The Carolina Hurricanes have forced a game seven against the current Stanley Cup champions. Here are the three main takeaways from a night of comebacks at PNC Arena.
Don’t call it a comeback.
The lyrics to LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out” perfectly fits this team and what they had accomplished last night at PNC Arena against their old but new arch-nemesis, the Washington Capitals.
It’s been a while since we could truly call another team our arch-nemesis. A while since we have developed such rich storylines filled with such emotions and passion. That is what we have missed over the course of the last decade by missing out on the postseason. Say what you will about the current playoff format, but this is exactly what it is supposed to create.
It has more than accomplished that. In a game six elimination game for the Carolina Hurricanes they stepped up in a game where they needed to win. They also created some bad blood and some enemies along the way. From “the fight” between Alex Ovechkin and Andrei Svechnikov, to Warren Foegele the hero for the Carolina Hurricanes and the Devil for the Washington Capitals.
There is just so much to unpackage from this game that we would never see in a regular season game. Take for example this attempted hit on Dougie Hamilton by Ovechkin. Dougie side steps like a ninja on ice and lets Ovechkin go tumbling solo into the boards. Ovechkin, slow to get up, stumbles up to the Carolina bench and flaps his arms like a chicken at them.
The beautiful game https://t.co/6H5CApggRs
— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) April 22, 2019
That is absolutely rich. I am talking cheesecake from whole foods rich. But this is what we are getting in the Stanley Cup playoffs. This only happens because this is a best out of seven series. Otherwise there would have been handshakes on saturday and we would not have been given another chance to break the standards set in this series and the magnitude of a game seven.
But thats not even a real takeaway from the game played last night, just the circumstances and the evidence that NHL hockey is the greatest sport on earth. One night you are blown out of a game 6-0 and your backs are to the wall and the next you are the one putting up 5 or more goals and setting up a winner takes all. What did we actually take away from the game though?