| Another fun night in the NHL. The Bruins beat the Leafs AGAIN. I swear, we'd win the Cup if we could play Toronto every night. 23 stops on 24 shots by Timmy (119 of 123 shots in this four gave streak against the Leafs), some super-clutch late scoring by Stuart, Primeau, and Bergeron, and all is right with the world. Darcy Tucker couldn't resist living down to his own well-deserved reputation, taking a penalty for taking a run at Timmy in the third, then leaving his man open to go stand near an already well-covered Bruin in the slot, leaving Bergeron open for the final goal (and providing a nice screen to boot). Nice. Aubin started for the Leafs, which I thought was somewhat telling, given the recent struggles of Andrew Raycroft. Maybe Paul Maurice didn't want to subject him to yet another loss to the Bruins, especially back at his old stomping grounds. Still, Maurice is publicly standing by Raycroft for the moment, defending him against the increasingly vocal fans and media types who are disappointed with Razor's play and calling for young AHLer and "Leaf Goalie Of The Future" Justin Pogge to be called up (even though he's not even top-15 in either save percentage or goals against average in the AHL right now, and promising though he may be, calling him up now for an extended stint would probably do more harm than good to his development). They take the Leafs seriously in Toronto, with the same sort of rabid over the top hysteria that the Sox generate in Boston. So the current losing streak is borderline-national crisis stuff, as far as the Toronto papers are concerned.
Big night for Tampa, they absolutely pancaked Atlanta tonight. Hat trick plus two assists for Lecavalier, goal and four assists for Marty, it was wacky. After they scored the last goal midway thru the third, Tampa stapled St Louis and Lecavalier to the bench. No way they were gonna let some meathead from Atlanta injure one of the big money scorers with a "sending a message" sort of hit late in a way-out-of-reach game. Good, sound coaching decision there.
-Ricardo
"2 minutes by yourself and...you feel shame, you know...and then you get free" | 
