So I'm watching the 2nd period of Preds-Sharks last night, and saw a sequence which kinda relates to my ramblings yesterday. 1-1 tie, Sharks PP expires, and Kariya comes out of the box. As he's getting back to his blue line to insert himself into the action, it looks like the puck might be loose, and he quickly pivots hoping for the clear breakaway. But, the Sharks quickly regained possession, across to Clowe, and he scores. Turns out Kariya made a bad read, and possibly cost his team a goal -- a goal that proved to be the winner (video here).

Glen Healy took a break from his star-fellating ("I have never seen someone practice harder than Radulov, and I have never seen someone with softer hands than Radulov") to go all snarky on Kariya -- "Hey Paul, where you going? You don't have the puck!" -- followed by a comment about how Kariya needs to be more committed to the team game they're playing.

Now: I'm not disputing whatsoever that it was a bad play. Kariya screwed up. But Glenn Healy: are you serious, dude? Do you think Paul Kariya made the decision he did with personal glory in mind, or to pad his playoff stats? I don't believe that; I think it's more likely that Paul Kariya knows exactly what his primary role is on the team: to use his gifts and hockey sense to create scoring chances in a manner and quantity that less gifted players are incapable of.

Perhaps Jim Playfair would have stapled PK's ass to the bench after that play. Barry Trotz, as it turns out, gave him nearly twice as much TOI in the 3rd period as he did in the 1st. Was he giving Nashville its best chance to win, or was he failing to hold his star player accountable for a lack of committment? YOU make the call!

[Sidebar -- enjoyable take from Chris Selley:

...this Nashville-San Jose series is crack.

UPDATE: Like I said, crack. That little punk Tootoo sucker-punches Ryane Clowe and gets his punk ass handed to him. I don't care who wins this thing. It's magically delicious.]

Anyway, enough coach-related crap, that can wait for the off-season, whenever that comes about. Here's the thing about being down 2-0 in a playoff series: it always looks bad. Degrees vary, but the comments on the team in the hole are never super-positive about their prospects for recovery. Here's Sacamano, from when the Oilers were down 2-0 to the Sharks last season:

...it was just painful to see those ridiculously young Sharks d-men skate their way out of their own zone with no pressure until the red line. The Oil need to get on these guys a little more often. Of course, it would help if the Oilers remembered how to forecheck. They sure didn't win many battles on the boards. Remember those days the Oilers managed to put up a fair number of shots while being the best team in the NHL at preventing shots? What happened to that team?

I guess the bright light is that, despite being outplayed by a tough, tough team, the Oil were still only one bad penalty away from playing them even on the scoreboard. The burnt out bulb is that I can't see the Oil winning 4 of the next 5 games against this team.

And from someone named "Andy Grabia" in the comments to the same thread:

I am despondent. What angers me the most is how indifferent the players and coaching staff seemed in the post-game interviews.

And from Andy's own site at the time:

The Oilers are in big trouble. They are getting out-hit, out-skated, out-hustled, out-coached, out-skilled, out everything. All they appear able to do is skate around the boards, pass to the defencemen, and have them either miss the net or have their slapshot blocked. Everything that was wrong with the Oilers this year has been brought to the surface over the past two games. We are an entirely predictable team. It kills me to say it, but this looks like it will be over in four... Other than Moreau, the players look lifeless... Smyth, Hemsky and Samsonov look lost out there.

Etc., etc., etc. Etc. ("No sense pretending: teal-coloured thunderheads are hanging, low and threatening, over this city.") The point of this is not to mock (although Andy's bipoilerism is hilarious); it's to illustrate that the dread associated with being down 2-0 is related not so much to the actual deficit, but to how it happened. Or put another way, when Bob Mckenzie notes that "..how the Flames lost their first two games is almost as important as the fact that they lost them", this is not an insight that's unique to this particular series.

In fact, as of this moment, it's quite irrelevant. If the Flames win tonight (whether by playing very well, by the Wings playing poorly, or through sheer luck), it's 2-1, with a chance to tie the series at home. If there's any substance to this notion of a collective playoff insecurity within the Wings that's waiting to be exposed, well, tying it up after starting the series with two ridiculous, dry-ass-rape blow-outs seems like an ideal way to expose it.

We finally have a game time that's suitable for hockey: 8PM MT, after the kids are in bed. Here's something I didn't anticipate saying in my lifetime: since I don't get an American feed tonight, I'm stuck watching the CBC broadcast.

I looked at the two home games v. DET on Vic Ferrari's fantastic new site to look for a clue as to what the Coach might do with last change, but I have more questions than answers now. On Nov.17, it looks like he was trying to keep the Iginla line away from Draper/Maltby, but was more than happy to go Power vs. Power against the Datsyuk line. Considering how that went in Gms 1&2 where Babcock went with the exact same matchup, Jimmy may rethink things. In the more recent game (Mar.20), he was obviously sending out Regehr/Stuart against Datsyuk, but there's not much that's obvious in the way of forward matchups. And since Regehr is hurt again, who knows.

To repeat myself for the billionth time, I think the Flames have a better chance if Playfair will release the hounds... but I don't care how they win. I'll take 1-0 in OT, 3-0, 7-6, 4-2, 2-1, whatever. Just win, baby. Lombardi with the GWG. Go Flames.