Game 1 review

Ok, I swear that I will put a review after each Cup Final game, especially if they turn out as fun as that.

The Ducks came out with a 3-2 win, and, honestly, through the whole game, the score could have been 7-5 if not for some brilliant goaltending by "Razor" and "Jiggy". Giguere's best save came against Daniel Alfredsson with less than 10 seconds to go. The Sens captain was right in front when he received a great pass from Mike Fisher. He let off a top shelf-shot, but "Jiggy" caught it with his glove hand. Emery didn't have on particular save that stands out, but stopped several shots that could have made the deficit bigger. Even so, he's got to be hurting from the relatively soft backhand that Getzlaf put past him. It appeared to be a spectacular goal, but emery could have stopped it with an average save. As for the offense, most of the goals were great. Travis Moen's game-winner was a great play by the Ducks, and a bad play by Andrej Meszaros. Wade Redden has a better slapshot than we know, because I've never seen him pull off a blast like that. The double-Mike play was great (see later note), and congratulations to Drew Miller on making a great hit and free up the space for McDonald's goal.

RANDOM THOUGHTS: These are really just separate thoughts that came during the game.

- Was it Mike 1 or Mike 2? Does it really matter? After two periods of play, the NHL finally decided that Mike Fisher scored the goal on a wrist shot, not Mike Comrie on a tap in. The Versus announcers had a lot of fun with that. "The jury has come back and ruled a verdict..."

- Has anyone noticed the constantly changing personality of Ryan Getzlaf? I was watching the game with my uncle and my dad, and just so happened to (easily) notice the (blatant) series of crosschecks that Getzlaf put on Mike Comrie. As a matter of fact, he earned the name Ryan Crosscheck until he scored his backhander on Emery. Then we talked about his huge potential to become a superstar.

- Plenty of jokes have already been made about the playoff beards of the Anaheim Ducks. But I think we topped it off after seeing a shot of the cleanly shaved Mike Comrie, and the beardless Chris Pronger. " 'Hey, look at that! Pronger can't grow a beard!' 'That's ok, (Scott) Niedermayer is growing it for him.' *laughter* 'Yeah, I can see it in the dressing room! Pronger is staring at his chin, and Niedermayer comes up and says, don't worry man, I got it.' *more laughter* 'And Rob (Niedermayer) is growing it for (Corey) Perry!' 'It's the third period, do you know where your beard buddy is?' Mike Comrie is jinxing the Senators. You could easily tell that he had shaved recently, after seeing his face in a mid-break interview.

- Unless he's in it just for the money (which would be a shame), Zdeno Chara has got to be kicking himself right now. The year he leaves, the Sens make it to the Finals for the first time in franchise history. Speaking of Chara, who would win the fight? Chara or Pronger?

If you didn't see the game, which is understandable considering how Versus is largely unpopular, here are some nice highlights for you.



It fails to show Ryan Getzlaf's crosschecking show, but it is still good. Posting tomorrow or Thursday about Game 2.