Live Hockey

So yeah way back on 25 March I went to probably the only game I will see live this year, the Washington game. A friend and I were going to try to see a game and we let things slide a bit, and this looked like the best option to see some "good" hockey at a price we could afford.

I always say, if you are only going to one game a year, spend the bucks to make it a good one. See something that you can't see on TV. For me, that means being in the 100s. And counter to the price-differentiation signals sent by the club, I usually prefer to be in the end or corner.

This time we were in 112, off the visitor goalie's left shoulder. We were a bit higher up than I might otherwise like, but when you buy your tickets at the last minute you can't be too fussy.

For the game I enjoyed what I could see -- but for some reason I had a harder time following what was going on. The on-again off-again high-sticking penalty was a total mystery to those of us in the stands and I had to read about it on the internet.

We did get to see a neat goal scored right in front of us at the beginning of the third, which was nice. The shut-out and win were gravy. All in all a good night out.

That Was Unexpected

Well, what can you say? I was all set to blame the officials for repeatedly tilting the ice in favor of Washington, but for once they made the gutsy(*) penalty call with less than two minutes remaining in overtime, and for once Ottawa took full advantage.

But tonight's game was fun. Washington is fast, high energy, they pull the trigger hard and frequently. They never seem to let up. However, just like the run-and-gun Senators of old I like to compare them to, they keep getting caught in defensive scrambles and cough up goals at a high rate.

I was especially impressed with Karlsson's ability to stay in Olvetchkin's face. He made some mistakes, yes, but many far more experienced defenders have made more and been less effective when up against such opposition.

Overall I expected Washington to win. Their offensive pressure is relentless and Ottawa is not known for their solid, consistent defensive play. But Ottawa proved me wrong tonight. While mistakes were made, enough results happened at the other end of the ice (in the first 15 minutes of the game, no less) to keep them in it.

Bad officiating aside, I enjoy this game, even if I missed the OT power play.

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(*) A calling of the rule book should never require the description of "gutsy". I hate this game sometimes.

Sens Win Wild One

Man that Washington game was wild, wasn't it?

Washington reminds me a lot of the "good old days" where the Senators were a run-and-gun team. Sure, the defense was porous and the goaltending inconsistent most of the time, but it didn't matter because the Senators were rolling lines that could put pucks in the opposition's net faster than they could put pucks in the Senators'. A team like that only has two modes: full-on attack, and tired-out-from-full-on attack. And both modes showed last night. The problem is that while this works in the regular season, over a playoff series your opposition is going to figure out how to shut down your main producers enough so that you can't keep it up. The Senators showed that how many times?

About the game itself, a few comments:

• The officiating was pretty bad at times, with a missed call in the second leading directly to a Washington goal. But I guess that's the way the league wants it.
• Good on Alfredsson, Fisher and Kelly to keep Ovechkin blanked on the night. This is a really good shut-down line, one I hope we see rolled again in future. The only problem is that our three guys might see lower production numbers because they are playing this kind of role.
• Spezza's opening goal: nice to see poor defensive coverage working for us instead of against us for a change.
• Hat tip to Semin for his hat-trick in a losing cause. He has a seeing-eye shot through crowds, and I don't think Elliot was to blame on any of them.
• Beautifully ugly goal for Neil in the second to pull the Senators back square. And calling for the review? Never should have happened -- it was in, baby. No doubt.
• The Senators did well in the dying moments to keep the win in their pocket. Washington never really looked like they had it together.

Whee, that was fun!