On a separate screen, a good 1,500 miles away or so, the Kings were trying to do what they failed to do each of the last three years - beat the Oilers. They first lost in seven games, then six, then five. Trends would say they would lose in four. Well, that or go forward and finally beat this team. For the first time, they had home ice. They had the best home record in the NHL. They were up 4-0 and then 5-2, but the Oilers top players are too good. On the second screen on teh corner of my eye, they made it 5-3, and then 5-4 and then 5-5. All this while the Stars were forcing OT.
OT had already started, when the Kings, just seconds after losing their lead, won with a knuckler of a goal with 40 seconds to go. About ten seconds in earth time after the clock struck zero in Los Angeles, the Stars won in OT, erupting the American Airlines Center in glee, and tying their epic series agaisnt teh Avalanche at 1-1. That is hockey. Those incredible two minutes, and more so ten seconds. That is the beautiful part.
Well, that or the Greatest Goalscorer of All Time doing something he had never done in his Hall of Fame career - namely: score a goal in overtime. Granted, neither has Mario Liemieux, but for years this was used as a cudgel to continue to tear down Ovechkin's "clutch" reputation. Then he led the Capitals brilliantly to teh 2018 Stanley Cup. Of course, he hasn't won a round since. But here we are, in the year of Ovechkin, where not only he got his goal record, but also led the Capitals to the #1 seed in the East, and for a moment defied logic all over again.
I could write a piece like this every year, about how amazing the Stanley Cup Playoffs are. For the first couple days of this year's playoffs, if anything it started a bit slow. Only one road team win (Avalanche over Stars in Game 1). No OT games. There was a fear that maybe much like this year's March Madness, this year's Stanley Cup Playoffs may be a rare disappointment from what is normally perfection. Well, on night three, we learned all over again that this tournament will always deliver.
Hockey is a game played at decent energy and effort throughout the full regular season. It also is a game of low chance events dictating outcomes - you know, goals and such. The vagaries of the playoffs could result in blowouts and boredom, but it just dones't do that. Even as I write this on night four, I'm watching the Senators, in their first playoff in eight years, claw back from a 0-2 hole in Toronto to force OT (writing this before the game ends). There is just an inherent, constant, whirring drama in the playoffs.
Yes, like most tournaments this starts to subside as we go on and we get less and less games. The 3-4 games a night, with the last game almost always going beyond midnight (especially on night four, with a ludicrous 11pm start time for Minnesota @ Vega). The peak really of the mania, the drama, the endless swiveling action is right now - when we get these series of games.
What makes hockey so exhilarating is it combines the best elements of both say soccer and basketball. It is low scoring like soccer - where goals and near goals are so exhilerating, so meaningful. The low scoring nature, unlike basketball, makes more games close than not. But unlike soccer - and like basketball, it is end to end, free flowign and there are so many more close "almost goals" than in a normal soccer match. There really is nothing better.
As I finish writing this, the Leafs did win in OT to take their 2-0 lead, ptoentially ripping the heart out of the Senators in the process. But we don't know that yet - no sport gives more 0-2 comebacks, 1-3 comebacks. Hell, even 0-3 comebacks, than hockey - just another amazing example of why this tournament is just never endingly great.
