What a magnificent hockey game!!!
And it’s a good thing for the NHL this was the second game of their Memorial Day doubleheader given the listless performance by the Texas A&M Aggies of the NHL who call Toronto their home base.
The first game had about as much drama as last season’s Bedlam football game in Norman with Ronnie Perkins taking over the game. You could see it on the faces of the Toronto players. The understanding of the fact as a franchise they haven’t done anything of note since 1967 as an organization. A great Canadian city in search of a viable hockey operation.
For the Canadians …who haven’t won a Cup since 1993 when they beat Gretzky’s LA Kings’ team…it was a nice win as they came back from a 3-1 games deficit to advance to the second round to play the Winnipeg Jets.
Hopefully…with the bracket rigged this way to ensure a Canadian based team makes the Final Four in this special Covid bracket year our neighbors to the north will feel they are represented in the NHL teamwise circa 2021.
But the main feauture of the night with the Bruins hosting the annoyingly gritty NY Islanders who are coached by Barry Trotz led up to the billing.
With the score 4-3 about fifteen minutes deep into the first overtime Islander Casey Cizikas broke away at center ice with the puck when Bruin defenseman Jeremy Lauzon basically passed the puck right to him on a nightmarish miscue.
Cizikas buried the mistake topshelf right shoulder over Bruin netminder Tuuka Rask and that was the end to a fabulous hockey game played in front of a raccous sellout crowd inside of TD Garden.
It was a tough night for Lauzon who accidentley deflected the puck on the Islanders’ first goal of the evening as well.
This was the best game of the Road to the Stanley Cup so far. This game had it all. Ebb and flow. Momentum shifts. Board rattling checking. Clutch goaltending by Seymon Varlemov and Tuuka Rask. A few scrums. A glorious comeback by the Bruins from a 3-1 hole only to be erased by the game winner.
A great hockey game in every facet.
Don’t sleep on the NY Islanders. Barry Trotz was the coach who finally convinced Alex Ovechkin to play both ends of the ice on the Capitals’ 2019 Cup championship team.
This Islander team is blue collar. They come at you and when they’re right with all four lines playing with an attitude they can wear on a glamour team like the Bruins.
So I believe Thursday night it will be Game 3 in Nassua for those of us who love hockey hunker down for what should be a great second round series.
It’s a beautiful city who’s best sports moment came when Millwood High School’s own Joe Carter Jr. went yard on Mitch ‘Wild Thing’ Williams. Consider the irony of that…an Oklahoma kid playingf or the Blue Jays did what the hockey team hasn’t done in fifty-four years.
So in 1993 the Montreal Canadians won the Stanley Cup and the Toronto Blue Jays won the World Series. Then in 2019 the Toronto Raptors won the NBA champipnship. Toronto needs an NHL team befitting a great city.