Silver Linings
Hockey teams often seem to play to the level of their opponents; picking up their games when needed and sadly dropping their games when least called for.
The Devils didn’t look like division leaders against Washington today, losing to the Caps for the first time in about a season and a half. With a game in hand over Pittsburgh, it was a perfect time to open up 2 more points over DaBurgh. Didn’t happen, and there wasn’t much to cheer about, except for the silver lining to this clouded Saturday: Cam Janssen got his first NHL point and first NHL goal. He’s played 82 games — an entire season’s worth of dressing for games, five to eight minutes at a clip, without putting one in the net. It’s nice to see consistent hard work pay off.
Halfway between the Meadowlands and The City of Brotherly Ex-Forsberg Love, the Princeton Tigers put on a show today in the annual Alumni Day matinee game. The 4-1 win over St. Lawrence capped a weekend sweep of the top two teams in the ECAC and may give them home ice going into the playoffs. Better yet, the silver goes around the season, not just inside this weekend, as the Tigers finished their league season at 10-10-2 and their overall campaign at 13-13-3. A 0.500 season, a point per game average, is quite an accomplishment for a second year coach (who is dealing with only his first class of recruits), and comes on the heels of several years that were closer to Davy Jones’ locker than that of Casey Jones.