First off, credit to Pittsburgh for coming away with a victory. Now onto the important stuff...
Mike Comrie has come into his own in this playoff series -- the effort is non-stop, combined with the feistiness of a little dude with a chip on his shoulder. Better still, if you were watching the telecast, you may have seen Comrie taking a leadership role during the PP, in an attempt to improve its effectiveness -- chirping at his teammates when they became sedentary. (More on this later.) Obviously, the Sens will not have salary cap room to retain Comrie in the offseason, but here's a question: How much money does the heir of The Brick fortune need? Comrie's salary likely resembles a slush fund to him -- 10 to 1 says he "invests" it in pimped out hot tubs and a truck like Jon Lieber's.
On to the PP, which obviously is still an issue. Alfredsson was able to put one away (displaying a large amount of joy and relief in the process), but some of the same problems from Game 1 still remain -- although there was some improvement with the play being brought down low. A new issue has arisen, and while it's been a known weakness for the Sens in the past, they likely thought it wouldn't rear its ugly head in this series: The dreaded faceoffs. Pittsburgh was relegated to the bottom of the barrel in faceoff wins during the regular season -- today was a different story. Maxime Talbot won 66 per cent of his (19-29) and Angie came away with 11 out of 14, or 79 per cent. On the other side of the coin, Mike Fisher went 6 for 19, Jason Spezza was 12 for 23 and Antoine Vermette ended up going 4 for 9. Adding to the frustrations were faceoffs that weren't won cleanly, making it difficult to get quick shots off while inside the offensive zone.
And finally, memo to Angie and Maxime Talbot: Were penalties deserved after you received respective shots to the throat and nose? Perhaps. But how's about you not fling your head back in a soap opera-worthy performance, followed by a blatant stare at the adjacent official in a feeble attempt to garner sympathy?
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