Three games ago the Capitals were in command of their series against the Montreal Canadiens leading three games to one.  Tonight they are thinking about what tee times they would like to start setting as they lose to the eighth seed in the east four games to three.  Jaroslav Halak shut down Alexander Ovechkin and Washington while shining in net behind a Montreal defense that blocked shot after shot.

Both teams had goals waved off.  For Washington a potential goal that would have tied the game at one was ruled no good after Halak was interfered with.  For Montreal a goal that would have made it 2-0 was called back.  But in the end the long and short of it is that Washington could not find ways to score needing only one win to close out the series and the Capitals folded earning them a new nickname in my book – the Washington Collapsibles.  The team with the best record simply could not finish off an underpowered Montreal squad that limped into the playoffs.

Despite being out shot 42-16 the Canadiens netted the only two goals of the game as Marc-Andre Bergeron (1) and Dominic Moore (2) scored.  The win sets up a second round match up versus the Pittsburgh Penguins and bringing up questions about whether or not Montreal can shut down a Penguins team much deeper than Washington.  Ottawa proved that they could do it sporadically but not over the course of a full series.

Game 1 between the Penguins and Habs will be Friday night and a quick turn around for Montreal while Pittsburgh has been off since last Saturday.  Whether or not Montreal can be giant killers yet again remains to be seen.

Things looked bleak for a second straight game as the Penguins had another chance to close out their first round series against Ottawa after staking out a three games to one lead. After leading in game five on Thursday the Senators tied up the game and won in three over times to force a game six behind Leclair who replaced Elliott as their starting goal tender. Leclair and a plethora of blocked shots were the only reasons the Penguins did not win that game.

Game six looked bad as well for the Penguins as Leclair found ways to keep the Penguins out of the net. Even when he didn’t and with the help of on ice and league officials. With the Senators up 1-0 at 7:20 of the first period Mike Rupp pushed a puck to the net which was called no goal by on ice officials even with Leclair clearly in the net. Replays showed clearly that the puck was also in the net and well behind the goal line. However even league officials in Toronto refused to call it a good goal which just goes to show you that even instant replay cannot correct people unwilling to see the truth. Later in the game the officials would also call off a good goal scored after Malkin was tripped up into the goal tender claiming he interfered with Leclair’s ability to play the puck. Remarkably however there was no penalty on Malkin showing that the refs really knew that they blew the call.

The bad call on the Rupp goal swung momentum away from a surging Penguins team and by midway through the second Ottawa had expanded their lead to 3-0.

But the Penguins began to answer and Marc-Andre Fluery began to lock down the Senators and hold the fort in a manner reminiscent of last year’s series against Philadelphia. Pittsburgh was also down 3-0 in a deciding game in that series too before storming back to win.  Matt Cooke scored at 10:56 of the second to cut the lead to 3-1. Then at 7:03 of the third Billy Guerin fired a shot into the net from the circle as Leclair was playing without his goalie stick. Matt Cooke scored his second of the game at 12:24 of the third to tie it all up and Ottawa looked like they were just getting beat all over by a better team.

As time wound down and this game also headed to overtime there was no doubt that both teams hope for less than the previous three over time affair. And with up and down action it did not. There were saves at both ends made but it was Pascal Dupuis that beat Leclair for the winning goal less than half way through the extra period after being set up by Jordan Staal who brought the puck out from behind the Ottawa net.

The victory means a chance at either Buffalo or Boston in the second round and a couple of days to rest and heal after a hard fought series.

Notes:

The Penguins top line was pretty much neutralized in game six.  Crosby, Guerin and Kunitz were a combined -8 and Guerin’s PP goal was their only point.

The Senators tried to play it safe with a 3-1 lead in the third and learned that you don’t win games against Pittsburgh that way.  The Penguins out shot Ottawa 18-4 in the third and out scored the Senators 2-0.

Roger Goodell, the idiot running the NFL, has put himself in a real bind. By suspending Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger officially for six games to start the 2010 season he is setting a dangerous precedent. Roethlisberger, as much as the Ben haters want to believe otherwise, has not even been charged in a case involving claims by a drunk college student, who was herself trolling for sex, and her friends that she was sexually assaulted by the superstar. Thus by suspending Big Ben for essentially doing nothing wrong the standard is now that doing nothing wrong costs a player six games without pay. Since most NFL players are in the same boat (i.e. not breaking any laws) this must mean that Goodell is getting set to be fair and levy the same punishment on the vast majority of players in the league right? Don’t hold your breath.

Hey, who needs the courts right? We’ve got Goodell; a self envisioned Judge Dredd! Close up the court houses boys and girls, because there is a new sheriff in town with his own brand of justice. Idiotic as it may be, it is apparently here to stay.

Goodell cites something or other about the suspension being based on a morality clause and code of conduct the NFL has. But I say again is it moral to punish a man who is not guilty? In Goodell’s new justice system it is.

“But the police report says …”

I hear from a lot of the Ben haters, who are a vast but vocal and idiotic minority here in Pittsburgh, citing things that they are cherry picking from the police report says about what happened on the night in question as justification for calling Ben a rapist and their continuing hatred of the Steelers Quarterback. Well gee, guess there is no need ever for a trial based on this logic huh? Heck why go to court when we have a police report and we can convict solely on that evidence huh?

You are all a bunch of dumb asses! In case you haven’t figured it out, all you dumb asses that just hate Ben because it makes your pathetic lives whole to do so, police reports are not convictions. A police report is just a collection of statements from witnesses and observations by the officer(s) on the scene after the fact. They do not prove what actually did or did not happen and often contain contradictory statements from different parties that see the same events. This, you dumb asses, is why we have trials; to sort this stuff out when the evidence is strong enough to warrant one.

And just for the record often times things written in police reports are found out to simply be not true once investigations begin. People lie and believe it or not are very often mistaken in what they see all the time. I can call the police right now and file a police report against my neighbor claiming all sorts of sordid things. Doesn’t make of them true however. And although the loud mouthed, trailer trash, entitlement mentality loser may well deserve to spend a few nights in the slammer for acting like a bitch on a regular basis without a brain in her head it doesn’t make any of the claims I would make about her just to get that accomplished right.

The facts are clear. Even the attorney in charge of the reviewing the case said that there was not enough information to charge Big Ben. If there isn’t enough evidence for a trial then there sure as heck isn’t enough evidence for a conviction. The accuser, while she hasn’t recanted her story, is obviously not that interested in going to court either. I suspect the weakness of her case and the fact that what she said about what happened didn’t actually happen is a large factor in that. And please spare me the tripe about how women who are raped don’t often like to press charges. I have known three women that have been raped and all three of them had been so pissed that they took the case to trial to make sure the scum that did the deed went to jail. And each of them did. Of course maybe I just know women who are more principled than this goof down in Georgia, but I doubt it.

I admit I wasn’t there. But neither are you. I am also not proclaiming Ben innocent or a Choir Boy either. But I don’t have to. The law already has! And so far Big Ben is not accused of anything except by people that hate him for some frivolous reason such as he wouldn’t sign their kid’s jersey when they bothered him at a restaurant or some other such nonsense when they acted rudely thinking that because of his status that he owed them something. If there had been something here the authorities in Podunkville, Georgia would have looooooved the media attention and circus and dollars that would have come along with a trial.

As I said before, Ben is obviously more of a man than Roger Goodell is. Because rather than fighting the suspension, a fight the Quarterback would win and make Goodell his bitch for years to come, he is going to grin and bear the suspension by a tiny man with a giant ego knowing that his suspension will be cut to four games once he completes some touchy-feely counseling sessions. And Goodell can go to his cocktail parties and regale people with puffery and stories about how he is cleaning up the NFL by acting as judge, jury and executioner while talking about higher standards for players yet lowering himself to the level of tin horned dictator.

Had I been Ben I would have told Goodell to kiss my hairy white ass. If I were in Ben’s shoes, with more money than I could every have dreamed of, I would have told Goodell that if he punished me for something that I did not do (or at least had never been charged with much less convicted) with even a stern talking to much less a suspension that I would retire effective immediately. Ben doesn’t need this bull shit. And the league is quickly turning into a steaming pile of feces with this sham.

Six games for not doing anything? Heck, I can’t wait to see what the next thug calling the NFL who actually gets convicted of an actually crime gets! Because by this measure even taking a drag on a joint (i.e. Santonio Holmes) would warrant a 10 year suspension by my best calculations. What did he get for his third offense? Four games? That is two games less than Ben and Santonio actually pretty much admitted to what he was doing. And I don’t even agree with Holmes getting suspended either.

As for Michael Vick? Well, he is just lucky he got caught a few years ago because as of today in Goodell’s NFL his punishment for dog fighting would have been the death by lethal injection.

It’s so insane that when you have players that actually kill people at this rate they will have to be executed, revived, executed, revived and again and then executed a third time just to have the punishment fit the crime in Goodell’s eyes.

Senators goaltenders got beat on last night in Ottawa as the Penguins racked up seven goals, four against Elliott and three more against Leclaire.  Elliott was yanked after the score ran up to 4-0 and the sad part for him is that it could have been much worse had he not played as well as he did in the first period while keeping Ottawa in the game.  But even he could not hold back the Penguins attack as once again His Sidness racked up 4 points (2 G, 2 A, +3).  Cris Kunitz and Sarge added 3 points each and Evgeni Malkin added a goal in what could have been a rout had the Penguins not taken their foot off the gas and allowed four Ottawa goals.

They were almost pitty goals and it reminds me of the scene from the Princess Bride where the Fezzik (played by Andre the Giant) is fighting the Man in Black.  Outmatched and frustrated but not totally defeated the Man in Black/Westley/the Dread Pirate Roberts complains, “Look, are you just fiddling around with me or what?”  To which Fezzik responds, “I just want you to feel you’re doing well.”

Fezzik eventually loses because he fiddles around too much but last night the Penguins had an aswer for everything the Sens threw at them getting goals from E. Malkin (PPG, 11:50 – 1st) , S. Crosby (03:47 – 2nd) , M. Cooke (03:59 – 2nd) , S. Crosby (06:12 – 2nd) , M. Talbot (SHG, 12:38 – 2nd) , C. Kunitz (18:11 – 2nd) and J. Staal (PPG, 12:27 – 3rd)

Pittsburgh however needs to learn how to get a little more of a killer instinct as they got sloppy and allowed the Senators two five on three advantages which resulted in goals.

But in the end the final score still read Pittsburgh 7 and Ottawa just 4 with the Pens holding a 3-1 series lead.  Can’t argue too much with that.

Tomorrow I’ll have comments on the crucifixion and six game suspension of Big Ben as the NFL seems determined to make itself into a laughing stock of stupidity and idiots here in Pittsburgh, who are in a minority but really believe they are a majority with all their hearts, are still saying that the punishment is not enough.

I have a serious accusation to make regarding Steelers owner Dan Rooney and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. It has come to my attention that these two have taken advantage of a college girl in a bar bathroom. This charge, unfortunately, cannot be corroborated as the girl in question has declined to press charges and asked that the investigation be dropped. Further there is simply no physical evidence to support the accusation.

However, in light of the fact that both Goodell and Rooney are lynching Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger for basically the same accusations and a situation that has played out exactly the same way I think that we should be fair and treat both of them the same way they are trying to treat Big Ben. Talk from the Steelers front office and the commissioners office is that they will join together to punish Roethlisberger probably with a suspension of some length ranging from two to four games. And all this because Big Ben was out trolling bars for poontang? All this when by all accounts the girl in question was inviting sexual encounters by wearing a “DTF” name tag (meaning “down to f*@k”). All this when by all accounts the girl and Big Ben had exchanged sexual talk prior to both willingly heading off to do what single men and women often do? All this when there is no evidence of any kind that any crime too place?

Of course when I say “by all accounts” I mean all accounts except those that you read on page one of the news papers covering the story and are that are apparently more interested in giving only part of the story.

Thus I am calling for punishment for Goodell and Rooney based on the charges I have made. They cannot be proven but hey, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. These two will hide behind some morality standards that the NFL claims to hold to in punish Big Ben. Well I say that it is immoral to punish a man who has committed no crime. Thus I will invoke the same standard.

I propose the following. Goodell, as the NFL ringleader in charge of this sham, shall have to resign his commissionership for allowing this travesty to occur. He will be demoted to ball boy for the Oakland Raiders for one whole season. At the completion of that season Mr. Goodell will be banned from ever holding any office in the NFL higher than Field Maintenance lackey.

For Dan Rooney I propose that, being the disgracethat he is for going along with this travesty, he should have to sell his majority stake in the Steelers effective immediately. He can remain a minority owner but shall be barred from ever having a majority stake in the team. The second term of his punishment is that he will be sentenced to spend one full season as Willie Colon’s jockstrap. Following that one year he shall be be required to spend three full seasons as a tackling dummy on the practice field and get the snot beat out of his pansy ass every day. If he survives that ordeal he will be required to and take up permanent residence in Ireland where he is now U.S. Ambassador to.

And as a bonus there is punishment that I believe should be levied on all the Ben haters within the sound of my voice who think that Big Ben should be punished because they simply believe that he should aqnd who have always hated him, created lies about him and been just general douche bags. All so-called “Steelers fans” who want Big Ben run out of town on a rail must turn in their ‘Burgher credentials. Further they must all stand in a circle, each wearing an, “I’m with this stupid FUCK next to me!” t-shirt. Because that is exactly what each of these retards are. Then they will all be packed on a train and shipped to Seattle where they can all become Seahawk fans because they deserve to suffer in such an inhumane manner.

If I were Big Ben I’d be fighting this lynching tooth and nail.  But reports are that the Steelers QB will not and that he is going to accept his punishment just to make peace with assholes that don’t respect him otherwise they would never be pursuing such acts against him.  Which you know I think shows that Big Ben has infinitely more class than the bozos in either the front offices of the Steelers or the NFL. Still, that said if I were Big Ben I would be leveling the full force of the player’s union against the league and beat them into submission because they are simply wrong.  Then I would flip the bird to any brain dead idiot that boos me out of ignorance at Steelers games.

Game one was a shootout. Game two was a brawl.

When Peter Regin (2) scored for the Senators just 0:18 into the game things looked bad for the Penguins and Fleury was once again beat high glove side which seems to be a recurring theme. But the Penguins responded. That goal was Ottawa’s only of the game and the Penguins unleashed Hell on ice amassing 52 hits with Brooks Orpik leading the way with nine. While Andy Sutton may have had the head shot that knocked out Penguins defenseman Jordan Leopold it was not enough.

Sidney Crosby (1) tied the game at 8:45 of the first fighting for a loose puck in the paint and it was His Sidness that helped cap the scoring late in the third. Crosby danced with the puck behind the Senator’s net defended diligently by Sutton. The sequence featured several starts and stops with Sid changing direction multiple times and looking to get to the front of the net. Unable to do so he pushed out from behind the net and from his knees fed the puck to the blue line and Kris Letang.

Letang took the shot and it beat Ottawa’s rookie goal tendeder to make it a 2-1 game in favor of teh Penguins.

Oh, and before I forget, I cannot not mention that Sidney Crosby made a great save too. An Ottawa shot trickled by Marc-Andre Fleury and was headed for the goal line but Sidney dove through the paint and cleared the puck slowed by late period snow accumulation on the ice. That play saved the game from the Penguins and Fleury who played much better than in game one.

The series is now tied at one game each and heads up to Ottawa from game three on Sunday.