Wednesday 25 May 2011

Playoffs Daily | WCF Game 5 | May 25th, 2011

And here I thought the Bruins-Bolts game was weird. This one was even wilder. Crazy bouncing pucks, amazing saves, last-second heroics, double OT ... they should turn it into a movie ;)

[Sharks-Nucks] 2-3. Nucks clinch series 4-1. Well done Nucks! Maybe not your best ever game, but certainly one of the more memorable and I am sure some of it will be replayed often for years to come!

♦ I am not sure which is the more amazing moment of the game. Kesler's last minute score or Bieksa's winner. I think I will go with Kesler's last minute goal. Without it, the rest would not have happened. This really is the stuff movies are made of. A not entirely fit Kesler, battling till the very last minute of regulation, to score a cool and collected goal with just 14 seconds left on the clock! I just hope he will be good to go for the Finals. Or not lol ... I want an Eastern Conference winner. No, I mean yes, I want an EC winner, but they should still earn it fair and square and that requires beating a guy like Kesler! If you have read earlier posts you might recall that Kesler is a favourite NHL athlete of mine eventhough I have little interest in the Nucks. But some athletes just deserve the admiration ;) ... and he had me worried when he limped off the ice in the second period and did not return for the remainder of the period. Quote: "No, I'll play on one leg, I don't care ... it's all about the team right now."

♦ Goalscoring ... not much of it considering they spent 90 minutes on the ice ;) ... but no matter. Burrows was first to score (first period) for the Nucks after some magic passing between the Sedins. In the second period Marleau scored the equaliser on a PP. Just seconds into the third, Setoguchi scored for what for the longest time seemed to be the game-winner. But yeah ... then Ryan Kesler happened and we had ourselves an OT game. First OT morphed into second OT and the clock said 10:18 when Bieksa scored the winner

♦ Shots on goal action: Nucks had 34, Sharks had 56! The Sharks had 15 in the first period and 16 in a frenzied first OT. A lot of work for Luongo ;)

♦ Goaltending. A save percentage of 0.912 for Niemi, not bad at all, but Luongo saved 54 out of 56 shots, giving him an average of 0.964. No choking for him this game!

OK, Bieksa time. I watched this over and over and over and over and it just boggled my mind. I just could not figure out what happened there. Everyone, Sharks and Nucks alike, agree on one thing: Bieksa is the only one who knew where the puck went. While the rest was looking back and forth trying to locate the puck, he saw it and went for a one-timer! Took this video however to make me understand what happened:


What a game!

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