Author: Mike

When a goaltender makes saves the team in front of him plays with confidence and swag. Such was the case on Saturday night as the Nashville Preds climbed back into the Stanley Cup Finals with an impressive 5-1 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Pecca Rinne looked nothing like the sieve we saw in the first two games in this series. On the night, he stopped 27 of the 28 shots he faced and made every stop after allowing an early goal to of course rookie Jake Guentzel. In these playoffs, Rinne is 8-1 at home and has a .949 save percentage at home.

The Nashville crowd was incredible. Maybe the best hockey crowd I’ve ever seen as they were part of the game. It kind of reminded me of the Oklahoma City crowds in 2012 when the Thunder made their run to the NBA Finals. The city of Nashville has gone ga ga over their hockey team and it’s clear this team feeds off the energy of the crowd.

Pens goalie Matt Murray had a tough game only stopping 28 of 33 shots, but in all candor he was left out to dry on numerous occasions.

I think we’ve got us a hockey series, but this shouldn’t come as a surprise because as the 8th seed in the West the Preds beat Chicago, St. Louis, and Anaheim to get here. A very impressive run and of course they have their crowd.

Game 4 on Monday night in Nashville. Can’t wait.

Both coaches in this series are excellent. Both Pete Laviolette and Mike Sullivan have won a Stanley Cup championship as a coach. Here’s Pete Laviolette in his Game 3 post game presser. He doesn’t mince words. Hockey coaches generally don’t mince words.

Sigh.

We would have been better off with Dennis Rodman as Prez–of this I’m certain.

I watched about five live minutes of Game 1 of the much awaited NBA Finals then became bored and changed channels to the more intriguing tale of money laundering in a Cypriot bank starring Russians and New York real estate guys. Game 1 was as I feared it might be with the Nike West Coast All Stars having just too much offensive firepower for pretty much any team on the universe currently. This is just very simple…Curry, Durant, Green, and Thompson are too much on one roster in this age of salary cap pro sports.

Maybe Cleveland can make a game or two competitive or maybe Draymond Green will kick LeBron in the balls again to get him worked into some sort of hyper state, but I just don’t see it happening.

I mean, even before Durant exited Oklahoma City to join the team he couldn’t finish off last season in the Western Conference Finals — this was a Warriors nucleus that won 73 games last season and was one game away from finishing the Cavs in five games for a repeat. Just think, if Green hadn’t kicked LeBron in the balls we’d be seeing a threepeat with this nucleus plus Durant.

Make this clear, Durant didn’t put Golden State over the top, he puts them out of mathematical reach for any other team in the NBA. The Nike All Stars are 13-0 in these playoffs with an average victory margin of around 17 points a game. Yawn.

There is one silver lining in all of this, we pretty much know this Warriors group won’t visit the White House and waste their time with Caligula. The thought of Caligula and Cupcake in a photo op embrace might put me over the top.

Maybe in all of this there will be some closure for Kevin and his mother. Maybe now that he’s finally won an NBA ring he can move on to another team in the league and the NBA can have some degree of competitive legitimacy again. Kevin himself said he was very intrigued with the Celtics last July in the Hamptons. My advice to Kevin Durant would be get your ring then maybe opt out to some other team in a big market like Boston, LA, or even Washington D.C. Dude, your mother won’t say this, but I will…you’ve ruined the NBA.

Consider this—if some GM could put Westbrook, Harden, Kawhi, and Lebron together on the same roster they might be able to beat the West Coast All Stars, but even then that wouldn’t be a given.

If only Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, and Wilt could have joined the Celtics—who knows how many rings they would have won.

This is what to date we’ve never seen from Durant in the NBA. That being, a super star taking ownership of his team and leading them to multiple titles, or in Durant’s case just one. The NBA Finals start tonight. I’m completely over Durant leaving Oklahoma City. But as an overall fan of basketball, I must admit I’m curious to see if Durant can get past his LeBron mental block as a member of the Warriors. If you take away Westbrook breaking Oscar’s record, this has been a season of nothingness. I’m hopeful the Finals give us something worth watching.

These Penguins have the look of a defending champion on a mission to repeat. It’s that simple. They find different ways to win, but in the end they just find ways to win hockey games. In games in which they’ve been outshot by ten or more shots in these playoffs they’re 6-1. Enough said.

For the second straight game the Nashville Preds looked poised to win a road game in these Finals. But for the second straight game Pittsburgh exploded for three goals in a quick burst to take both games and head back to Nashville with a 2-0 series lead.

To be blunt, Pecca Rinnie has been abysmal in net for Nashville. The Predators have no chance to win this series if his play continues at this level. Of the nine Pittsburgh goals scored in the first two games, by my count, four of the goals have been soft. You can’t win the Super Bowl without solid QB play. You can’t win the World Series without pitching. And you can’t win the Stanley Cup with you netminder giving up soft goals in bunches.

Conversely, Penguin rookie goalie Matt Murray has been outstanding. He was my No. 1 Star in Game 2 and played well enough in Game 1 for his team to win.

Rookie winger Jake Guentzel has been incredible in these Finals. He has both game winners and three goals in the two games. All told, Guentzel has 12 goals in the playoffs and is the hunt to break Dino Cicarelli’s rookie record of 14 goals scored in a single playoff season.

Game 3 is in Nashville on Saturday. Very simple. Pecca Rinnie needs to bring his game and give his team a chance.

It’s just very sad and tragic. So bad I almost feel sorry for him. From that first briefing when he tried to change the perception of crowd size, nothing has changed. It’s painful to watch. For his sake, I hope this was his last public briefing. Maybe when this is over he can go into rehab and get another job. SNL shouldn’t do anymore Spicer skits. It’s piling on to what clearly is a mentally ill human being.

Can you imagine the Republican’s reaction if Barack Obama had made a trip to Europe and in the aftermath the leader of Germany made these type of overtures in relation to America?

You see…unless you’re one of those who see the world thru the collective lense of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh this is what the rest of the world is thinking.

Given that Caligula is our most unread, least polished, and the most obnoxious president in our country’s history–I’m going to be pragmatic about this and give a C- in that he didn’t start a war during the tour itself.

He loves the Saudis and they love him. They should be a match made in heaven in that they are both intolerable tyrants who don’t believe in our constitution and human rights. If Trump wants to get serious about Isis he may want to start with the Saudis. I didn’t see any of that.

Israel loves Trump simply because they hated Obama. No agreement of any kind will come of this. This isn’t the art of the deal. Not happening.

The Pope had already come to the conclusion discussing walls with Caligula will get him nowhere. So he tried a different tact and gave our ‘leader’ a letter on why America should remain the world leader in climate change.

Trump once again insulted the very leaders of nations who have the most in common with us. He pushed aside the prime minister of Montenegro in what is probably the most defining brand moment of our ugly American president.

So now Caligula comes home to Russiagate and it’s expected there will be a war room assembled to deal with what to date his entire presidency has been about to date…namely Caligula spinning his relationship with Russia and not handing over his tax returns. Maybe the ball caps he was peddling to his rally tour supporters during the campaign should have read Make Russia Great Again.

Me a plodding obscure blogger. What a great movie scene. If only Caligula had the style of Lee Marvin.

Tough break for the Turkish agent, but we have laws. Ask David Petraeous…we have laws. This is why we have prisons. Karma can be a bitch, eh. Dude, I hate to tell you this, but what you did is clearly beyond the one-tenth marker. You need to go to prison.