It's official.

Since Tampa lost in a shoot out to the Thrashers, who I never thought I would find myself cheering for, we are definitly playing the Bolts in the playoffs. But, on the down side, the Habs couldn't beat the laughs, and now there is a chance the craplanders will be in the playoffs. It's a very slim chance, since they're playing the Devils tomorrow, but there is a very small chance that it may happen. And then I'll find sidney crosby attractive.

And I have more good news! Lowell won their game 4-3 in OT, to keep them just 3 points out of 4th, with 4 games remaining. Rod Pelley scored his 15th of the season at 14:13 from Ryan Murphy and Mark Fraser, as you would already know if you read my previous post. The bruins tied it up at 4:07 of the 2nd, but we took the lead again at 12:02 with an unassisted goal form Stephen Gionta, his 7th of the season. 1:40 later, the bruins tied it up yet again, and the second ended with a score of 2-2. Barry Tallackson scored his 10th of the year at 13:47 of the 3rd from mike mottau and Tomas Harrant, but the bruins answered back :13 later, and that was that- until OT. Dan McGillis scored his 3rd game winner in OT (10th of the season, 10th PPG) from mottau and Chris Minard on the only shot in OT. I think the bruins' goalie was a little stronger then Doyle, with 38 saves on 42 shots, while doyle had 29 saves on 32 shots. Either way, I'm glad they won.

3 STARS:
3- rosa (prov)
2- McGillis
1- Pelley

Normally, I woudl have said mottau as #3 instead of rosa, but I can't stant mottau, and I actually think 1g, 1a is better then 2a.

So..the end. Till tomorrow.

I need to rant.

Feel free to skip over this, but I need to rant, and I can't find either one of my cats, and my fish and the rest of my family don't care.

I'm so sick of Lowell's choices when it comes to who they play. I know a lot of you will disagree with most of this, but I'm entitled to my own opinion, as are you. Players like Nicklas Bergfors, Rod Pelley and even Chris Minard are completely underrated, while players like Barry Tallackson and Tuomas Pihlman are kind of overrated. And as I'm typing this, Pelley won a faceoff, and they Devils are on a 5 on 3. Anyway, it's kind of like Janssen. Maybe they would put up better numbers if they played a little more.

And then there's the increadibly overrated Mike Mottau on defense. Granted, I do hate him because of some nasty comments he made about Janssen, but he's still so overrated. Dan McGillis, yeah, he does get some credit, but I don't think he gets as much as he deserves. And the fact that they keep signing all these rookies and never play them gets to me too. Look at Zach Tarkir. They signed him, what, a month ago, and he's only played in 2 games. Don't sign them if they're not gonna play.

Now for my biggest rant. I'm so freaking sick of them acting like Frank Doyle is God. Yeah, sure, he does have more wins and a lower GAA than Jordan Parise, but maybe that wouldn't be the case if Jordan didn't play most of the 1st place teams, while Doyle was playing the last place teams. How is the rookie supposed to beat the better teams in the league, while doyle can barely win when he plays them? If you look at the stats, Jordan wins a higher percent of his games then Doyle, too. I hate to say it, but I'd rather have some of these players on other teams where at least their talent would be appreciated. And trust me, there are more players that I feel are over/underrated, but really don't feel like listing them all.

Now I hate to say this too, but I think I'd rather have the Devils lose tonight and fall farther out of the playoffs then have them prasing Doyle liek he's God.

And congrats to Rod Pelley who just scored his 15th of the season from 2 other rather underrated players, Ryan Murphy and Mark Fraser, and gave the Devils a 1-0 lead. And way to go, Clarkson, for not scoring on that break away. But it's ok, I still love you.

Playoff Thoughts

Well, as the playoffs draw nearer, I've been thinking (surprise!) about who I would most like to see the Devils play in the first round (if you're one of the people who's already heard this a million times, bare with me). The Canadiens would definitly have been my first choice, but thanks to a nasty loss to the rags last night, that's not happening. So no big deal. The rags would be my second choice. I always enjoy a good laugh after seeing their unusually large, ugly rear ends handed to them by the Devils after a nice whooping. Now the only other possibility would be the Lightening, if they lose their next game (which happens to be their last), or if the rags, by some miracle, beat the pens tomorrow. That was totally my last choice. But then, the unthinkable happened. I actually thought about it, and realized that both of the games we lost to them in regualtion, John Madden missed. Actually, in one of the games he got wacked in the face with the puck, but he still didn't have as much ice time as usual, and his face was just gross. And he didn't exactly play his best, but who could, with a big gash under their eye and cotton stuffed up their nose. And the other loss we had to them came in a shoot out. So the way I see it, if Madden can not injure himself now till the end of the playoffs, the chances of us winning the cup are like, increadibly high. Of course, I'm not saying we can only depend on Madden, but he plays a big part in the games, no matter how little he scores. As long as we have him, Gionta, and Janssen (someone needs to rough the other teams up a little bit) in the line up through most/all of the playoffs, they might as well just start preparing the cup for us now, because it's as good as ours.

This picture is yummy.

Ahh, a win.

Before I get all..whatever. Congrats to Marty on win nomero 48. He definitly deserved that win. 34 saves, most of which were absolutely amazing.

So the Phailures took the lead 1:05 into the 1st. That wasn't exactly what I had expected to happen. Fortunately, the Devils had Jamie Langenbrunner who was on a 15 game scoring drought fighting to break that, and he scored his 23rd of the season (12th PPG) and tied it up at 16:58. The Devils were on the PP 3 times that period, and were only short handed once.

Now, the 2nd and 3rd periods quite possibly showed some of the dirtiest hockey I've ever seen. One thing I really didn't like was that elbow on Travis Zajac, which should have been a minor, if not a double minor, since it was not only illegal, but he was hurt because of it. Then less then a minute later, Zach Parise barely touched a guy, and was sent to the box. Fortunately, the phailures didn't score on that, or I think I would have..I won't say, but trust me, you wouldn't have wanted to be near me.

In the 2nd, the phailures took the lead again at 9:27. Sergei Brylin tyed it up with another PPG (16g, 7PPG), and again, that was the end of the scoring. Devils were 1/3 on the PP again, while the phailures were 0/2. There was a 4 on 4 after Mike Rupp beat the crap out of some guy.

The 3rd wasn't as dirty, but it wasn't exactly clean. Devils were 0/1 on the PP, but Jimmy Dowd scored a SHG, his 1st SHG, and 4th g this season. That was the game winner. So..yeah.

ASSISTS:
Patrik Elias, Brian Rafalski (Langenbrunner)
Andy Greene, Zach Parise (Brylin)
Brylin (Dowd)

3 STARS:
3- Jamie Langenbrunner
2- upshall (philly)
1- Marty Brodeur

Again, screw upshall, Brylin deserved the 2nd star. If you ask me, 1g, 1a is better then 1a.

NOTES:
Brian Gionta and Cam Janssen both missed the game, but they both should be playing on Sunday, along with Rickard Matvichuk. All three made the trip to philly, but none played. Brodeur now holds the record for most wins in a regular season, which is obviously a career high for him. Brian Rafalski now has an 8 game point streak. I think that's it..

Now for those pics I promised yesterday..