NHL PLAYOFF HIGHLIGHTS: MADDEN 2006

DEVILS 4, RANGERS 1. Without Jagr, Ward, Kasparminus, and Henrik (Weekes played in place of him), The Rangers played hard tonight . . . but the outcome was the same, as they lost 4-1. The Devils third goal summed up how things have been going for the Rangers. With the score 2-0 Devils near the end of the 2nd period, the Rangers ended up with a 5-on-3 power play. They came close, with Sykora hitting a post, but a number of great clearing passes by Rafalski broke up their rhythm, and Pandalfo cleared the puck off the boards just as John Madden came out of the penalty box. Weekes seemed stunned and stayed in the net as Madden swooped in all alone to his left and tried to put it past him. Initially, he made the save, but as he moved the puck trickled between his legs and stopped precariously on the goal line. Ozolinsh came in to try to dig it out, and instead poked it in, with 0:06 remaining. This made it 3-0, and Madden would score again to make it a 4-1 final. It's now officially an uphill battle for the Rangers, who showed improvement tonight especially on the PK, and shut down the Devs #1 line, though it may be too late. Expect to see Henrik in goal, and Sandis outside selling pretzels, for Game 3 @ MSG on Wednesday.

NOTE: Those stupid thundersticks came back to haunt the Devils PR. When Madden scored his hat trick, hundreds of hats came down on the ice . . . along with hundreds of those stupid thundersticks, uninflated and still in their wrappers, and it stopped play for 10 minutes. Brilliant work, by both Devils fans and the Devils PR. Of course, if they just gave out towels, that wouldn't have happened.

Among the lousy names I've heard for the Devils/Rangers series: "The Tunnel Series" (Post), "Battle of the Hudson" (Daily News), "Border War" (MSG). You guys all suck, those are horrible. Stan Fischler added "Manhattan Meadowlands Mayhem" today. Shut up, Maven, and go Zamboni the Palisades ice.

BUFFALO 8, PHILLY 2. It was all Sabres in this one, as they built a 5-0 1st period lead and cruised to an 8-2 win (and a 2-0 series lead) behind hat tricks by Dumont and Pominville. As this was going on, I read some of the CBS Sportsline Glog (ugh):

1(st period) - 4:23
More USA! USA! USA! chants. This can't be encouraging for Esche's confidence at all. And there it is, Esche now comes out of his net to start a fight with Derek Roy at the middle of the ice. Esche has lost it for the moment. Roy went after Peter Forsberg, who skated by him and sort of sided him a little. It's all Buffalo in the first period. Esche gets a penalty that wil be served by Mike Knuble.

That's right, the Buffalo fans taunted Esche with "USA" chants, because he was chosen over Miller for the Olympics, and ended up sucking--and he got so frustrated that he picked a fight! Only in America! USA! USA!

MONTREAL 6, CAROLINA 5, 2OT. Yes, we have another double OT game, as Michael "Easy" Ryder scores, and the Habs take a stunning 2 games to zip lead in this series. (Road trip?)

COLORADO had a 3-0 lead in the first (giving them 8 unexplained goals in the series), but DALLAS finally woke up and scored 4 in the second. I just turned on OLN to see the conclusion, and the Avs just tipped in a SH goal to tie it at 2:04! I'm too tired to stay up for OT, but the Avs had better win this.

I didn't mention this from Sunday: have you ever seen a goal scored off of 4 skates and a post? I don't think I have either. Check out the highlights from Game 2, Detroit vs. Edmonton, from Sunday (it's the second goal shown). Detroit's Williams was behind the goal to the goalie's right, and tried to shoot it out front, but it went off the defenseman's (Bergeron) skate, back off his (Williams) left and right skates, hit the post, hit the goalie's (Roloson) right skate, and caromed in--just a ridiculous ping pong shot. I tried to describe on this blog in case the link doesn't work, and I think I failed miserably.

I'll close with a picture of Peca, who looks like a hockey player, or a hobo who lost a fight. Get that guy a hot meal and a cot to sleep on.