Well, the finals have finally begun. The Tampa Bay Bolts will host the Chicago Blackhawks at the Amelie Arena in Tampa. The arena has its own website but it’s the kind that doesn’t easily give up the address for the place.
Over the first period, the game is one-sided in play although the score is but 1-0 Tampa. Although Tampa is the stronger team so far, Ondrej Palat has hands of stone tonight. Especially on the power play, he wasn’t able to take even a gentle pass without mishandling it.
Weak penalty by the ref against Tampa. Apparently it is his first Stanley Cup Final game. The refereeing has been fairly mediocre for much of the playoffs. Later on in the game, I’m sure that far greater transgressions will go uncalled. This combination of calling incidental contact and overall inconsistency, along with the inability of the refs to not interfere in the play have irritated me more than I can remember in any other playoffs.
The game has the lowest amount of contact that I can recall so far. The game that Tampa is playing is based on their speed and puck control pressure and Chicago is having challenges with it. Unlike Anaheim or Minnesota or Nashville, Tampa isn’t taking it to Chicago physically. And apparently, without having any physicality to respond to, Chicago is playing their most docile game yet. Lots of skating by both teams but very little hitting. There hasn’t been a lot of shots from the point, which means there hasn’t been any shot blocking either. Maybe they just need some time to get going after their layoff. Having said that, I expect it to be a very good series.
Speaking of hands, Alex Killorn looked like the second coming of Dave Andreychuk on the first goal, waiting patiently for a flipping puck before slapping it backwards out of the air and into the net. Standing only a couple of feet in front of him was Steven Stamkos, who is pretty good at this sort of thing himself. Stamkos raised his stick towards the puck but then pulled it back. It doesn’t look like Killorn said anything as he was concentrating too fiercely on the puck but Stamkos read the moment and pulled his stick away so as not to distract Killorn or accidentally make contact with anything. Seabrook meanwhile, was alone in front of the net, covering nobody, allowing both the Tampa players an infinite amount of time to make the play and score the goal. I’m also curious what Crawford was thinking as he waited for the puck the floated through the air, seemingly in slow motion. Despite the absence of either defence or goaltending on this play, it was a great goal.
Funny, early in the second period, Johnson and Seabrook both went down in a heap but no penalty was called. Glenn Healy thinks that Seabrook should have been called but when I watched the replay, Johnson scissored his legs around Seabrook’s and tripped him.
The third period is awful. Half-way through, I don’t think Tampa has any shots. I commented earlier that they like to play defence through puck control, but here, they’re not doing much of anything. Chicago is applying pressure but not yet doing much with it. With both teams sitting on their hands, I’d probably give the edge to Chicago but we’ll see. If you let them do stuff, eventually they will. Oops! Chicago just scored to tie the game.
In the last game against Anaheim, I saw Chicago coach Joel Quennville smile for the first time, ever. He just roared out a cheer for the goal now. Crazy times.
Chicago just took the lead on a goal by Vermette. Brown just coughed up the puck in the slot and Vermette wandered up and took a great shot that seems to have then touched Brown’s stick and deflected up over Bishop’s glove, off the post and into the net. Brown need two cuffs to the back of the head for this play. For what it’s worth, this is another case that Bishop went down too early.
Well, Chicago just took the first game in what was probably the most boring game of the playoffs so far. I expect that Saturday night’s game two will have a little more intensity.
I Canicus 
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