Game Day @ Seattle

"We had some players who didn't have the game we'd like to see," Seattle coach Steve Konowalchuk said. "Our discipline caught up to us. They have a good power play and penalties killed us."

"Our PK has been pretty good for awhile, even without Zach (Yuen) and (Mitch) Topping," said Hiller, whose team killed off six Seattle power plays. "Credit to the guys on that four-man, we had to run some guys pretty hard."  (Herald)

Your discipline caught up to you, Seattle?  More like lack of discipline.  What a crazy game, very very chippy.  Seattle came out of the gate nasty (and the awesome Pat Smith and Co. did nothing to get things in order) and I predicted (as many did, I'm sure) that things would get out of hand.  (I'm going to keep putting things in parenthesis).

Awhile back I wrote this regarding my thoughts on the role of the enforcer in hockey.  I received an email that was in clear disagreement with things I had said.  I didn't reply to the email, not because I'm a dick, but because clearly we were not going to agree and there was no need to engage in a debate where neither side is going to budge.

The email stated--and I'm paraphrasing since I deleted it--that opposing teams would be hesitant to participate in chippy behavior if there was an enforcer in the lineup, using the example of the Swift Current guy that went after little B-Dubs.  The email author asked me if I thought the SC guy would have honed in on Williams if Walter had been in the lineup that night. 

Who knows what one player would have done if another player had been in the lineup, who  really knows?  Not me.  But I do know that Seattle sure didn't give a shit who was in the Americans lineup last night.  And the Americans enforcer, while he did get more ice time because of the score, and yay for that, did not take Seattle to task for their nasty play.  Instead, there were fights by Dallman, Big Mess, and BRIAN FREAKING WILLIAMS.  So clearly, Seattle was going to go after Williams--or any other Ams player--no matter who was in the lineup.

Maybe it's petty to take up another blog post with this, but hey, it's my blog.  My point here is that it confirms what I was saying originally, that the role of the enforcer is not really as necessary as it once was.  

And what happened last night?  Oh yeah, the Ams beat the T-Birds with speed and skill.  They took advantage of a team making poor life choices and capitalized on them.  They kept pucks away from Comrie with a depleted defensive corps.  I mean seriously, Derek Ryckman was on the ice the whole damn game it seemed like.  I am more and more impressed with him every game.  Plus he's hot.  RAWRR

I don't talk about it much, or enough, because it's common knowledge, but the Shinniman-Hughesman show is worth the price of admission.  Remember how bad the power play was at the start of the season?  Now it's rolling right along at 23% (7th in the league, 2nd in the division).  The penalty kill is the league leading 84%.  Sexytime stats right there.  Shinny had a slow start but everyone knew he'd get into the groove and would be unstoppable.  Such fierce determination.  Hughey has stepped into a tie with Dylan Stanley in 7th place in team all-time goals scored.  And we're only halfway through the season, J/S.

The same two teams are back at it tonight, one last game before the boys go home for the holidays.  They can't be thinking ahead to home cooking and presents, they got work to do tonight, and it's pretty clear that Seattle is going to make them work for it.  Hopefully it's a less chippy game tonight, though it would make liveblogging it more interesting.    Come on in, bring the funny.