WILL WONDERS NEVER CEASE? Suck it, bad-luck elephant! Arnott just grips it and rips it from above the faceoff dot, and the shot ricochets off of an almost impossible number of things to find its way into the net. It’s the second PP goal in 11 games for the Devils, and now it’s 3-2 Devils. The good-luck elephant smirks at his bad-luck cousin, but Chico ruins the moment by immediately wondering if this is going to be “a hat trick night”. No, Chico, it isn’t.
6:09 The bad-luck elephant starts pummeling the good-luck elephant with his own upraised trunk, and Myers scores a goal from the mirror-image location of Arnott’s second. Only Myers doesn’t need 10,000 deflections on his shot because Hedberg is a terrible goaltender. 3-3 game.
5:00-ish We come back from commercial to see this awesomeness:
That’s pretty much the exact same facial expressions you’ll find on the denizens of stately IPB Manor when we have to watch the Devils play! It’s like our living room, but with more expensive clothes! Pookie: “It looks like Marty’s regularly kicking Zach in the back of the head.”
1:53 If only the Devils could play this Enroth kid every day! Of all the ridiculous things, they score again. Langer makes it 4-3 Devilswhen he tries to feed Travis in front, but Butler does all the work for him by tipping the pass perfectly into his own net. The good-luck elephant stuffs the bad-luck elephant into a steamer trunk and sits on the lid.
0:00 The period comes to an end on a frenzied Sabres PP thanks to some idiocy by Arnott. It’s a bit of a shooting gallery in the waning seconds, prompting Pookie to remark, “It’s almost like the players are all stopping after every shot to be surprised that it didn’t go in.”
THIRD PERIOD
11:06 Rather like the Devils, we’re not paying very close attention to this period. Until it’s 4-4 thanks to Tallinder having no idea how to make decisions in front of his own net. We’re so glad that bad-luck elephant was manning the helm as the Devils GM this past summer, so the team could acquire such a dazzling defensive talent.
6:48 Bad-luck elephant starts sharpening his tusks to gore good-luck elephant when the Devils go on the PP.
2:42 Both good-luck and bad-luck elephants are shocked to see how quickly this period has passed. The hell? This game’s flying by! How unusual for Devils/Sabres.
0:57 Despite it being a clear night outside, our feed is completely breaking up. The elephants are trying to tell us something, but we’re not quite sure what it is.
OVERTIME
We have nothing to say about this because we can’t see what’s going on. What the hell is going on with our feed? It better not have fucked up our tivoing of ANTM, because while we don’t mind not being able to see this OT, we will NOT abide missing ANTM.
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