SHOHOLA, PA – Yesterday was like Christmas morning for puckheads like me. Outside of sleeping pretty late (10:00) for the hockey holiday, I prepared myself for the day ahead by taking my lady and her three girls for brunch at the local Perkins restaurant. My menu choice? The corned beef hash and eggs that came with hash brown potatoes and three pancake. A whopping 1600 calorie fix in one sitting that served me well for the thirteen hours of pucks on the slate. Did I mention my feeding tube was removed Friday? It was replaced with a feed bag. The recovery is complete y’all!
With the ongoing MLB COVID-19 saga, not just hockey but the Stanley Cup Playoffs is all I need to make me forget about missing out on sports since March. Say what you want about NHL Commish Gary Bettman, but he finally got something right. The decision to have two host cities in Canada is a stroke of genius. While lower North America has become a petri dish it got frozen out of a host city for the tournament as the league opted for one in Western Canada (Edmonton) and one in the East (Toronto).
Players, coaches and lower level staff are being tested and monitored extensively in hopes of avoiding what’s happening in baseball. Bettman is loathed by hockey nuts primarily for two labor disputes ten years apart (94-95 and 04-05) with the latter wiping out the entire season of play and to what is to this day the only sport to ever shut down an entire year. IF the NHL gets in a complete playoffs with little Covid ramifications this will surely be his crowning achievement. As much as it pains me to say it, Nice job jack ass.
Barely half way through my meal the puck dropped in the first of five games and the Rangers were behind the eight ball only a minute into the game. The NHL app gives live updates on games and prior to faceoff an alert popped up that NYR goalie wunderkind Igor Shesterkin would miss the game. The Blueshirts are in trouble if he is anything less than 100% since it’s time to put The King of Nothing out to pasture – see third and deciding soft goal for proof. Game 2 on Monday may give the young Russian some time to get well. The Broadway Blues will need him and their daunting power play unit to do better than yesterday’s 0-for-7 donut.
The Black Hawks Blackhawks (Are we still allowed to call them that?) scored at will in the opening period of their game versus Edmonton and never looked back… The Islanders held off a pesky Panthers effort in a very physical game… Claude Julien is in Sid Crosby’s head and Montreal is my upset pick for these qualifiers and this prediction came before the Habs OT won in Game 1 as I tried to convince a buddy to lay down a C-note on them for a 2-1 payout… As for the Winnipeg game late last night, I was en route back to PA and missed it but I won’t be missing the 3:00 NBC game today.
LET’S GO BRUINS!!!
And come back tomorrow for Junior Blaber, after commenting below.
