15 Apr '04 - + 58 - 52 It's Tax Day
And U.S. taxpayers aren't the only ones facing the music. Today is the
first day of the ultimate do-or-die games. Today, two teams face
elimination.
Montreal will be at Boston,
where they lost both of their first two games. Boston can move on to
the second round, where their #2 seeding guarantees them home ice
advantage for at least one more series, by winning at home tonight.
They've outscored Montreal 5-1 so far in the Fleet Center.
But, as I pointed out my last entry, the scores have taken a back seat
to controversy in this series. Montreal forward Mike Ribeiro stopped
play in game three when he fell to the ice, apparently injured, and
drew a whistle. The stoppage put an end to a furious Boston rush with
32 seconds left after they had pulled their goalie to try to tie the
game. The Bruins believe he was faking it to draw the whistle, and
weren't shy about saying so. They stopped short of accusing him of
faking entirely, but called his embellishment an "embarrassment to the
game".
Montreal responded by saying Ribeiro was injured and "probable" for
game four, holding him out of practice the next day. Regardless of any
purported injury, Ribeiro did not help matters by taunting Boston
players while he was coming off the ice after the stoppage. He
certainly didn't appear to be worried about himself as much as he was
delighted that he had succeeded in putting a stop to the play. And
don't worry about Ribeiro, he played in game four, garnering 23:22 in
ice time, with 3 shots on goal.
Speaking of game four... sometimes those trying for Academy Awards
instead of game victories get what they deserve. Ribeiro's big-name
teammate, Alexei Kovalev, cost his team the game by trying to draw a
whistle. Kovalev received a tap on his hand in overtime and chose to
pretend he had been crippled rather than attempting to play the puck.
During his stage performance, he ran into teammate Sheldon Souray -
thus picking the only other Montreal player in the zone off the play
and allowing Boston's Glen Murray to walk in alone on Theodore.
Good-bye, any thoughts of tying up the series; hello, 3-1 deficit. Good
luck tonight guys, you'll need it. And again for the next two games, if
it comes to that.
Remind me some time to tell you the story about Sakic, Kovalev, and Van
Hellemond in the '95 playoffs. I guess this sort of thing paid off for
him that time, but if you think there's a referee alive who doesn't
remember that incident every time Kovalev looks injured, think again.
St. Louis will be visiting San
Jose. They also lost their opening two road games and split the home
series to put themselves in a serious hole. Unlike Montreal, they put
up a fight in game one, going to OT still knotted up at 0-0. No
controversy here - that I'm aware of - just hard-played hockey and San
Jose looks solid against an inferior team... notwithstanding the game
three beating the Blues laid on them. I'll still take the Sharks in the
series, but something tells me the Blues win tonight.
You've got to love playoff hockey. Enjoy the games!