From
where I sit it looks like one hit will create more trouble for the Rangers...
Yes,
Prust deserved to be suspended. It was a bad hit and late. His two
games seems to be in line with the NHL standard for playoff games.
However, it's the Rangers paying the bigger price. Not only have
they lost Derek Stepan for an unknown length of time, but Dan
Carcillo for 10 games. Yes, the refs should have called the penalty
of Prust, but that doesn't excuse Carcillo for losing his mind. It
wasn't even like he was the only one trying to get a Prust. If he's
not restrained, he's the third man in. It will remain to be seen how
losing two players will impact New York. Stepan is the team's third
leading scorer, but thanks to Carcillo they now have two holes to
fill. Sure, Carcillo had only played 8 games, but now he can't play
any. No matter what minor contribution he was making, he will spend
the rest of the playoffs in the press box. It's a stupid, needless
loss for New York, now it's up to Montreal to take advantage of it.
Meanwhile,
Russia is a win away from the World Championship...
It's
a great opportunity for the Russians to prove their 'A' team is
better than the top B/C teams from the hockey world. Thanks to early
eliminations from the playoffs Russia has iced a great team,
including Sergi Babrovski, Alex Ovechkin and Yevgeni Malkin. They
managed to shut down an underpowered Sweden in the semi finals.
Congratulations if you know Anders Nilsson was the goalie of record
for Sweden, a bonus point if you know he's in the Islanders system.
The World Hockey Championships are a fun tournament. It's a good
opportunity for young players to get experience playing international
hockey. Honestly, there's no reason to any country to get an
inflated ego from winning, nor is there a reason to get too upset
with sub-par performances. If you want to accurately judge the level
of competition hold a best-on-best tournament. Like the Olympics or
World Cup. Evaluate the success at those levels and it's easy to see
who are the top countries. Canada, Sweden, Finland, the US, each
have medals from the last two Olympics. Those are your top teams.
They're the one's who's top players are still playing for the Stanley
Cup.
At
least that's how I see it, and I sit in the cheap seats.
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