*Rant on*

I think I set a new record. 4 posts in 1 day. Huh. Anyway, my current (anger? problem?): covering the puck. Now, it's very necessary at times, like when you have 4 players from the opposing team waiting for the rebound, but not all the time, like when there are no players within 50 feet of you. I noticed few goalies that actually keep the puck in play as often as possible (Brodeur, Lundqvist (I'm in shock too), Miller, and even Clemmensen, to name a few). The way I see it in my very twisted mind, constantly covering the puck as pretty much a way to win a game is just as bad as dirty play. If you can't win playing normal (clean) hockey, just don't play. At first, I just saw younger, rookie goalies or ones that don't play much doing it, but then I realized that Holmqvist, a kid who was playing in his first playoff series (and now that that's over, I can say he played really, really well), didn't do it half as much as some of the older, more experienced ones. And Clemmer doesn't do it too often eiter, and he only played in 6 games this season.

Why did I suddenly start this? Well, this isn't something new that bothers me. In that game we were shut out by the Pens (I'm still trying to forget about that), Thaibult (sp?) seemed to go out of his way to cover the puck, which prevented us from scoring. That's good for the other team and all, but did he see Marty doing that? No, he didn't. Marty can win without covering the puck unless it's really necessary, so I don't see why all these other goalies can't take the hint from him. *Rant off*



Just another thought: Marty doesn't have the greatest save percentage, or the lowest goals against average. Yes, I know. Thank you, Captain Obvious. Not my point. How bad can our offense be if Marty's SP is 11th out of 19 (in the playoffs) and his GAA is 10th (again, in the playoffs)? We did step it up a little in the 1st round (and hopefully that will be carried over into the 2nd round), but if we can beat a high-scoring team like Tampa, how bad can it be? If you look at the number of goals the Devils, the 2nd lowest scoring team in the regular season, had (19) and compare it to the 14 from the Lightning, who generally don't play a low scoring game, it says something. If you don't look at the shot percentage we have, it really does speak about how much of a difference was made since Lou came in. Yeah, we still play defensive hockey, but our offense is getting pretty hot. If they can keep that up, and Marty doesn't lose his Martyness, as he did in games 2, 3 and (the regulation part of) 4, we can totally win this series, and the cup.