Okay, okay, as I type this, it’s still August 31st in the Eastern Time Zone, but most of the planet has already entered the Month of School…first off, what the hell????  Why now would the NHLPA want to go all goofy and look as disorganized as, well, as the NHL?  No doubt most of us were left scratching our heads over this move to dump Paul Kelly, but the truth is, a very select few know what’s been going on behind-the-scenes of the NHLPA, and none of those select few are members of the media or the average hockey fan, or any fan, for that matter.  Maybe the whole truth and nothing but the truth comes out in the next few months, maybe it comes out in a great book five Christmases from now.  Either way, from my brief dealings with Mr. Kelly (as part of a couple of media scrums), he sure seemed like exactly what the NHLPA needed, at least in terms of public perception….Brian Burke is correct yet again.  He once compared the Toronto Maple Leafs to the Vatican, in terms of its importance in the hockey world.  How bang on he was.  Like the Vatican, the Leafs wield an enormous amount of power, mostly over the great unwashed, you know, the opiate of the masses and all the stuff.  Now that it’s been shown, despite pious denials to the contrary, that the moneybags known as Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment have absolutely no intention of sharing the Southern Ontario sandbox with anyone else, they’ve proven they really are the Vatican of the NHL (or any other religious powerbase, if you’re so inclined to be easily offended as a Catholic).  This is only the sainted Maple Leafs’ latest salvo at the game of hockey.  Forget their overly inflated prices for everything ranging from game tickets to concession food to foam fingers, because practically every pro sports team is guilty of that sin, the Leafs have shown once again they only care for themselves.  Among their list of sins against the game of hockey include their refusal to allow the hallowed grounds of Maple Leaf Gardens to be sold to Eugene Melnick, who wanted to install his St. Michael’s Majors OHL team in the beloved building.  What a perfect placement that would have been, but no, MLSE would have no part of that, fearing competition for second-rate concerts and, god knows what, tractor pulls.  Once the AHL Toronto Roadrunners couldn’t make a go of it at the CNE Coliseum/Ricoh Centre, the Leafs swooped in and installed the St. John’s Maple Leafs…and a bunch of second-rate concerts and tractor pulls.  A cynic (who, me?) could lazily point to over forty years of inept NHL hockey, but honestly, the Leafs since 1993 have iced a number of competitive teams that reached the Final Four, so that’s not an accurate shot.  Regardless of how one feels about the entire sordid Phoenix Coyotes situation, it’s interesting, and a bit alarming, to think that the Maple Leafs may believe themselves to be the tail that wags the NHL dog.  Alarming, but typical….the red jersey the Minnesota Wild wear at home is a beautiful thing, even if it reminds me of the Quebec Remparts, and adding to all this sweater splendour is their recently unveiled third jersey.  Now that green sucker will make one fine addition to my collection this Christmas, and just in time, as my five-year-old son recently discovered where all my hockey and baseball uniforms hang….it’s great to be paid to talk and write about hockey, but after ten months of the game, I crave a break.  Anything but hockey.  Baseball, CFL (hey, I’m Canadian), even NFL training camps.  But no puck.  Well, so I thought.  Sadly, this past Thursday evening, even after being up for close to 22 hours due to doing Hockey This Morning with the Shalley-Lama, I found myself logging onto the TSN website and trying to catch parts of the Red-White Team Canada scrimmage at the Saddledome in Calgary.  It was kind of difficult to see clearly, and at times I swear I heard Foster Hewitt mispronouncing names.  It’s probably as close as I’ll ever get to replicating the experience of listening to a Saturday night hockey game on the wireless, though as a kid in Calgary, my Dad built me a crystal radio one summer, and I fiddled with that thing long into the night, hoping to hear something besides Top 40….how much longer until it’s acceptable to start your hockey pool?  Our XM NFL pool just held its draft this past Sunday (I got Kurt Warner, yet Joe Thistel ended up with both Peyton Manning and Tom Brady…how???), and our MLB pool is in full swing (as defending champion, I currently sit a disappointing fourth out of eight teams).  Where is Rob Higgins when you need him?…best way to build up your wrist shot?  Find an apple tree, and when those suckers fall to the ground, which they’ve been doing for the past month (trust me), instead of bagging them, shoot them into the bushes, or the garden, in my case.  Oh sure, you could eat them, but it would be best to do that before they hit the ground, or are riddled with worms…who’s the player you most want to see with their new team?  Personally, I’m itching to see Ray Emery in that splendid orange uniform of the Philadelphia Flyers, for so many reasons.  Now, I can never actually cheer for the Evil Empire Jr., but I’m pulling for Emery….as for the Flyers, it’s been 34 years and counting since they last hoisted the Stanley Cup.  Unthinkable.  The Bruins, 37 years.  Also unthinkable.  Putting aside the so-called Original Six, how have all the other “classes” of teams faired in the Cup count?  The 1967 teams have been pretty successful.  The Penguins have three, the Flyers two, and the Stars one.  Okay, in Dallas, but it still counts.  C’mon Blues, it’s been 1970 since you got to the big dance.  Speaking of 1970, that class of graduates have each gotten to the Final twice and lost.  No luck here.  1972 can boast of five Cups, four for the Islanders and one for the Flames, though it was up north in Calgary.  1974 has three Cups, though they were captured, of course, in New Jersey, not Kansas City, or even Denver.  The Caps made to the Final once.  Odds are they’ll get there again real soon.  1979 has been rather successful.  The WHA refugees have won eight Cups between them.  Five for the Oilers, two for the Nordiques, ahh, Avalanche, and one for the Whalers, ahh, Hurricanes.  Any surprise the Jets/Coyotes/Steelbacks haven’t won any?  The Sharks represent the Class of ‘91, and they represent the Texas Rangers in the NHL.  No appearances in the Classic, Spring in this case.  Tampa has the lone Cup from the 1992 kids, though Ottawa got a shot at it, and they lost to the Ducks of the Class of 1993.  Their expansion cousins, the Panthers, have one appearance in the Final.  Anyone we missed?  The Thrashers, Predators, Blue Jackets and Wild?  Nope.  Nothing from those four yet.  Is that all the teams in the NHL???  Did I add up the Cups won correctly?  Hey look it’s now 12:07 am eastern time.  You try doing all this off the top-of-your-head at this hour, without using Google.  At least it got me to September.  Pre-season NHL games in fifteen days.

- Mick Kern

Now that the Pittsburgh Penguins are the 2009 Stanley Cup Champions, you’ll be reading a number of stories and articles about who gets to take the Cup to Moscow, who gets to lug it up a mountain, and who gets to eat ice-cream out of it.

Some of the stories revolving around who did what to the old mug are almost as interesting as the two-month battle for the thing.  It seems that every player on the championship team gets one day with the trophy; the team overall gets one hundred days with the Cup.

Outside of the time the Cup spent an afternoon here at the NHL Home Ice studios two years ago, and the occasional visit to the Hockey Hall-of-Fame in downtown Toronto, I have to play Xbox NHL Hockey (and win) in order to get anywhere near the thing.

Except for a half-hour on a sunny Friday evening at Gretzky’s restaurant.  For that half-hour, I was the Keeper of the Cup.  Not officially…I didn’t get any fancy white gloves…but I had been deputized by Phil Pritchard of the Hockey Hall-of-Fame.

Mr. Pritchard and another colleague dropped by Gretzky’s restaurant that spring evening in late May of 2004 with the Stanley Cup-in-tow, the very one they hand out every spring, in order to appear on the syndicated radio program “Live From Wayne Gretzky’s”, which back then aired Friday night’s.  Producer Shawn Lavigne had been chasing Pritchard and Cup for a couple of weeks, and landed them for the show just before the Tampa Bay Lightning-Calgary Flames Final series got underway.

My job on the program was to help set up the equipment, run through the program log, come up with trivia questions, make sure all the microphones worked, eat some of the fine wings down at Gretzky’s, and make sure the guests were comfortable.  On that evening, the two gentlemen from the Hockey Hall-of-Fame rolled up with the Sir Stanley in his protective casing, and proceeded to set up shop right beside the stage.

This was a couple of hours before air-time, and, understandably, the sight of the Stanley Cup in the middle of the restaurant was a show stopper.  People put down their forks and knives, and came over to get their photograph taken with it.

At one point, after the crowds had thinned, Pritchard and buddy went to go grab a bite to eat before the show.  Having finished gobbling down my wings, I returned to my seat near the stage, keeping watch over the broadcast equipment.  Pritchard asked if I minded watching over the Stanley Cup while the two men went into the dining room and ate.

Minded?  I was honoured, though a little perplexed why they would leave one of the world’s most famous trophies with me, someone they had only met a scant twenty minutes earlier.  Then again, if for some reason I decided to make off with the Stanley Cup, odds were pretty good I wouldn’t get that far with it.  An iconic trophy such as the Cup wasn’t something someone could just pawn off for a couple of bucks.  Someone along the way would notice.  Heck, everyone would notice…and stop me…and ask to get their pictures taken with it.  Apparently that’s a Canadian birthright.

Regardless, I had no design’s on making off with the Cup, like a fellow Canadiens’ fan did back in 1961, when the Chicago Black Hawks were on the verge of winning it all.  If anything, I immediately felt some pressure having to be even temporarily responsible for its welfare.

It very well could have been Anne Murray, or the bones of Sir John A. MacDonald, or the secret recipe for beavertails that I was standing on guard for thee for.  I had often heard about the concept of the citizen soldier, and how each of us might be expected to be called into action, subverting our personal well-being for the good of the whole.  Well, this appeared to be my time.

During my half-hour as Keeper of the Cup, the trophy wasn’t hauled up a mountain, it wasn’t filled with a beverage, no babies made mustard in the bowl, it didn’t sink to the bottom of a swimming pool, and Peter Pocklington’s father didn’t try to scratch his name on it.

It just sat there, looking splendid in its perfect shininess, beckoning all comers with its siren call.  A number of folk posed with it during that half-hour, and one guy went to move it so that he could better read some of the names etched on its base.

Well, we couldn’t have any of that.  A polite smile in his direction put an end to that.  How Canadian of both of us.

It’s not like Pritchard gave me a crash course in how to safeguard the Cup; it’s just something that comes naturally to any hockey fan, regardless of nationality.

First and foremost, no-one, and I mean NO-ONE, could pick up the Cup and raise it above their head…unless they were an NHL player who had already won the trophy.

Second, well, short of making off with it, or physically abusing it, there aren’t a lot of restrictions about the Stanley Cup, which is part of its ageless appeal.  Even though it’s a difficult trophy to win, it remains the people’s trophy.  Most of us will never play in the NHL, and even those that do rarely get a chance to win the Cup, yet all hockey fans the world over feel a kinship with the Cup.  That evening, I was merely the people’s representative, guarding that which truly unites us all.

Still, I breathed a heck of a lot easier when the two Hockey Hall-of-Fame gentlemen returned from their meal, and sat down at a table right next to the Cup.

And that was my thirty minutes with the Stanley Cup.  Not much to write home about, though I did touch the engraved names of the 1966-67 Toronto Maple Leafs, and muttered under my breath an ancient curse that ensures the Leafs can never win it again.

Hey, membership has its rewards.

- Mick Kern

Who knew?

I mean, we should have known.  It’s not like he kept it a secret.

Every time Maxime Talbot would enter that car dealership in Pittsburgh, and talk with the pretty lady, he’d declare that he was a “superstar”.  And every time, watching that TV commercial at home, I would crack up at, well, first the bad acting on everyone’s part, and second, at the thought of Talbot as a superstar, even in the fevered mind of some scriptwriter.

Well, after Game Seven this evening in Detroit, Monsieur Talbot can indeed be treated to superstar treatment wherever he goes all this summer, thanks to two of the biggest goals he’ll ever score during his life.

Don’t know about you, but that was an emotionally draining game to watch, and I don’t root for either team involved.  We all wanted a great Game Seven, well, we got one.  A game for the ages.

Have there been better playoff games?  Heck, yes, including a number during these playoffs.  Have there been better Game Sevens?  Probably, but this one deserves to be somewhere on the list, particularly after time passes, and we all have had a chance to savour what we just witnessed.

None of the three goals were highlight reel material, but then again, none of them were fluky.  Okay, the Penguins got a fortutitous bounce on the first Talbot goal, but that kind of bounce happens in the game of hockey on a regular basis.  The question is, what will you do with such a gift when presented with it.

Talbot tore the wrapping paper off it and lit the lamp.

Sure, Fleury probably would have liked to have had that Detroit goal back, but from a fan’s perspective, the Wings scoring late only served to rachet up the tension to a sublime level.  It was sweet pain.

Many people, including myself, were hoping that this game would be so good that it would have to go into overtime to decide things.  Well, close enough.  Only two previous Stanley Cup Game Seven’s have gone into extra time, and we’ll have to wait for another shot at such an ending.

But Detroit certainly didn’t surrender, despite the clock ticking down on their chance at a second Cup-in-a-row.  With 6.5 seconds remaining in the third, they controlled the puck, and set up a beauty of a chance with, what, a second remaining?  Okay, we didn’t get overtime, but we were treated to Fleury making a heck of a save to preserve the Penguins’ third Cup in team history.  Shades of Patrick Roy, who, according to those quick profiles Hockey Night in Canada does at the end of every Cup clinching game, was one of Fleury’s goaltending heroes growing up; Roy and Martin Brodeuer.

Roy has four Cups and free admission anytime into the Hockey Hall-of-Fame.  Brodeur has three Cups and will get that same pass someday soon.  Fleury has one Cup and counting.  No matter what happens during the rest of his career, Marc-Andre Fleury is a Stanley Cup winning goaltender.

Which brings us to the Terrific Two.  Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby.

Malkin erased all bad memories of last year’s Final, and had a great playoff, after a great regular season.  He wins the Conn Smythe Trophy, (the first Russian to do so), in the same season that he won the Art Ross Trophy.  Think of what this amazing young player has accomplished after only three seasons in the NHL.  Not too shabby.

Neither was the effort of Penguins’ captain Sidney Crosby, who limped off the ice after being on the receiving end of a terrific hit during the second period.  He came back for the third period, and took a shift, but it was no go.

Didn’t matter.  Crosby did what he had to do earlier on, particularly down the stretch during the regular season and during the first three rounds of the playoffs, including when Pittsburgh were down 2-games-to-none against the Washington Capitals in the second round.

All the Sidney Crosby haters out there, I sincerely hope you choked on the image of 87 lifting the Stanley Cup.

It was beautiful.  One of the true superstars of hockey, accepting the Stanley Cup as captain.  Put aside your petty prejudices and think of what this young man has already accomplished during his four years in the National Hockey League.  With this Cup win, he’s practically done it all.  Oh sure, the likes of Alexander Ovechkin may very well get to this point in the near future (and what a fine moment that will be), but Crosby, and crew, beat him there.  That’s a fact.  Twist it as you will.  Denigrate it on the internet billboards with juvenile talk of league conspiracy, but nothing will change that fact.

Man, there can’t be much better things in the world of sports than waiting to hoist that Cup.  The Conn Smythe was the Christmas stocking; the Cup were the mountains of presents under the tree.  Just rewind your PVR and watch the eyes of the Penguins’ players as that moment arrived.  At that juncture in time, money and injuries meant nothing.  It was all about the win, all about the team, all about the Cup.

And that ends maybe the most enjoyable National Hockey League post-season I have ever watched, and I’ve watched them all since 1971.  The first and second rounds featured some amazingly enjoyable hockey.  The third round dipped a bit, but it set up a fantastic seven-game Stanley Cup Final between the Red Wings and the Penguins.  One for the ages.

The King, ahem, the Wing is dead.  Long live the King Penguin.

- Mick Kern

For the record: with the Penguins’ win, the XM NHL Home Ice Hockey Pool for picking the most series’ wins correctly goes to Scott Laughlin and myself, who were right on 12-out-of-15 series.  I’d like to selfishly point out Scott and I both had the Penguins winning in seven, and it’s the third straight year I’ve either won this pool, or shared first place.  All bow and praise me.

Scott Laughlin  12-out-of-15 series correctly picked
Mick Kern - 12-out-of-15
Dan Blakeley - 11
Peter Berce - 10  (also had Pittsburgh in 7)
Joe Thistel - 10
Phil Esposito - 9
Shawn Lavigne - 8
Mike Ross - 8

(this list only of guys who submitted picks for all four rounds)

Twas the night before Game Seven, when all through Home Ice
Not an announcer was stirring, or offering advice
The microphones were hung in the studio with care
In hopes that Eric Gage would take to the air.

The listeners were nestled all sung in their beds
While visions of Cup celebrations danced in their heads
And Blakeley in his news booth, preparing his cast
Looking up all the stories and stats from the past.

When up in CR2 there arose such a clatter
Pogi had called to indulge in some chatter
The lines were all jammed with callers galore
Each one proclaiming the game’s final score.

The fans of the Red Wings convinced they’ve been wronged
Let down by the league and the refs for a song
The fans of the Penguins were sure it was they
Who were being shafted at the end of the day.

What’s up with this Sidney the Wings fans cry out
Why he’s no more than a wee wittle lout
Pens fans reply it’s not us that do cheat
Your boards are quite bouncy, to aid your repeat.

And your eight-legged friends that you toss with delight
Were funny back when Jack Benny ruled the night
Your goalie is holey your Mule quite the fool
It’s you who tomorrow will be taken to school.

Not so, cried the denizens of Hockeytown
For what is a Penguin but a tuxedoed clown
A bird that can’t fly, like a song that can’t sing
Thus it will be us with the Stanley Cup ring.

Enough, cried out Trigger as he hung up the phones
There’s too much noise and I vant to be alone
Time for a replay or NHL Live
Let’s hear how the Ranger fan somehow survives.

Then Rossy and Espo butted heads on the air
Arguing loudly over what calls were fair
Shalley and Berce compared notes from afar
Though honestly they’d rather be at a bar.

Thistel just whistled as Boomer complained
About this thing and that thing again and again
Scotty was off watching Junior be born
For his Habs all these weeks later Mick still did mourn.

The Voice of The War Room prepared to exclaim
The Red Wings have won the Cup once again
But just to be safe, he also did say
The Penguins went north and stole the Cup away.

On Malkin on Crosby on Jordan, that Staal
On Fleury on Guerin on Bile-el-sa-maa
On Datsyuk on Osgood on Zetter, the Berg
On Holmstrom on Lidstrom to down flightless bird.

Whether Versus or cable or the NBC
Millions of Yankees may not even see
Their TV sets blank with the digital switch
On the night of the big game, ain’t life a bitch?

And up here in Cold Land, aka Balsillie ville
Make It Seven, heck, Make it 500 Mill
The only way Canada can win back the Cup
Is if Jimbo buys all the teams up.

Game Seven is still just a day’s wait away
Soon the puck will drop and the match they will play
But I heard Thistel exclaim as he left with Jeff Leake
Training camps open in just over twelve weeks.

Relive how the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins reached the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals

Red Wings Road To The Finals

Penguins Road To The Finals

Joe Thistel - NHL Home Ice Program Director, Host of ‘The Point’

Red Wings in 6 games

Scott Laughlin - Host of ‘Hockey This Morning’

Penguins in 7 games

Shawn Lavigne - Producer of ‘Hockey This Morning’

Red Wings in 7 games

Dan Blakeley - Host of ‘The War Room’

Red Wings in 6 games

Mick Kern - Host of ‘The War Room’

Penguins in 7 games

Michael ‘Trigger’ Trigiani - Producer of ‘The War Room’ and ‘In The Slot’

Penguins in 6 games

Phil Esposito - Host of ‘In The Slot’

Penguins in 6 games

Mike Ross - Host of ‘In The Slot’ and ‘Power Play’

Red Wings in 6 games

Jim ‘Boomer’ Gordon - Host of ‘The Point’ and ‘Faceoff’

Red Wings in 5 games

Peter Berce - Host of ‘Ice Cap’

Penguins in 7 games

Eric Gage - Host of ‘Ice Cap’

Red Wings in 5 games

Terry Mercury - Host of ‘Ice Cap’

Red Wings in 6 games

So we played all those useless exhibition games last September, and then we got all worked up about games over in Europe, and then we yakked endlessly about all the games before New Year’s Day, and then we got all excited about some stupid outdoor game, and then we went on and on about coaching changes, and suspensions, and head shots, and overblown 100th Anniversary celebrations, and Ovechkin goal celebrations, and then we all over analyzed the playoffs, and the matchups, and the refereeing…

..only to end up with the same matchup in the Stanley Cup Final as last year.

Well, don’t count me among those who are yawning at the thought of Pittsburgh vs. Detroit Act Two.  I believe this could be a very entertaining Cup Final, largely due to the very fact that these two teams faced each other in the Final last year.

This time around, Pittsburgh comes to the show with their guns reloaded, and some battle experience under their belts.  Detroit comes to the show with a renewed sense-of-purpose, a chance to further cement their status as the NHL’s only current dynasty, and Marian Hossa.

And you’re telling me as a hockey fan you can’t get up for this?

Stop your whining about Crosby whining, or your juvenile shots at NHL Commissioner Bettman (he’s got enough on his plate), or your constant bleating about the refereeing.  All of these petty grievances are common each and every playoff year.  They were the same in 1959, and 1969, and 1979, and 1989, and 1999; only the names have changed.

The strange thing about the NHL is that as the games become more important, as we get deeper into the post-season, as we enter the marquee event for the entire season, the Stanley Cup Final, less and less fans pay attention.

The TV numbers on both sides of the border reflect that, though NHL spinmeisters will take to the airwaves this week to convince you otherwise.  Here at NHL Home Ice, this is our fourth spring covering the playoffs.  And each spring, there is tangible evidence that a good number of listeners have stopped listening after their team has been eliminated.

So much for being a die-hard hockey fan, though I admit, as the playoffs drag into June, and nice weather hits Canada and the northern parts of the United States, it can be very difficult to keep your focus on hockey.  Yet the league has shown little or no interest in addressing this.  Thankfully, this year’s Cup Final will begin this Saturday, sparring us all from a nine-day delay and the inevitable jokes that would be made by the non-hockey sports media, and late-night TV comedians.

The Stanley Cup Final should be the pinnacle of the National Hockey League.  It’s hockey’s Super Bowl.  It’s not a hyped-up novelty like the outdoor game.  This series is for the one NHL trophy that truly means anything.  The one that people remember.  The one they judge you by.

And the pity is, a large number of self-proclaimed hockey fans will tune out this upcoming series between the Penguins and Red Wings for petty reasons.

Yup, the game is in safe hands.

Turning to weak hands, here are the results, after Round Three, of the fearless 2009 playoff predictions by the crew of NHL Home Ice…the ones who have made predictions for all three rounds so far:

1.  Dan Blakeley - 11 correct picks out of 14  (went 8-for-8 in first round)
2.  Scott Laughlin - 11 for 14
3.  Mick Kern - 11 for 14  (went 3-for-4 in second round)
4.   Joe Thistel - 10 for 14  (went 3-for-4 in second round - never picks the Penguins)
5.  Peter Berce - 9 for 14
6.  Shawn Lavigne - 8 for 14
7.  Phil Esposito - 8 for 14
8.  Mike Ross - 8 for 14  (went 1-for-4 in second round)

- Mick Kern

Before they dropped the puck for Game Seven on Wednesday evening between the Penguins and the Capitals, NHL.com had been running a poll, asking fans to choose the greatest seven-game playoff series in NHL history.

The 2009 Pens and Caps were leading, by a considerable margin, over the Red Wings and Avalanche brawl earlier this decade.  All the seven-game classics that occurred before the year 2000 received less and less of the vote as they got smaller in the rear-view mirror.  Guess most of us oldtimers either don’t know how to switch on a computer, or were too busy being six feet under (personally, I voted for the Boston Bruins-Montreal Canadiens series from 1979, the infamous Too Many Men On The Ice series.  That entire series was top-notch hockey).

Well, casting a vote for the current Pens-Caps series before Game Seven was even played was like opening your Christmas presents early.  Not on December 24th, but on December 19th.

In order for this to truly be considered the “Greatest Seven-Game Series in NHL History”, it had to deliver when it mattered most…Game Seven.

Well, so much for that. 

What a let-down, unless, of course, you bleed Penguin blue, or whatever it is Penguins bleed.  A 6-2 romp by Pittsburgh in the deciding game immediately puts this series near the bottom of the five or six previous series that were in that NHL.com poll.

Yes, it was a great buildup, through the first six games, thanks to high-tempo play and three overtimes, and lead changes, and Crosby and Ovechkin, and the young goaltenders, and the history of hate between these two franchises.

But it was, in the end, not to be.  The Ron McLean’s and Don Cherry’s can whine on and on about the slashing call on Shaone Morrisonn that led to the powerplay that led to the first Pittsburgh goal, but here’s the thing boys.

Whether you personally like it or not, the officials have been calling that call all season. No, not every time.  But that’s the tricky thing about the NHL.  By now, the players know that it might be called a penalty, so they can’t plead ignorance of the law when it is called.  You take a chance delivering a slash.  No matter how light, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, you take your chances.  And tonight, the Caps got burned.

What really sunk their boat was the second goal only eight seconds after the first.   The Craig Adams shot the kid should have had. 

Still, the fire-wagon Capitals, the most exciting team in hockey, as we’re told over and over and over again, had plenty of time to respond, and failed to do so.  Sure, the team they were facing are a very good, and deep team.  It wasn’t going to be easy.  But here’s where legends are born, forged from the fire of adversity.

All that was forged were the bad cheques that promised that this was the greatest series ever.

You can’t hang this series loss on Varlamov.  Without his goaltending, the Capitals don’t get this far.  Probably they lose, in five, to the stinkin’ New York Rangers.  Sure, the kid should have had at least that second goal, but he picked up the Caps a number of times in the past month.  It was time for his teammates to return that favour.

So whine all you want about the officiating.  Chant “Crosby Sucks” until you’re rockin’ the red in the face.  The fact remains, the better team won.

And, for now, Crosby got the better of Ovechkin.  Both are world class players.  Both are already superstars at such an early age.  Both performed, for the most part, at an elevated level throughout this series, which was the number one reason why it was a delight to watch.  Yet, to me, Crosby delivered a bit more than Ovechkin.  That may be the result of the team systems employed, but Crosby always looked like he’d plow through a wall, the goaltender, the Zamboni and his grandmother to score a goal. 

Crosby at times looks like the world’s most skilled and determined plumber.  Ovechkin is a painter of immense talent, a true artist.  Both possess rare skills that can be breathtaking to behold.  Yet, so far, Crosby has gone further in the playoffs than Ovechkin.  And until one of these dudes hoists the big mug, you can have all your Art Ross and Hart Trophies.  They are nice, but it’s the playoffs that truly matter, probably something that might be lost on the non-hockey sports journalists that suddenly found themselves covering the Capitals this spring.

Until the Capitals win the Stanley Cup, and with their two young goaltenders only getting better all the time, that is a distinct possibility in the next few years, I’ll take Sidney Crosby over Alexander Ovechkin.

Though really, no-one loses with either selection. 

- Mick Kern