TSDMike | June 3, 2009

Twenty-one seconds.

Twenty-one seconds in the second period of game three of the Stanley Cup Finals kept this series from being a boring sweep by the heavily favored Red Wings. Twenty-one seconds prevented the Finals from being over in six days.

The whole playoff season this year has been a disaster for Gary Bettman and the NHL. In a league fighting for popularity and for relevance in the sports world, this has done nothing to bolster their position. Out of the 14 completed series, only the second round matchup of Pittsburgh and Washington had any excitement to it. The Penguins went on to storm through an overachieving Carolina team to reach the finals for the second straight year.

Detroit swept through their opening round against Columbus, then went seven games against an underrated Anaheim team – but that series should have been done in five games. Had Jonas Hiller not made 7,000 saves in game two’s triple overtime marathon, the Wings would have steamrolled the Ducks easily.

Category: NHL | 2 Comments »
Tags: blackhawks, evgeni malkin, gary bettman, nbc, NHL, pittsburgh penguins, Playoffs, red wings, sidney crosby, stanley cup finals

TSDMike | June 1, 2009

In the last 12 hours, Evgeni Malkin has gotten lucky on three fronts. First, he’s lucky that the NHL didn’t fine and suspend him for attacking Henrik Zetterberg at the end of game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals last night. He came at him with two glancing blows to the back of his head with his stick. If this were another player, or a game where the stakes weren’t as high, he’d undoubtedly be sitting out a couple of games for that.

Then he got lucky again this morning when the NHL redacted the fight instigator misconduct penalty that was assessed by officials at the end of the fight last night. This penalty carries a game suspension if it occurs in the last five minutes of the game, which it obviously did. Again, if this were someone other than the League’s leading scorer, in a contest other the last series for the championship, this call surely would have been upheld.

But those two instances pale in comparison to the biggest stroke of luck in Malkin’s favor – the fact that the official aggressively intervened and saved him from getting his ass pummelled by ‘Z’. Hank was on his way to showing young Malkin that he just f***ed with the wrong bull but instead he’ll live to play in game three because the referee got between the two of them and even absorbed a blow or two that were meant for Malkin’s dome.

Check out the video:

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Tags: classic, claude lemieux, darren mccarty, detroit red wings, evgeni malkin, fight, henrik zetterberg, pittsburgh penguins, Playoffs, stanley cup championships