Faceless Drones 3, Sens 2: In Which The Devils Continue To Struggle With The Elimination Of The Rover

Welcome back to the Bad Old Days. I had no idea, but apparently there is a vast, silent majority of fans secretly pining for the return of the rodeo that hockey had become before the lockout. Who knew? Big Lou, that’s who. So let’s all thank Lou Lamiarello and his army of clones, the New Jersey Devils (ably abetted by on-ice officials we should add), for once again being at the vanguard of those forces eager and willing to destroy flow, squash offence wherever they find it and ensure the inevitable regression of hockey’s popularity in dumbass idiotic undeserving “non-traditional” markets back below that of Antique Roadshow and midget mud wrestling.

The Highs:

• This? ‘Tis but a scratch: Anyone who doubted just how valuable A-Train is to our Cup hopes, I submit to you the following sequence:Early in the first period, Anton, as is his wont, drops to block a shot from the high slot. Not content with the usual, leg first technique, our boy decides to add an element of risk to it. He blocks it with his face. A quick trip to the bench and a self examination of the nose later (nope, doesn’t look broken), he’s back on the ice for his next shift. In a soup kitchen somewhere in America, Craig Ludwig sits, smiling.

• That’s an impressive display of man meat right there. Wait. What?: Schubeedoo, Fish and Neiler. Ladies and gentlemen, your beefed up, stoked up, truly terrifying starting line for last night’s game, and boy howdy, did they do their jobs. CBC should put overlays on the replays, POW!, WHAM!, OOF!, Batman style. And for the first 90 seconds of the game, there was more energy and excitement on the ice, and in the stands, then there had been for weeks. Seeing this, THE COACH decided to capitalize by immediately splitting up his new CRASH line, thus allowing the Devils to suck all life out of the contest. Once the game was safely out of reach, THE COACH once again demonstrated his considerable brilliance by putting them back together in the third. Once.

The Lows:

• Egregious Golden Groin Defensive Brainfart of the night: Fearlessly picking up the torch so skillfully dropped by the late, unlamented Joe Corvo, and on a night marked by The Captain’s own goal (can he at least get an official point for that? I’d hate to see him lose the scoring race by one), our boy Jason distinguished himself with an absolute frozen rope from his own corner, into the low slot. A fantastic, no look pass. The only problem, of course, was that it was a fantastic no look pass directly onto the stick blade of John Madden, Sens killer of note. The fact that Emery made the save (I know!), in no way mitigates the unbridled, bile producing stupidity of this play.

• Behold the terrifying scoring machine that is Arron Asham: I’m going to take it a bit easy on you Ray. Just a bit, mind you, and for a couple three reasons. First, you didn’t exactly get any help from the guys in front of you, and once the rest of the team got their collective heads out of their asses, you made just enough big stops to keep us in it. Secondly, we all know that THE COACH doesn’t take a good effort in a losing cause into account when picking a starter for the next game, meaning you’ll be sitting on the bench Tuesday night, so I don’t want to rub anymore salt in the wound. But…um…geez Ray. Arron Asham? Really?

• Duct tape? Aisle 47: The operating budget of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is on the north side of one billion dollars. To put that into perspective, this is roughly equivalent to the GDP of Bhutan* or, conversely, Amy Winehouse’s monthly meth allowance. So, would it be too much for this humble taxpayer to ask that the CBC feed emanating from our Nation’s Capital not look like its being beamed from the dark side of (Nancy Lee’s) Uranus, and that’s when the signal isn’t breaking up completely? Perhaps to make up for the extra costs, Mothercorps could scrap that fiber optic connection between Dean Brown’s brain and the NHL statistical database. All that bandwidth must cost a fortune.

*I have no idea what the GDP of Bhutan is.

The Creamy Middle:

I really don’t think I’m overstating things, when I say the continued success of the New Jersey Devils is the absolute worst thing to happen to hockey since the Fox glowing puck. Standing defiant against all of that post-lockout run and gun fun, they just kept hanging around, clogging up the neutral zone and otherwise sucking all that is good and just and righteous about hockey right out of the game. Combine that with the knee-jerk “monkey see” mentality of the other teams (except THE COACH, of course. Lord knows we can’t play defence to save our lives) along with the inevitable backslide in the competence of the on ice officials, and…well there’s a reason one of the most successful teams in the league with a brand new arena can’t draw more than 12,000 per game. I mean, a reason other than playing in Newark. As for the Senators performance last night, I’ll give them a very slim pass based on the strength of the last two periods. Hey, it’s hard pulling yourself out of a coma that quickly.

Up Next:

The fast fading Flyers make an alliterative appearance at the Bank Tuesday night. Don’t look now Sens fans but both the Habs and Devils are now nipping at our heels for the conference lead (and it could be tied by game time). Now, I’m sure THE COACH is stressing to our guys that the tightness in the standings dictates that they must put all thoughts of reclaiming their manhood and exacting revenge aside. Playing a solid game and getting the win is what must take precedence. God, I hope they tell Paddock to piss off.

Behind Enemy Lines: Better late than never, but I'd like to rectify a long standing oversight and introduce Flyers.Femme, a key member of HLOG. As the banner proclaims, Not. A. Puck.Bunny. Obviously not. There's far too much knowledge there. Needs more infuriated desperation though.