This game goes to show you what happens when you have a couple breakdowns, three goals in two minutes. It was shocking, the building went pretty silent, no more buzz in the air. I was kind of happy it happened like this, because now they had a chance to show they could lock it up, buckle down and climb back. They showed that last night, but it doesn’t really matter since it should have never happened.
“We came out and dominated that first period, and we had a ton of scoring chances, they came out a lot better in the second period and we didn’t have the same intensity and speed that we had in the first. But we battled hard to come back and take the lead and showed a lot of fortitude.”
This is a pretty accurate quote from Chris Pronger. But you know what I saw, I saw some swagger in a team that shouldn’t be showing off quite yet. When Chris Simon scored the third goal, I told me my girlfriend they were going to get ripped by the coaches pretty soon, then the Ducks called a time out about 10 seconds after that. It stopped the bleeding and you saw that the players skated harder, you saw they were disappointed as well. Glad it was the Islanders that embarrassed us, because we almost salvaged it. Had that been another good team, they probably would have stomped us.
Fans, media types, columnists, bloggers and casual fans are buzzing about these All Mighty Ducks, but the players tell it best when they say its all hype. Great team on paper, lets put the results on the ice and let the post game stats on paper tell the story. I think intimidation works in some forms, but not really hockey. If you don’t bring it every night, you get worked. Lets see the lineup that takes stage versus Dallas on Sunday, I bet it has Travis Green in it and Bryzgalov starting.
PS: Randy Carlyle is pretty smart, he is preparing his young team to be hard nosed come the end of the season. They fought back last night and the rookies / sophomores were on the ice in all situations late in the game. So when the time rolls around in critical games, players will be ready.
