Stanley Cup Playoffs - first round
Pittsburgh Penguins @ Ottawa Senators
Game 2 (best of 7)
Ottawa leads series 1-0
There is your background info kids. For those that don't know what a glog is, it has been a while since I have tried to do one of these, it is simply a game blog, where I will blog about a sporting event I am watching (or listening to as I sometimes will go the radio route, cause I am a geek like that). A little background, the Ottawa Senators finished as the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference, the Pittsburgh Penguins as the 5th seed. Ottawa won the first game of the series 6-3, though trust me, it really wasn't that close.
And we are underway. That was fast, not a goal, but the Penguins took all of 25 seconds before getting penalized for hooking, so Ottawa goes on a power play for 2 minutes. This isn't how you want to start a game, short handed, especially on the road in a series that you trail.
Well the Penguins kill the penalty, sort of, as Ottawa gets called for goaltender interference, so the we skate 4-4 for 30 odd seconds and then the Penguins will have the man advantage for about a minute and a half. And the Penguins score with the man advantage so early on it is Pittsburgh 1-0 on a goal by Sergei Gonchar. Mind you we are barely 3 minutes into the game, so there is still plenty of hockey left but after the way Pittsburgh played in game one, this is a definite change of scenery for them.
I can't remember the last time I glogged a game, and I am far from the best typist around these parts, so I apologize if I miss something that may be important. Though I didn't miss this, another Penguins penalty, as Colby Armstrong will serve 2 minutes for holding. With 3 penalty calls in the first 5 minutes, it is hard to get a feel for which team is better on a 5-5 basis, and there has been almost no hitting going on which may favor the Penguins as Ottawa is a little bit bigger of a team, though both teams have plenty of quick talented players, if it becomes more of a track meet and less a physical contest, that would favor Pittsburgh.. The Penguins have killed off the second penalty, so the Penguins are 1-1 on the power play, the Senators are now 0-2.
Boy I am glad I quit my part time gig, I get to watch this game as opposed to sit in a cubicle and listen to people drone on and on about what they want on their pizza. Not that I quit my job for the hockey playoffs, but it is a nice bonus that comes with not working.
I have been playing with Diablo 2, Lord of Destruction recently, I haven't broke that out of mothballs in ages, and I have gotten back into the swing of killing things on there. I have beaten it on the first two levels, you have to in order to unlock the next hardest level, those being Normal, and Nightmare. I am on Hell level now and about a third of the way through.
We have a player down, Christoph Schubert of the Senators. Not a fight or anything of excitement, it looks like he was actually trying to avoid a collision and fell and smacked his head off of the ice. Schubert is one of the guys that is a bigger defenseman, like I said, Ottawa is probably the bigger of the two teams and Schubert is one of the reasons why. No penalty called as it was just Schubert getting hurt trying to avoid contact rather than someone taking a run at him.
Excuse me while I open my www.sportsline.com window for the game. I can keep track of something, but it is nice for someone to track the official stats for me, and they do a pretty good job of it. They are also where I got the idea of glogging from as they have been doing it at sporting events for a while now. The only problem is while they used to glog games, now they are letting sportsline members also glog games, and the results are less than good, now you have a bunch of homers popping up to glog games and they really have nothing interesting to say. Not that I do either, I just choose to clutter my blog page with this info after the fact rather than annoy sports fans with my inane ramblings. They do give you the option of just selecting the professional glogger at the game only, but I just think it is a bad idea for those seeking real sports information to let a bunch of hacks clutter up your page.
By the way, the Penguins once again have the man advantage as Chris Kelly skates off for two minutes for roughing. I have a correction to make, which is why I open the stats window to begin with, Ray Whitney got credit for the first goal, not Gonchar as had been previously typed by me. Sergei Gonchar and Sidney Crosby get the assists on that first goal. The Penguins fail to score on their second power play so the score remains 1-0. It still seems like the teams are feeling each other out a little more than playing their own respective styles of hockey. That would be reflective in the fact that in almost 15 minutes of hockey, there have only been 9 shots, Ottawa with the slight 5-4 advantage.
As soon as I say that, Marc Andre Fleury makes two nice saves for the Penguins to keep it 1-0 as Ottawa begins to get a little momentum here. The result of that is another Pittsburgh penalty, this time Eric Christensen will serve 2 minutes. Hard work will cause teams to cheat a little to break up the momentum, that is pretty much what happened here, Christensen just got caught is all.
The Penguins kill off the man advantage, Ottawa is now 0-3 on the power play and the first period comes to a close with the Penguins leading 1-0.
I guess it is rant time. For those of you who are still unfamiliar with the glog concept and didn't get the idea from the first period, I will throw in other stuff besides the game while I type. I tend to do that in stoppages of action, usually in hockey that will be mostly in the intermissions, but if I get a chance during the game, I might throw something in, such as the Diablo stuff I mentioned earlier. I mentioned it because I was working on a quest last night and I did finish it but it took like 4 hours to complete, so hell level is going to be a long arduous journey should I opt to finish it. My character is a 80th level amazon, named Carlow, after the all girls college not to far from here. When I worked at Larry and Carols, where I was managing a pizza shop, we used to rate the schools by hotness of the women. Carlow usually came in last on most nights. Drivers loved going to Duquesne, for whatever reason, most of our deliveries there had very attractive women involved, the University of Pittsburgh came in second on our scale, so a driver still had hope if he was going there, Carnegie Mellon was pretty much hit or miss, the girls were either very hot, or very not and lastly was Carlow, where regardless of how much food was being ordered, it was usually just for one girl, so a $40 dollar order would be a depressing thought for the driver, as it usually meant a very large female.
Okay, so fire me, give me the Don Imus treatment, I don't care, it's a blog kids, I will offend you from time to time if for no other reason than I am good at it.
Speaking of Imus, I should address that at some point. Let's not kid anyone here folks, Imus was fired for one reason and one reason only, money. Anyone who is unfamiliar with the story, and just what is the rock you live under anyway, Don Imus was a nationally syndicated talk show host. His show was based on WFAN in NYC and simulcast for TV nationally on MSNBC. On the best of days, Imus would get good authors and political folk who would let their hair down on the air, it was a much more relaxed and less soundbite driven atmosphere on the show. By the same token, he would also try to do funny bit as well, most of which weren't funny, some of which were downright offensive. It was one of those bits that got him fired. he was talking about the NCAA Women's basketball championship game, a game between Tennessee and Rutgers that Tennessee won. During the banter his producer Bernie McGuirk for those keeping score at home) referred to the Rutgers team as "hard core hos" to which Imus added that they were "nappy headed hos". It was Imus's comments that started the ball rolling to his subsequent termination.
Second period underway, I will get back to the Imus story soon enough but it is hockey time again. The second period starts with a little more end to end action than we saw in the first. And once again, it would be a slight advantage to Ottawa in the momentum department. The result of this action is another penalty against the Penguins, so the Senators will get their fourth power play of the game and Eric Christensen gets reacquainted with the penalty box. And Ottawa is now 0-4 on the power play as they fail to covert yet again, it remains 1-0. We are seeing some more hitting now also, which is fine with me, from a fan's perspective, I like the physical aspect of the game, and e have seen more hits in the first 5 minutes of this period than in the entire 1st period. Ottawa has taken a decided advantage in game play, they are outshooting Pittsburgh 6-0 so far in the second and after registering only 6 shots in the first period.
We come back with coincidental minor penalties, so we skate 4-4 and Ottawa takes advantage of the open ice to tie the game, on a Jason Spezza goal. Assists to Alfredsson and Volchenkov for those of you scoring at home. Ottawa has just picked up another power play opportunity as well, this will be their 5th chance with the man advantage. Ottawa has had a decided advantage in play this period, though the power play is killed again by the Penguins, so Ottawa is now 0-5 with the man advantage, but until the Penguins get some offense going, you just have a feel that they are trying to hang on as opposed to generate any offense here, as the shot count this period is seriously in Ottawa's favor, 9-1.
The play has evened out a little bit, but still, if the Penguins can get out of this period tied 1-1, they should be thankful as Ottawa has had a 2-1 and a 3-1 odd man rush in the last couple of minutes, only to come away with nothing both times.
Commercial break so we can be reminded how funny "Thank God You Are Here" is, except it isn't. It is just another cheap ploy to not hire writers for a TV show and thereby cut costs. Give me a smartly written show over this tripe any day, instead we will be inundated with reality shows, game shows and crap like this.
We come back to action and the officials are going to sort out a penalty mess, as Colby Armstrong takes a shot and proceeds to run into the goaltender after the fact so we have but yet another penalty on the Penguins, this will be the 6th man advantage for Ottawa and finally the Senators break the ice with the man advantage to score the power play goal, Ottawa takes a 2-1 lead, credit for the goal goes to Daniel Alfredsson, assists to Dany Heatley and Jason Spezza. So what does Pittsburgh do in response, how about take another penalty, that has worked oh so well so far. Power play #7 for Ottawa. Should the Penguins kill this penalty, we would probably get to the end of the period. As bad as a 2-1 deficit looks, given how poorly they played, the Penguins should be happy it is only 2-1. Thankfully for Pittsburgh's sake, we make the second intermission. Pittsburgh got outshot for the period 19-5.
So, while we have a break in the action, I can get back to our Don Imus story, which I am sure you have waited for with eager anticipation. Anyway, Imus makes his comment about the Rutgers basketball team, not unlike many other comments he has made over the course of his career, I would guess he thought the studio banter was funny. Some people didn't though, and complaints started coming in for the firing of Don Imus. Notably at the forefront of the movement was Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, men who have made some less than stellar comments in their own pasts. Imus, realizing the furor that was boiling over from the comment, first issued an on air apology regarding his comments, then he decided to appear with Al Sharpton on Al's show, Sharpton more than happy to have him because he gets to have the opportunity to belittle Imus and get the largest audience his radio show is ever going to get all at the same time. Finally, Imus asks to meet with the Rutgers team to apologize in person to them. The outrage is too much for MSNBC, and they suspend Imus for two weeks. Here comes the money kids, as advertisers start backing out of Imus's MSNBC show and MSNBC opts to drop the simulcast entirely. Imus would still have his radio show, it just wouldn't be carried on TV. Then advertisers start pulling from the radio show as well, and CBS, which owns WFAN fires Imus as well,.
Let's not kid anyone here, if the advertisers stick around, Imus serves his suspension and we go back to having Imus in two weeks. The radio show had 1.5 million listeners and billed 20 million dollars a year in revenue. The MSNBC simulcast was one of the larger audiences on a news channel that is desperate for viewers. The comments, while not funny to me, were par for the course for the show and both MSNBC and WFAN were more than content to air them while the checks were clearing, only when the possibility of checks no longer coming in did they change their mind about making the suspension into a firing. CBS and it's syndicator that carried the show, Westwood One, was more than content to carry Howard Stern, and they CBS also owns BET, both outlets have made more than one shekel demeaning women. Stern left for satellite radio, that is true, but he wasn't fired, he left after getting a deal in satellite that would pay him half a billion dollars, so it was not like CBS was on its high horse by removing him, he left for far greener financial pastures and I might add, an audience of about ten million less people than he had on commercial radio.
Sharpton and Jackson will now go back to their respective corners, content that they have removed Imus from the air, but also content in doing nothing to help the black community other than pick on the very low hanging fruit that is Don Imus.
Third period starts and we start with a psuedo fight between Colby Armstrong and Mike Comrie. I say Pseudo because they dropped gloves but few punches of merit were thrown. Ottawa follows up by taking a penalty and the Penguins will get their first power play since the first period. Trailing by one, they need to take advantage of this. And they do, a Gary Roberts power play goal has tied this thing at 2, on a rebound of a Gonchar shot. The Penguins are now 2-3 on the power play. And they almost score again, the puck trickled toward the goal and only a smart play by an Ottawa defenseman saved it form being 3-2 and Ray Emery, the goaltender was out of the play.
The Penguins take another penalty, but they have come out with much more energy than in the second. I wonder if I will get stuck with the same thing that happened the other night in the Dallas Vancouver series, where the game wasn't decided until the 4th overtime. For those of you unfamiliar, in the regular season, if the game is a tie, they play a five minute overtime period followed by a shootout to determine a winner. In the playoffs, it is strictly overtime, no one wins until someone scores, and each overtime period is the same length as a regulation period, 20 minutes. So they played over two games worth of time before they determined a winner.
Ottawa just scored, it is now 3-2, so maybe my fears were were ill founded. For the record, the Penguins did kill the penalty, the goal was 5 on 5 action, so Ottawa is only 1 for 8 with the advantage. The goal info for those keeping score with me, the Gary Roberts goal has assists going to Sergei Gonchar and Evgeni Malkin, the Ottawa goal to retake the lead was by Chris Kelly and that was unassisted. It is Kelly's second goal of the playoffs, he had one in the 6-3 win against the Penguins in game #1 of the series.
I should go out and get a Sunday paper today. I know it is only Saturday, but I need the classifieds at some point if I am going to find a new part time job.
Gaol check, the Penguins have tied it, and it wasn't a power play goal this time, Jordan Staal buries one behind Ray Emery and the game is tied again, 3-3 with 10 minutes remaining. Sportsline is claiming the goal was short handed, but I am not so sure. They don't have anyone listed in the penalty box and if there was I missed it. Credit Michel Oullet and Gary Roberts with the assists on the goal.
Remember the highlight video a few blogs back? Fire it up as Sidney Crosby just scores and the Penguins have a 4-3 lead. A beautiful feed from Mark Recchi to get the Penguins a one goal lead again. Credit Evgeni Malkin with the other assist on the goal. The last two goals by Stall and Crosby were both their second goals of the playoffs.
Ottawa will get yet another power play opportunity, their 9th this game. Hell, if the Penguins could stay out of the penalty box, this game might be different, they are spending a large chunk of the game down a man, rather than playing their own style of hockey. We do have a scoring change, there are assists to the Kelly goal, those going to Dean McAmmond and Andrej Meszaros. I thought that he was broken free with a nice pass when he scored on the breakaway, but Sportsline was late in updating that, as for TV, they put no goal info on the screen, it is one of the many flaws NBC has in their coverage. They ave really good announcers, but their promotion of the sports stinks, and their ability to track the game statistically leaves a lot to be desired.
The Penguins kill another penalty, Ottawa is a meager 1 for 9 now when up a man and we are down to less than 4 minutes remaining, the Penguins still lead 4-3. Shots this period are even, 10-10, as the Penguins have played much better this period than the last.
To those watching this game even while I type, lucky for you you don't live in Pittsburgh. We had a break news scroll come across the bottom of the screen. One would think something major happened, right? No, it was just to announced that the Steelers announced their 2007 football schedule. The fact the schedule was released by the league the middle of last week, this is about as non breaking a news story as one could have, let alone the fact that it is a football schedule for cripes sake, nothing more. Certainly not worth a news crawl blocking part of the screen. I believe I will steal a line from Richard Jeni, when I tell the person who just put that on my TV screen as news during a Stanley Cup playoff game, that they can "grease up their feet and take a walk, asshole".
Less than two minutes left, when will Ottawa pull the goaltender for the extra attacker? Right now actually. For those unfamiliar with the sport, teams when they trail by a goal late will sometimes pull their goaltender to get an extra attacker on the ice. You don't have to have a goaltender, they just help in stopping shots and what not. But when you need a goal late, sometimes it helps to have the extra guy on the ice. You just hope that with the extra guy you can dominate action 6-5. And they have, but Marc Andre Fluery just made a great save with 13.1 seconds left and he holds on for the face off. Ottawa get a couple of chances after the draw, but no dice and the Penguins hold on for a 4-3 win.
That means it is time to spell check, post and play some baseball on the PS2. Goodnight from Pittsburgh everyone.
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