The Ottawa Senators have grabbed a 3-1 stranglehold in their first round series with the Tampa Bay Lightning. They beat Tampa 5-2 tonight as the red cords improved to 2 and 0. The Sens scored early, shortly after my daughter placed a chocolate girl guide cookie on my shoulder. I may have to implement that superstition strategy too.
It could easily have been a 6-0 result. Jason Spezza scored his second of the game but it was incorrectly ruled that the net was off the mooring. Tampa scored one that should have been waved off by Martin St. Louis’ obvious goalie interference, despite what Greg Millen was seeing out there. The Lightning scored another time just after a power play that never should have been.
I’m speaking of the weird new policy the NHL has quietly implemented. The league wants to stop pushing and shoving after the whistle so they’re only penalizing one of the players involved. Huh? That’s no less asinine than seeing two kids with their hand in the cookie jar, sending one to their room and letting the other watch cartoons. I agree that the rule did cut down on post whistle skirmishes tonight. But it also cut down on the Senators’ chances of winning the game. It set up Tampa’s go ahead goal, shortly after Patrick Eaves got a penalty for pushing and being shoved by Brad Richards.
But these are all moot points because the Sens later exploded and Tampa Bay is out of gas. Bagged. Drained. I saw it right after the Sens tied it at 2 on Chris Phillips goal. The Lightning looked great out of the gate tonight but suddenly looked they were skating in quicksand at the mid way point of the second period. It reminded me of watching Team Canada at the Olympics this year. Collectively, the team suddenly got a case of dead legs. Maybe Tampa’s strategy of rolling two lines has backfired, particularly against one of the best skating teams (now with a new physical element to their game) in the league. Maybe it's inhaling all those smoke fumes from the pre game fireworks.
Only two negatives for the Sens. The injury to Chris Phillips. It’s the same knee he racked up toward the end of the season. We’ll likely have something more in the morning. It’s likely Christoph Schubert will play Game 5 Saturday back in Ottawa.
I’d also like to see Daniel Alfredsson get off that third line. With all due respect to Brian Smolinski and Eaves, Alfie is always about 3 steps ahead of them. It’s getting frustrating to watch him win 3 battles, make two great moves and a terrific pass only to have a linemate lose control or fail to finish. He belongs on that top line.
Otherwise, a near perfect road trip with 13 goals and a rookie goalie whose confidence grows with each passing day.
