All Things Old Are New Again

The sens were rolling. They had overcome a hot goalie to take the lead after reaching for an upper gear that the pens just could not match. A game that looked so familiar to those three 2-0 wins in 2004 against Drunkle Eddie had suddenly looked safely in the possession of the team from the capital.

Then the game turned on the mighty play of the irreplaceable Patrick Ea..err well, that's probably what John Muckler expected to happen. Instead, a familiar face came back to haunt the senators as Gary Roberts tied the game once from his office in front of the net and then set up another tying goal with a big bodycheck. Sidney Crosby stole the win with the nicest goal of the game on a slick passing play by Evegeni Malkin and Mark Recchi.

Some other things I noticed:

• Corvo is Ottawa's Ian White. On the offence he looked okay but he has a case of the footsteps on defence. Twice in the third he ran away from contact and coughed up the puck.

• The refs were brutal both ways. They jumped from iron fisted to inept with such jarring frequency. They blew blatant calls on both sides including 2 knees by Schaeffer, a dirty hit from behind by Talbot, and a little punching match between Crosby and Phillips (nice deflection on the first goal).
  

• Where is Saprykin?
  
  
• The crowd, that received much deserved praise after the last game, disappeared when the going got tough. Their heckling of MAF lost some steam when they realized that he was going to make 34 saves.
  
  
• Speaking of goalies..4 goals on 21 shots? Is it time to put Gerber in?