California Weirdness
Hockey and California are kind of antonyms anyway, but tonight’s Game 5 is just plain weird. Philips put one in his own net, off of Emery’s skate. After looking like they’d set up an endowed chair in the ScotiaBank penalty box, the Ducks are benefitting from more even-handed (and armed) officiating. Short-handed goal. Scott Niedermayer collects a goal, his de rigeur Stanley Cup Finals tally, to blow the game open. And then Ottawa gets a penalty shot on a short-handed breakaway, which Giguere stops.
It’s a little bit of everything except for George Parros. And that’s equal parts wrong and sad. Anaheim drove through the back nine of the season on tough defense and even tougher offense, playing the body as well as the puck frequently and hard. Parros was a big part of that rock-em-sock-em factor, despite appearing in only 34 games all season (a half-dozen of them with Colorado). Since he hasn’t played in any of the Finals games, and was scratched for more than half of the regular season, he’s not automatically eligible to have his name on the Stanley Cup should the Ducks continue their sonic dis-Sen-ance at home. Time to start petitioning the league now: Put the Tiger in Lord Stanley’s tank.
Tags: parros