But then Mark Kiszla at the Denver Post decided to get a head start on "recreating '68" by consuming vast quantities of psychotropic drugs before writing this column on the series. How else to explain his complete detachment from reality?
Let the mugging begin.
It's the only way the Minnesota Wild can win.
To advance in the NHL playoffs, the Avalanche must embrace the darkness. When playing this goon-it- up Wild bunch, hockey is a no-holds- barred battle of attrition, not skill.
The only good thing that can be said about Minnesota's 3-2 overtime victory against Colorado was the game lasted so deep into the night that it ended past the bedtime of most kids who could be frightened by the way the Wild mauls all the beauty from the sport.
Those who actually understand hockey saw a completely different game last night. Except for a few stretches (including too many power plays) when the Avs put pressure in the Wild end, the Wild for the most part controlled the game. They completely dominated the overtime and were clearly the better team.
Minnesota, the land of 10,000 dead car batteries, has an inferiority about this hockey team. The Wild's style of play is as ugly and obnoxious as the uniforms, which look as if designed by a toddler who randomly pulled two crayons from the box of 64 and began scribbling.
Here's a quick compare and contrast: Wild home and Avs home jerseys. Case closed.
This hard truth makes the Wild faithful grumpier than they are after waking up to yet another subzero morning. But why deny what makes the team so successful?
It figures. On a play that could have ended on an icing call, a weird, lucky bounce instead allowed the winning goal to be scored by Minnesota's Pierre-Marc Bouchard almost 12 minutes deep into the extra period. The Wild likes overtime, because it gives these grunts more time to knock the spirit from you with every cheap shot.
Yes, it could have ended on an icing call if Brian Rolston (skill) hadn't hustled down the ice and beaten Jeff Finger (former SCSU Husky) to the puck and fed it to Pierre-Marc Bouchard (all skill). If you look at the three Wild goals last night, they all involved nice passing plays to guys who can finish. The play that Demitra made on the shorty was an unbelievable example of the finest of hockey skills.
I missed the first Avs goal, but the second one--where Sakic knocked a weak backhander past Backstrom after an Avs player had fallen on top of him--was hardly a thing of beauty. By the way, how many times have the "skilled" Avs run the Wild goalie so far anyway? I know that the one last night was not intentional, but plenty more have been.
At this point, Kislza's trip enters another dimension:
When Avs forward Peter Forsberg turns his back, even for a second, he will get jumped and roughed up, in true back-alley fashion, by some Minnesota mugger.
Or did you miss the assault on Forsberg during the second period by Wild defenseman Sean Hill, who owns the dubious distinction of being the first NHL player suspended from the league for steroids?
Sniff, sniff. Are the big bad Wild being mean to sweet innocent little Peter Forsberg? The same Forsberg who has dished out more than his fair share of cheap shots over his career (ask Brendan Shanahan)? The same Peter Forsberg who Marty McSorely described playing against in The Code: The Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL thusly?
For instance, whenever I played against Peter Forsberg I knew that I was going to get slashed and whacked and chopped.
The same Peter Forsberg whose diving skills were lauded in the The Code with this comparison?
He has made embellishing almost an art form.
Yes, Peter Forsberg is a skilled hockey player. He's also a skilled agitator, diver, and all around pain in the arse. He's the clichéd "guy you love when he's on your team and hate when he's on the other side." Weep not for Peter Forsberg.
And speaking of cheap shots, Kislza's steriod snipe was real classy.
Kislza continues to trip:
The dark hockey arts are practiced by every member of the Wild. Even a player as remarkably talented as Minnesota center Mikko Koivu is not adverse to hacking and tripping when Colorado's Ryan Smyth is carrying the puck on goal.
Clearly he's referring to the penalty called on Koivu last night when he had good defensive position on Smyth, who then dove toward the Wild goal over Koivu's legs and stick and got a cheap penalty call out of it. Apparently Kislza suffers from the same inability to distinguish legitimate penalties that the crowd at Pepsi Center exhibited last night when they booed every penalty called on the Avs and whined for a call every time the shadow of a Wild player crossed one of the beloved
It's really too bad that a muddle-headed stoner like Kislza had to pen such an astonishingly ignorant piece and tarnish a series that was shaping up to be a classic. In the future, he should stick to a sport that he and his Colorado readers actually understand. The pow is really phat, dude--let's shred this half-pipe and then head in for a bipe and a dugan.
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