told ya 'bout Richer
Bill Beaulac
Remember a few days ago I posted that I thought Stephan Richer was the
scariest, and most exciting, player to have playing against you in the
playoffs? Well last night was a perfect example of the reason why.
With the Habs trailing by a goal in the third period all of a sudden,
out of nowhere, come Richer down the left wing, get's the pass, crosses
center ice, and breaks towards the middle at full speed. What does he
do? Look to make a pass? No. Try to go around the defenseman? No.
Instead, just as he crosses the blue line, he unloads his shot, which is
a rocket into the upper corner of the net that Puppa *still* hasn't seen.
The crowd errupts, the game is tied, playing in the Forum, the ending is
simply a matter of which Canadein will get the winner, enter Charbeneau.
Stephan Richer beat the Sabres last night, and probably stamping their
elimination papers in the process, on a single shot. That, my friends
is what a playoff player is all about.
-bill
Sridhar Dasari
Pens-Devils Game 2 in Pittsburgh. The pens looked very sloppy out
there. Their passing was pretty bad, and they were defending their goal
most of the third period. The devils' passing was a lot crisper; they
actually had concerted attacks on the Pens end, rather than just
shooting the puck from the blue line; the Pens were doing this all
night long, so they got no good opportunities to score during most of
the third. The game winning goal by Jahr was great; I thought he would
lose his balence, but Jahr had a beautiful move in front of the net,
waited till the Devils goalie committed himself, and then flipped the
puck over the sprawled goalie. The Pens were lucky to pull this one
out. I hope they get their act together in NJ.
--------------------------
Sridhar H. Dasari
sd...@andrew.cmu.edu
The sign of an educated person is how clear was the line in his mind
between what he knew and what he didn't know.
- Irving Babbitt
An insufficient talent is the cruelest of all temptations.
- anonymous
The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the
average man can see better than he can think.
- Farrah Fawcett
--------------------------
Steve Sydorowicz
>
> [Remember I told you that Richer was the scariest player in the playoffs]
>
No way. The "scariest" player has to be Daren Puppa, who we will hopefully
not see for the remainder of the Montreal/Buffalo series. I'm not sure
what Puppa's problem has been this season, but the Sabres certainly don't
need his kind of help right now. The shot was *extremely* nice, but Richer
was at the blue line and Puppa was out between the face circles almost. I
think he blew the angle by a bit. Of course, the blue line goal on
Wednesday was just lame. Anybody notice how often Puppa has been losing his
stick lately? It's a little thing, but shows a lack of concentration as does
the amount of time Puppa has spent on his back/face when players fake shots
on him. His confidence looks way down and I don't know that benching him
can do much more damage :-(
On a bright note, the Sabres managed to win last night's game 5-4 on a
third period goal by Mike Ramsey. Malarchuk played goal for Buffalo and
was less than spectacular, *but* he was solid in the third period with
the game on the line. On the Montreal side, Roy showed flashes of his
former uninjured self, but really played below par. The game winner was a
nice play (by Rob Ray of all people), but the shot by Ramsey didn't look
like it would have broken a pane of glass, much less get by Roy. I think
he was looking for a fastball and instead got a *slow* changeup.
This series is really hard to read at this point. Neither side has come up
with a goaltender yet. The Sabres will probably go with Malarchuk again and
Montreal is very likely to switch over to Racicot next time out. Roy
twisted his ankle a bit in the third, which should offer up excuse enough to
pull him for the next game. Buffalo of course has had a penchant for coming
up short in the playoffs, but there were some really good efforts last
night. I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed and hope that *any*
Buffalo goalie gets hot.
--
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Stephen J. Sydorowicz Azatar Computer Systems
REPLY TO: syd...@bisco.kodak.com (716)726-5636
Opinions expressed do not reflect those of my employer