It had been 10 straight games that the Lightning visited GM Place without a win. Let's decide to make it 11. On a night were I was holding strong on one of my Lenten promises at Danny K's in the beautiful city of Orange, CA (we were there until 9; just missing the guy with the pen name "Beasy Bee"), the Orca came away with a thrilling 2-1 win against the East Coast team with the -36 goal differential from Tampa Bay.
It only took 11:41 for the hometown fans to get a chance to sing along to "Crowd Chant" by Joe Santriani. Super stud Alex Edler blast a power play goal into the twine with assists from Ryan Kesler and Po Po Demitra (who, by the way, has 14 points in his last 12 games) to get the 'Nucks off to a running start. Steven Stamkos tied the game up at 14:36 of the middle frame in a scrappy garbage goal after the refs prevented Hank's goal from counting just seconds earlier. Damn partial Toronto video review morons. Lucky for Vancouver, however, Quebec City's own (and Karen's favorite) Stevie Bernier loomed large with a garbage goal of his own just under half way into the third period. SB's goal deflected off of a Vinny Lecavalier's skate and into the net for the unlikely game winner. Bernier said it best after the game, "This year has been tough. You score a goal and miss a couple each game and it's tough for momentum. The most important thing is keep working hard every game and if you keep working hard those kinds of goals are going to happen and it's going to help you to build your confidence." Hard to really accept that Steve thinks it has been a tough yet, really. After all, he's easily on pace to break his career high of 15 goals (currently with 13 goals scored and 21 games left to play), and he's been damned impressive to me.
The three stars as called by the media sparkle as 1) Alex Edler (1 goal), 2) Steve Stamkos (1 goal), and 3) Kevin Bieksa (an odd choice with his best stat being 2 shots on goal). I hope you have your LSF pants on, because here comes the LSF's underrated three stars of the game. 1) Bobby Lu (20 saves on 21 shots, which makes me wonder how he didn't make the "real" list), 2) Steve Bernier (game winning goal doesn't getting you the star?), and 3) Henrik "H-Bomb" Sedin (11 face off wins and a goal that didn't make the stat sheet). Bingo.
The continued East Coast success has my Blue & Green boys sitting sort of pretty at 31-22-8 (70 points). The Northwest is a sled race with Calgary up 10 points on my guys, with Minnie and Edmonton (-5), and Colorado starving for wins at -13. In the bigger picture, the Orca are still holding the 5 spot down, +1 on #6 Columbus (they're better than you thought, eh?), +3 on #7 Anaheim (I still hate them), and +5 on the #8 spot held by the Wild/Oilers/Stars. Looking up doesn't provide a lot of hope, with Chicago still being wily in #4, +7 on the Canucks.
As we sit, every LSF team outside of the Maple Leafs (-9 of the #8 Buffalo) is in the playoff hunt. A lot of hockey remains to be played, of course. One of those needing to be played is a Sunday night battle that not many before the season would have been excited about, besides me. The Canucks welcome the #6 Columbus Blue Jackets into the beautiful Pacific Northwest for an intense Western Conference battle. Why will the Canucks win? People love goal differential, right? Well, the Canucks are +9 this year, and the Jacks are -6. So, there you have it.
A post within a post will update you (and me) on all of my basketball buddies. Thankfully, a pitiful Notre Dame basketball season (outside of the amazing internet win against the Friars) is only two games away from closing out after a 13 point loss to UConn. Only Villanova and St. John's remain, and we may just be lucky enough to escape with two wins on the way out. If so, ND would finish with a conference mark of 9-9 and an overall tally of 18-12. Not quite what the Irish faithful expected out of this team, but hey, the NIT can be fun too. The equally disappointing Gauchos have three games remaining, including tonight's bout against UC Davis (and then games against Riverside and Long Beach). At 12-14 (5-8), UCSB are just barely above our rivals from Cal Poly in the battle for the Big West basement. Thank God it's all about the tournament! Can Chris Devine and company play way above their heads when they come to the Anaheim Convention Center? I sure hope so. And finally, the Austin Celtics (man, I wish) rebounded from the game that shall not be mentioned with a big win against the subpar Pacers. The C's bested the P's 104-99, with Merced, CA native (and friend of Brian Fuentes) Ray Allen leading things at 30 points and a +14 rating. It was a big night for Ray Ray, and he was joined by Glen Davis (18), Paulie Girl (16), and Le0n P0we (14, and check the zeros) in the double digit zone. Big Baby's +9 was the second best rating on the floor. By the way, Austin's newest star, Stephon Marbury, finished the night with 8 points and a -7. He came away saying, "It went the way I was praying for it to go. The whole satisfaction of the whole night for me is that we won." Whole! ESPN.com had way bigger compliments, "In his Celtics debut on Friday night, Stephon Marbury reminded us of the heights he's capable of reaching." Really? 8 points on a -7 night? Step back from the edge Stephon, you're reaching some crazy heights.
Crazy heights? Blinded by the lights. Dizzy new heights.
P.S. I think a combination of things has turned me into way more of a NBA fan. Those things are A) Getting excited during the Celts/Clippers game, B) Finding out about the +/- rating in the NBA box scores, and C) deciding that I'm going to pretend that the Celts are from Austin, at least until they actually move there.
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