All-in-all I thought that was about as good a road trip as we had any right to expect, based upon the first four games of this season. The Colorado game was a little shaky at times, but a good win. The Edmonton game, besides the embarrassment of that short-handed goal (the one highlight from that game showed repeatedly on NHL network), was a gratifying blowout. In fact, one could say that the Sharks “responded well” to the bad play early in the game. The Calgary game was only bad for a little over ten minutes. The Sharks controlled most of the rest of that game and took the crowd right out of it, only thwarted by the outstanding play of Miikka Kiprusoff. Did anybody else hear how quiet it got in there? It sure didn’t sound like a 4-0 game. I wasn’t even prepared to own up to the fact that the Sharks were probably not going to come back until half-way through the third period. Antti Niemi can’t carry the blame for the three he let in and Niittymaki, who looks like he might have a leaky right pad, looked really solid the rest of the game. In fact, if that puck hadn’t been rolling on only one of its edges there’s no way it would have gone in for the one goal against him. It was close enough that I’d call it a fluke. The only worrying thing is that that makes two flukes in four games for Niittymaki. Despite the loss, I thought it was a confidence-inspiring road trip. And as I begin to look forward to tonight’s game against the NJ Devils (completely ignoring game one of the world series for today), I leave these words for those still looking back on the road trip:
Don’t be sad, ‘cause two out of three ain’t bad.
No comments:
Post a Comment