Playoffs Daily | SF Game 4 | May 7th, 2011

Where to start? First of all, 7pm EST is 1am my time and I was not planning on watching the games last night. Was a busy week at work so a girl needs to recuperate right? But both the Flyers and Red Wings game kept me preoccupied and I could not fall asleep and I was constantly grabbing my BlackBerry to check the NHL applet. At one point I gave up this torture and got up and tuned in to ESPN America to watch the final period of the Sharks-Red Wings game which ESPN followed up with the third period of the Flyers-Bruins game. By the time I went to sleep it was past 5am and I was a mixed bag of emotions and sleep deprivation lol

[Sharks-Red Wings] 3-4. Sharks lead series 3-1. My favourite Western Conference team lives to play another game! I liked how they quickly got to the 3-0 lead and liked it less when I saw it dwindle to 3-3 on the applet. At which point I decided to give up on this 'trying to sleep'-thing and got up to watch the rest of the third period. And it was very exciting. The Wings kept hunting for a winner and the Sharks were pretty much doing the same. It went back and forth and then Helm scored the fourth goal just as I was thinking 'Oh no, we're up for another OT'. I was on the edge of my seat for the last seconds of the game and never did time go so slowly. And I probably should not but I have admit to something very girly here. As the seconds ran out I was overwhelmed by it all and I found myself crying a bit lol ... I was so happy at least one of my faves evaded a sweep ...

[Flyers-Bruins] 1-5. Boston sweep series 4-0. Yes you probably heard about it ... my Flyers got SWEPT! Oh stop smirking at me like that! Two were emptynetters ok? But yeah, it all went downhill after game two and they never recovered. During the last two games at times I would see the Flyers that dominated the first half of the season, but all in all they were nothing but a ghost of their 'former' self. As if it was ages ago. But how else to describe it? Lines that once clicked perfectly and linemates that once found eachother blindly failed to generate goals. During the last period I saw things I have never seen before: shots on goal from the red line?! Sure, always try to take a shot, but that was just ridiculous. Bad stick-handling. Nervous undirected and even completely missed shots. Do not even get me going on the Playoffs goaltending situation. Sergei was in my opinion the saving grace in this final game. Do not blame him at all. And Lavi, who was such a rock for us seemed to have lost his coaching skills and confidence-inspiring coolness. And the Bruins were awesome the entire series. Credit where credit is due! Having said all that, I did see my guys give all the energy they had in them, but it was not enough to pull them through.

This series will be analysed to death and much better too, so I will not even attempt it, but in short this is what I think.

• Things went downhill after the ASG and got worse with the addition of Versteeg. Lines were messed up.
• The biggest WTF fuck moment of this season was when they called Leights back up for the Playoffs. Now I know our goalies were not the best, but to call up Leights? Great confidence booster for Sergei and Boosh *rolls eyes* ... that was just plain stupid and should not have happened. Not allowing Sergei back in net for Game 2 was the worst mistake. Sergei may have had the occasional bad game, but he always bounced back the next one.
• Lavi. Something is not right there. And the bad spell must have created locker-room issues. I am waiting for post-season fall-out!

So what now? At least the Wings live another day and I hope they will do what we did last year and turn things around and win the series ;)

As for the Bruins, I like these guys. Chara, Bergeron, Kaberle (yeah the Leafs were right about shipping him out, but I still like the guy), Ference (my hero eversince he flipped off the Habs fans), Lucic, Timmie ... awesome players. And the Bruins played the kind of game I was used to seeing my Flyers play. Physical to the max and dominating. So yeah, as I finally went to bed after 5am I was pissed off and ready to hate them. But with a few hours of sleep behind me and a really sunny day ahead the little bit of hate has gone and well, might even cheer for them to win the next series. What can I say, I am not a sore loser and we all deal with loss differently right? ;)