Just a few things that caught my eye ...
- Submissive dawgs roll over and let you scratch their bellies. Aggressive ones crash Jonathan Quick's crease. Finally.
- Kings' success = blazing speed + aggressive forecheck. Neither were apparent in their game today. Darryl Sutter will get the ship righted quick.
- Ray Whitney has a fantastic glove hand. It might have saved the game. Sure saved Mike Smith after that gaffe in the corner.
- Speaking of shutouts, Smith has three this postseason; they have all come on the road. This was the first game he outplayed his counterpart this series.
- I wonder how Team Canada would have done at the Worlds if Shane Doan had been there. Nice goals ...
- I had to laugh when the camera caught the so-called Kings' greats in a luxury suite. Bruce McNall (cough, cough) was there. But so was Ian Turnbull? He played 580 games in Leafs' blue and white but just a half season (42) in purple and gold. Gotta have the hottest ticket in town any way you can, I guess.
- Four captains I'd take on my team any day -- Shane Doan, Dustin Brown, Ryan Callahan and Zach Parise.
- Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun has a point -- it's time to get rid of playoff beards. It's a great ritual, but his description is apt: "...now it just looks like a convention of young lumberjacks, fresh from a magazine ad." It's hard to market lumberjacks.
- Zdeno Chara is a class act. His Slovakian team lost to Russia at today's World Championships, but he donned a Pavol Demitra jersey before he skated up (as captain) to accept his silver medal. Demitra, who had been the long-time captain of his country's squad, lost his life in last summer's air crash that killed the Lokomotiv hockey club.
- Funny how Alexander Semin can score for his Russian team but he can't do crap for the Capitals. Just saying ...