Pucks On The 'Net: Lightning Strikes Edition

A few thoughts for a Wednesday:

• Tampa Bay's depth at forward is really impressing. Sean Bergenheim, Teddy Purcell and Dominic Moore in particular. Even Nate Thompson. Tampa has the high end talent, but such great play from their support guys is a real key to their success.
• It is great see shades of the old Vincent Lecavalier again. It was not that long ago he was my favorite player in the league.
• Alexander Ovechkin often plays the power play on the point or lately in the high slot. Would not he be better utilized down low in some capacity? Ovechkin was down right terrible when the heat was on in game three. His solo attempts through Tampa's suffocating 1-3-1 defense were brutal, undisciplined and disappointing. But far worse are Nicklas Backstrom and Alexander Semin. 
• Of all the coaches in NHL history to have coached at least 250 NHL games Bruce Boudreau has the best winning percentage. That's impressive, although I'm still not convinced he's the guy to take Washington over the top. 
• I did not know Boudreau was originally supposed to be on United Airlies Flight 175 that crashed into the World Trade Center in the 9/11 attacks. Boudreau was working for the Kings at the time. He caught an earlier flight the evening prior, heading to LA for team meetings. Scouts Mark Bavis and Ace Bailey stuck to their original travel plans and never made it.
• Canucks earned a hard win in Nashville. Was the Shea Weber penalty call weak? Yes. But good teams take advantage of their breaks when they get them. Vancouver did that. 
• In the past few Canucks game I always play the same joke on Twitter - Late in the game, time to put Cory Schneider in the net. And every time Roberto Luongo gives up the late, key goal. Last night it happened seconds after my tweet. I need to retire that joke, quickly.
• I hate it when fans complain about refereeing. We can break down every call individually, but on the macro level blaming referees only frees the players and coaches of accountability.
• He's increasingly maligned these playoffs, but give Henrik Sedin some credit on that winning goal. He quarterbacked the power play with some patient puck distribution from the half wall. And when Mikael Samuelsson's shot from the point finally came, Henrik nicely descended to the side of the crease, forcing the Pred's Shane O'Brien to scramble and let Kesler get the screen and tip.
• Nice to see the Green Men in Nashville, and aside from the "Glenn Healy: Why So Serious?" poster we never really saw what they were up to. As a result they were upstaged nicely by the Vancouver fans sitting behind the Canucks' bench with the Carrie Underwood cardboard cutout and the changing speech bubble. Great stuff.

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