One Wild Night

There is an old joke that goes "I went to the fights and a hockey game broke out".

Okay, so there was only 1 full-fledged fight in last night's 7-3 clubbing of the San Jose Sharks by the Vancouver Canucks, but the game was filled with animosity and bad blood. It extended well beyond the final horn of the game as well.

But let's back up a bit and start from the beginning. The San Jose Sharks once again jumped out to an early 1-0 lead on a slick power play goal by rookie Logan Couture. But the Vancouver Canucks--as they did in Game 1--thundered back with two goals in quick succession. It took just over a minute in Game 1, and just under a minute last night. Daniel Sedin struck first with his first goal of the Western Final, and Raffi Torres potted his second of the playoffs just moments later.

The Sharks would eventually tie the game again on another power play goal, making their power play a perfect 3-for-3 in the series to this point, but that's where Kevin Bieksa took over.

First, the Canuck blueliner put his team ahead again with a slippery five-hole shot on a breakaway. Then, to his surprise, he was challenged to a fight by noted (non) pugilist Patrick Marleau. Bieksa was happy to oblige and proceeded to tune the Sharks' forward fairly badly.

On the Sharks bench, Ben Eager was going insane. Sharks coach Todd McLellan mistook this loss of sanity for a player who could show some emotion and proceeded to put him on the ice, where Eager promptly charged star Canuck Daniel Sedin from behind and stapled him to the boards, a play that should have been a five minute major and a game misconduct.

Fortunately for the Canucks, he received only a minor penalty. But we'll come back to that in a moment.

Defenders of Eager will say he was just following the hockey "code", an eye for an eye if you will. Eager has his own code, it seems, and if anyone has found it, color me impressed. I say that because I believe his code is written in his own excrement on the wall of a cave somewhere.

But this did not follow any code at all. Patrick Marleau was the one who challenged Bieksa to scrap, not the other way around. Marleau knows he is not a fighter and was hoping to inspire his team with a gutsy performance. He admitted all of this after the game. But perhaps the only person he inspired was Bieksa, who tipped his hat to his dance partner and praised the gutsy move.

So when one of your teammates seeks out a fight and loses, it is most certainly not a situation where you charge out to injure an opposing team's star player.

But now we come back to "fortunately, he received only a minor penalty". Becuase from that point on, Eager completely undid the San Jose Sharks. The game was still 3-2 at that point. The Sharks killed off the minor penalty to Eager to start the third period and a tense 20 minutes looked to be in order. But as soon as Eager was free from the penalty box, he slewfooted Mason Raymond. Back to the box he went. And this time, the Canucks made him pay.

Chris Higgins scored his first goal of the series to make the score 4-2. The Sharks then took a "too many men on the ice" penalty. Daniel Sedin made it 5-2.  Then, with Eager and his line on the ice, the Twins made minced meat of the big oaf and set up Aaron Rome--no, that is not a typo--for his first ever playoff goal. 6-2. Ryan Clowe then mixed it up with Maxim Lapierre, whose response was to make a sequence of silly faces at the frustrated Sharks forward. Mason Raymond scored on the ensuing power play. 7-2.

Eager would eventually score for the Sharks, making it 7-3. But after doing so he kicked off a fracas by taunting Roberto Luongo (while your team is losing by 4 goals? Seriously.) And he spent another two minutes in the penalty box. Immediately after he got out, he took yet another penalty for cross checking and was also awarded a misconduct.

The venom continued after the game. Eager (again ignoring the fact that Marleau challenged Bieksa, not the other way around) called Bieksa a "phony" and said it was unfortunate that someone was going to pay him a lot of money this summer given that he is an unrestricted free agent. (jealous, Ben?)

Ryan Clowe called Maxim Lapierre a "coward". Clowe had challenged Lapierre to a fight, and Lapierre--showing a bit of the side that made him so reviled when he played for Montreal and earned him the nickname "Yappy Lappy" just made faces and whispered sweet nothings to him.

While humorous, the Canucks do not need Lapierre doing that. The Sharks are doing just dandy in taking penalties all by themselves. Captain Henrik Sedin had a quick chat with Lapierre after the play, presumably telling him to tone it down.

But the namecalling was in full flight after the game from the Sharks' side. But from the Canucks side? Calm. Professional. To a man, they shrugged off the Sharks' antics both on the ice and off it. This might be the single biggest difference in this team from years' past, as they are not the ones coming unglued. They are letting the remarks slide and they are getting the job done on the ice.

Maybe if Ben Eager and his teammates realize they are playing hockey and not trying to be a poor approximation of WWE wrestlers, they'll have a shot in this series.

But as the series shifts to San Jose, Vancouver is going to enjoy their 2-0 series lead. They are also going to enjoy the fact that not only did they make the Sharks unravel yesterday evening, but they penalized them in the best way possible for doing so--by putting pucks in the net.

Now the question becomes, can they do it in the Shark Tank?