NHL Defensemen Are True Iron Men
Sami Salo, the Vancouver Canucks' leading defenseman, was back in the lineup for Tuesday night's Game 6 in Vancouver. This, just a couple of days after taking a puck to the groin off a Duncan Keith slapshot.
I've been to more hockey games than I can count, and watched even more on the best of the DISH Network packages, my NHL Center Ice, and have witnessed some very nasty injuries. I was there when Jeremy Roenick got his face broken by a Darrien Hatcher cheap shot. I watched Kris Draper get punked by Claude Lemeiux. Having seen the shot that dropped Sami Salo on Sunday night, sending him to a Chicago area hospital, I'm in total awe that he was back on the ice Tuesday night.
Iron man that he is, Salo couldn't get his team over the hump against the Chicago Blackhawks, who pretty much dismantled the Canucks in Game 6. The final score of 5-1 is pretty much the tale of the tape. The Blackhawks showed up, played 60 minutes of hockey, and are on their way to the Western Conference Finals.
The Canucks committed two regrettable errors, one of them the cardinal sin of hockey. At the 2:26 mark of the 2nd period they gave up an unassisted goal to Kris Versteeg, and then, if that wasn't bad enough, gave up an unassisted shorthanded goal at the 19:15 mark.
Hockey's simple. When you're down 2-0 and on the power play, the entire effort of the team has got to be to change the score to 2-1 and not to 3-0. Like I said, the final score is pretty much the way it unfolded.
It's on to San Jose for the Blackhawks, which is great for hockey fans. These two teams have been the Best in the West all season long, and this best-of-seven series could be as good as any playoff hockey we've ever seen. I'm definitely setting my DISH DVR for this one!
