L.A. Musings, In-Game Scribbles
January 31, 2009, by Homme De Sept-Iles
Los Angeles (20-20-7) at Montreal (27-15-6) 2PM EST
First Period
LA scores. It’s 1-0. At 4:57.
And then at 10:55, it’s LA’s Simmonds versus Montreal’s Max Pacioretty.
Simmonds is new to me and I wonder how good a player he is and what sort of road he had getting to the NHL. He is black. Pacioretty is in his first fight. He is very careful not to get hit and I wonder if he is afraid. I think not.
I feel disgust that our young men have to prove themselves in this way. In a society like ours, it’s not necessary. I am hard-pressed to think of a society in which fighting will get you anywhere. In a jungle society I wouldn’t go fist-to-fist with a gorilla for food. I’d try and trap him. I wouldn’t go fist-to-fist with another caveman. I’d try and kill him.
Maybe I’m showing my own naivete with regards to the history of fisticuffs but I really don’t care.
11:41 First Period Plekanec scores to tie it 1-1.
That look from the coal-lined innards of an oven. Plekanec has scored at last. It’s validation. The type of outcome that causes more not less with a player like Plekanec. He thrives on praise. He is one of the hardest on himself. And he (from an ageing man’s balconic fancy) seeks support from the outside less than most on the team.
I wait for Tomas’ next moment on the ice. What will he bring that is different? I expect his angles to be different. And I expect him to hold onto the puck longer and with more cheek than in previous games. It’s a great goal to see and to savour on behalf of a player.
Tomas is on the ice.
And now, uneventfully, he is off.
Reseau de Sports (RDS) shows a replay of Plekanec’ goal and subsequent celebration. He didn’t jump against the bevitre but spun around at the last second. I fancy he catches himself; reminding himself that he doesn’t want to show just how happy he is for his personal accomplishment (ending his eight-game goalless exile); he holds it in to show solidarity. Perhaps not wanting to appear happier for himself than for the team. The team he serves and chooses to serve. And serves well. At least those are the (trite and heavy-handed) words that convey his aura of duty.
I ponder the roster. I am one of hundreds of thousands of experts (read: hockey-mom, read: wanna-be read: rumpled couch professor) on Nos Glorieux.
My ponderings become a list:
Our Young Guys Awaited
Josh Georges: Arriving fast
Guillaume Latendresse: Do we really need this guy? Is he right for this system?
Carey Price: Lots to say, too much said already
Christopher Higgins: On the Ryder Road?
Maxim Lapierre: Has arrived. Is it permanent?
Jaroslav Halak: Was 10-6 a mirage?
Andrei Kostitsyn: This is the year
Sergei Kostitsyn: Still has time – it’s his first full season.
Our Regulars; Nightly Power, Consistency
Alex Kovalev
Saku Koivu
Steve Begin
Francis Bouillon
Tom Kostopoulos
Roman Hamrlik
Patrice Brisebois
Mathieu Dandenault
Andrei Markov
Mike Komisarek
Harder to Identify
Robert Lang – Very intelligent, the most intelligent arrival since Bonk.
Alex Tanguay – No shifts off since his inauspicious game one. Great confidence, an eagle peering over a ravine. He hasn’t found his comfort zone but whatever he is feeling has him in a very good place, both for him and for the team.
Injury-Prone?
Georges Laracque: Was it a bad trade or waste of money? Probably not but not the greatest return either
The Young Lions
Matt D’Agostini: Early willingness to go the crease has been replaced with tentative, go-to-the boards tendency.
Max Pacioretty: Is being tried with Koivu tonight. Will the shoe (glove, stick, garter-belt) fit? Pacioretty is still very aggressive to the net. How many more games can it continue? I understand flak-jacket technology is increasingly light year to year.
Gregory Stewart: Ordinary player, less than charming attitude on the ice.
We’ve seen how Pacioretty played with Kovalev. Now we see how he is with Koivu.
Second Period
What’s the point of missing a pass and the puck goes to the opponent and then you get a hit on him? Begin, early in the second, misses a pass from Kovalev that a more talented player would have gotten (it pains me to write that because I have such good feelings for Begin’s play, overall).
Josh Gorges takes a bad hit from someone. A thug hit. Dude gets a match penalty.
Good.
Really disturbing. There is blood idling under Gorges’ nose. He could have been killed. What a horrible hit. His head snapped back, then hit the glass and snapped forward. Then he body-slapped the ice. Gorges too soon tried to get back up and swooned. (I’m told the thug is Denis Gauthier and that he has a history of not respecting other players)
Gauthier should be out of hockey. And to answer anyone who questions that, I ask: What would Gorges’ mother say? Hey, what would Gauthier’s mother say?
What would Gary (want to) say?
Seconds later we get the goal (AK 46 at 3:53) but that feeling of sympathetic dread and fear lingers. I hope we get the injury report soon. It’s hard to stay focused on the X and O patterns.
Gorges looked like Berbick (that famous wobbling walking pass issued by Iron Mike in 1986) when he got up. He is concussed for sure.
The power-play continues.
Great hit to separate from the puck and to create the turnover. From Guillaume during the five-minute powerplay (an extension from a previous power-play). Then a high glove, sliding and unexpected save from the LA goalie. Jonathan Quick.
Who in dust is Jonathan Quick? Save of the month. Sure. How likely. Whatever.
(Quick is 23 and has a 7-6 record on 15 appearances this season; a save percentage of 0.913 and a GAA of 2.53 in backing up Erik Ersberg)
What a save by Price on the continuing (eventually embarrassing, scoreless, remainder of the) five-minute power-play. Price is long as a hot-dog and as sudden as a ketchup spill. How’d he split to an impossible opposite? By changing his mind?
It doesn’t seem to matter (it does). Minutes later, LA does score. C’est maintenant 2-2 …. at 13:30 of the 2nd.
Gorges is back. Thank God.
Message for redundant cactus Benoit Brunet (colour man on RDS); You can’t shoot every sobbing time you get the puck, guy [Brunet critiqued Latendresse for trying a wrap-around instead of a shot].
If you ran on every down, I wonder how many games you’d win?
Brunet isn’t done. He continues the same point minutes later. Isn’t there enough missed, uncommentated- on action that it isn’t worth repeating the same point in a hockey game? Isn’t there? Isn’t there?
Later in the Game
Writing during the game. My brain won’t shut up.
Komisarek has the face of an unshaven, hung-over lion in good humour (and fresh from pushing a zamboni out of a snowbank).
The writing ends as the game’s cold vices, prices and ices, freeze me digital.
It’s a great finish.
(We’ll get the post-game report on Gorges from more than six sources, son)
Related posts:
Subscribe to the Podcast
0 comments
Kick things off by filling out the form below.
Leave a Comment