Game 4 Review

Anaheim shut the door on Ottawa's chances of winning during Game 4. Despite Ray Emery playing well, and the top line finally stepping up, it appears that the Ducks have the Cup all but in their hands.

Still undisciplined- Despite winning, the Ducks could still be caught taking the bad penalty. Corey Perry's crosscheck to the head of Chris Neil was unnecessary, but this time, it happened to Ottawa too. Francois Beauchemin was called for whacking Neil, but everyone could tell that Neil had faked getting hurt. Ray Emery purposely fell when Ryan Getzlaf nudged him by accident, and that drew a penalty. Neil was called for crosschecking, when he dumped Travis Moen, and Daniel Alfredsson took a shot (like with the puck) at Scott Niedermayer at the end of the period. That kind of play is likely to dig the Sens a big hole.

Why couldn't you do this before?- The Sens top players finally decided to show up in Game 4, as Daniel Alfredsson and Dany Heatley scored the only Senator goals. Jason Spezza also had some nice play, but the Sens needed this from Game 1, not when they are down 3-1 in games. Congratualtions to Patrick Eaves (the real one, not just a jersey on Spezza's back) to sparking Heatley into scoring, and a good job by Alfredsson to pile in the first goal up close.

"Took a shot at" goes a whole new level- It used to mean you just went after a guy. But Daniel Alfredsson literally shot the puck at Scott Nidermayer in the dying seconds of the second period. It caused another 10-man brawl, similar to the one at the end of the first. This action has caused major controversey, and (just a guess) has Senators fans screaming "accident" and Ducks fans screaming "suspension". I truly couldn't tell what happened, but I think Alfredsson did that on purpose. How classless from a guy who was a Conn Smythe candidate. Send it to Mike Fisher instead.

Third member of kid line has his moment- Dustin Penner sat back quietly in Games 1-3, and watched his line mates Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry got all the attention. He wasn't worried. In Game 4, Penner broke in with Teemu Selanne and ended up scoring the winning goal. Nice time to show up.

Here. I found some highlights of Game 4 for you.



From HockeyPacific again, these guys are pretty good. Hits are abound in this video, too. It shows Alfredsson's incident, and I noticed that he actually punches out a guy too, in the scrum. I can't believe that only Mike Fisher and Samuel Pahlsson got called.
Posting Thursday for sure, possibly tomorrow.