Brooming, Still Battling, Left Bewildered

Preds vs Canucks: Canucks 3-1 Series     
Wings vs Sharks: Sharks 3-0 series    Game 4 Fri night

Lightning vs Capitals: Bolts Swept the Caps in Four Games
Bruins vs Flyers: Bruins 3-0 series     Game 4 Fri night

Tampa Bay Reaches Eastern Conference Finals
All Aboard!!  The Bolts Bandwagon is now leaving for the Eastern Conference Finals.  Game four was the nail in the coffin for the Caps and while the Lightning were happy about getting through to the next level they know they haven't won anything worth celebrating yet.  There are eight more wins to rack up before they can really get happy.  It's looking good for the Bolts, to be sure.  They're on a seven game winning streak.  The apparently ageless Roli The Goalie is making monster saves in their net.  The forwards and defensemen are one united front on the ice, regardless of line changes or how many periods they have to play.  It's all working...for now.  It's hard not to get on board for the Lightning, especially when I'm essentially cheering for a partial Wild team: Roloson, Bergeron, Hall, Moore.  
The Lightning are the first team to arrive at the conference finals and they're waiting to see if they'll meet up with Bruins or the Flyers.

Bruins/Flyers - It took all of 63 seconds in Game 3 before the Flyers once again failed to support their goalie.  As much as I hate the Flyers I can totally relate to them having spent the last season watching my own team do the same thing to Backstrom, Harding and Theodore.  Bruins David Krejci the second goal of the game on the Flyers goalie, Brian Boucher, giving Boston the 2-0 lead just 1:03 mark.  You know it's going to be a bad night at the arena when your coach has to call a timeout at the 63 second mark of the game.  Ultimately the timeout and the pep talk with Boucher didn't help because the Flyers lost the game 5-1.    

Preds/Canucks - In game 3 the Canucks found a way to skate around the 'defensive straightjacket that is the Nashville Predators.'  That's a quote from John Manasso, NHL.com Correspondent.  Well, it's not like the Canucks scored freely on the Preds, the game was tied 2-2 after regulation and had to go to overtime to decide it.  I'd like to remind John Manasso that once again the Canucks choked on a 2-1 lead in the third period and Luongo gave up the goal that sent them to overtime.  It then took the Canucks half way through the OT to score the winning goal.  Again, it's not like Vancouver just ran all over and all around the Preds to come away with a resounding win.
Game 4 Thursday night was a fairly resounding win for Vancouver and now I'm just pissed off at the Preds.  C'mon Nashville - find your game and get the job done.  Don't make me go back to believing you guys don't belong in the NHL.  Like I told Vicki - I'd rather watch Disney On Ice than see the Canucks go any further in the playoffs. 

  
More Questions Than Answers 
Washington had yet another successful regular season then crapped out in the early rounds of the playoffs.  They didn't roll over or give up during their short stay but they're still left pondering WTF do they have to do to get to the Cup Final?  "I don't think we weren't hungry. We were hungry," Caps captain Alex Ovechkin said. "We just didn't win. We want to win. They want to win. Somebody has to lose. We are losing and I don't know what to say right now."  You know, the Caps did work on changing their game this last season to a more defensively responsible way of playing.  They did that while still taking the top seed into the playoffs and still got to the second round.  Boy, sure wish I had a home team that could find a way to do that...  Anyway, I'm sure that's no comfort to the Caps organization, the players or their fans - wait, how is that any different than how I feel about the Wild?  Oh, yeah - my team stank it up big time while pouting about having to change their playing style and then finished short of dead last in the regular season, letting the head coach take the fall for their childish behavior.  
Bitter, table for 1...

Houston Aeros Tie The Series In Round Two of  Calder Cup Run 
Game 4 at the Toyota Center Thursday: Aeros took the lead in the first, played an UGLY 2^nd period by letting the Admirals outshoot them and tie the game.  They took it to overtime and McMillan roofs a shot for the win – whew!  Series tied up and game 5 is Friday night.    

Favorite tweet from the Aeros game Thursday night:   “Matt. Hackett. Is. KILLING ME with his going behind the net failiness. KILLINGMEEEEEEEE.”  That’s the work of MsConduct, in case you couldn’t tell ;) 

Followed by “Backs always gets too far from the crease too, makes me nervous.” From one of her many followers.  (Gee, funny how other people feel the same way that Vicki and I do about Backstrom's goaltending this last season).  Sign at Aeros game: SIDE 1: Stay Hackett, stay. Good goalie. SIDE 2: Bad Goalie.  
 

Parent Alert – Parent Alert – Parent Alert! 

Please view the following video before letting the kidlets in.  Folks probably don’t want to open this at work unless you’re in an office with a closed door.  It’s not porn, but I think it would be questionable in terms of what’s appropriate for the work place.   

For Robyn and the rest of the birthday celebration gang here’s the info on the glow in the dark condom movie I was talking about.  John Ritter starred in the movie Skin Deep.  I highly recommend renting this movie as it offers up one belly laugh after another.  Sadly, John Ritter is no longer with us but films like this one that capture his true gift for physical comedy for all of the coming generations. 

Oh, and just in case you're heading to youtube to see the other trailers for the movie - be sure to type in John Ritter Skin Deep.  I'm not responsible for the movies named Skin Deep without John Ritter that will come up otherwise.