The Games I Watched - April 16

Obviously, as a Leafs fan, I have a healthy amount of animosity for the Montreal franchise. It doesn't help that they choose to employ a bunch of gutless pukes. I hate the Red Wings but at least their players aren't dirty SOBs. The saddest part is that their fans condone it. Look at the YouTube video of Kovalev throwing a vicious elbow at Darcy Tucker's head and the comments celebrate it.

They also embarrassingly twisted themselves into pretzels to defend Kostopoulos' hit on Van Ryn. But at the end of the day he's a piece of shit. He proved it again tonight as, with the game out of reach, he tried to throw an elbow exactly like the one Brendan Witt nail Hagman with earlier in the season. Thankfully, Matt Hunwick was able to get his head back in time. If you missed it, TSN highlighted it so it's probably on their website.

Update

Play-by-play courtesy of The General:

0:21 seconds, Lapierre shoves Kessel after an empty net goal. That’s really poor spotsmanship and should be an automatic suspension, I think.

0:28 seconds, check out the nasty spear attempt by Schneider on #91 Savard. Any attempt at spearing is an automatic game misconduct, but this went uncalled.

2:59 That bastard Kostopoulos tries to throw a knock-out elbow on a Bruins defender and just misses. Hard to see from this angle, but watch as he comes in from the left with one second left on the game clock. Just terrible.

3:18-3:30 Komisarek intentionally scrapes Hunwick’s eyes with his gloves. Dirty, vicious, cowardly, soulless, bunch of stinking pukes.

To top it off, the man that Kim Jorn and I probably hate the most on that team, the King of Running from Fights Mike Komisarek, proceeded to gouge the living hell out of Hunwick's eye:

The rough stuff continued after the final buzzer as both teams exchanged pleasantries and face washes. During the pile up, a glove wielding Mike Komisarek started throwing some short punches to the face of Matt Hunwick while Hunwick was being held back by the linemen.

- Stanley Cup of Chowder (emphasis mine)

Someone should slap the smug look off of that chucklhead's face. Again of course.

But what are the odds of Komisarek actually fighting a second time? It would be great to see Kostopoulos suspended for his attempt to injure, because let's be realistic but that's what he was trying to do, but considering Carcillo only got one game for his cheapshot I won't hold my breath. Needless to say, the comparison to the Carcillo event involves a completely different player in Robert's eyes!

Speaking of dirty plays off of a face-off, the only part of the Blackhawks-Flames game I managed to see was Mike Cammalleri punching Havlat in a carbon copy of Carcillo's play with a little less butt-end. It'll be interesting to see if the Wheel of Justice lands on a suspension. Bob McKenzie noted that it likely would have to be because of the timing but that he had seen many worse headshots go unpunished during the regular season. TFB. Havlat had the last laugh after he potted the tying goal and then the overtime winner. I did not laugh because overtime lasted 11 seconds and I missed it. SamFels has a big thank you to a special player for making last night so memorable:

12 seconds?  Never has 12 seconds ever been so satisfying.  A big thanks to Jordan Leopold, who turned over the puck to start, then decided to make it better by pushing Ladd right into Kipper has Marty buried the winner.

As for the West Coast game, let's put it this way: the Sharks got booed off of the ice. Jonas Hiller was in stunning form and with guys like Pronger, Beauchemin, and Niedermayer patrolling the blue line chances were at a premium. Watching the way that the Ducks shackled the Sharks' powerful offence I think that San Jose is in a lot of trouble in this first round. Mr. Plank is preaching calm but if the Sharks drop game two then it is definitely time to panic. Of course, the worst part about this series isn't the starting time but the announcers that CBC selected. Marc "Squeaks" Crawford is doing the announcing and, I didn't watch the entire game, presumably suggesting that each team bench their best players during crucial moments.

So which games did you guys watch? What were your thoughts? Who wants to put the explosives in Kostopoulos' car?

For how long should Cammalleri be suspended?