Eric Clapton, I love thee. Anyway, I went to the game tonight against the Blues. My stepmom called me up at 6:20 and asked if I wanted to go, I was watching the pregame stuff already, of course I wanted to go. All I knew was 4 tickets, me, my girlfriend and little brother and sister. Then I find out the tickets are for row N on the bottom level!!! I haven’t sat that close to the ice in years and I couldn’t wait. It was a great view, right on the blue line, so I was making offside calls all night, waiting for big hits to come. They never came…

I was rather disappointed with the tempo of the game, it was very dull. It was great that the team won, but nothing flowed. Not to mention that the Ducks gave up too many chances in the crease. O’Donnell had his usual hiccups, but nothing that created opportunities. Pronger AND Niedermayer did make mistakes of that nature though. They looked a little better than they did in game one, very happy about that. Couple more games together and everything should be good to go.

I noticed something though, sitting that close. Pronger and Niedermayer should not play together, it is just not needed. When they are both on the powerplay, what is the point. Beauchemin is more than capable of handling the puck and hammering it in to traffic, he has an excellent slapshot. It is an opportunity to have either of them resting up to 5-6 minutes a game. The younger guy can do the same job and you wont have to over work your horses. It is nice to roll them both out, but I would rather have well rounded, crisp defense the entire season instead of a worn down one.