Wasn't there a movie about Valley Girls? They could be making one this year about Valley Guys. Steve Valiquette stood on his head last night and he wasn't playing against The Dark Rangers "beloved" Flyers and he wasn't playing in Wachovia Center in Philadelphia. Valley made 21 saves and made some crucial ones late in the game. In the shootout Nikolai Kulemin beat him but the Z Man, Nikolai Zherdev, and Fredrik Sjostrom cashed in to give the Rangers the win and the Valley Guy his second win of the year, his first shutout of the year and the third of his career.
Of course you know that Valiquette takes an ice bath before each game. Maybe that's why he looks and plays so cool on the ice. He is part of it. His counter part in the Maple Leaf nets, Vesa Toskola, was pretty good too stopping 32 shots. The Rangers were 0-8 on the PP the Leafs 0-4. The Rangers power play has been a problem for three years and this stellar coaching staff that the drive by media praises hasn't a clue how to fix it. The game was pretty dull until the Rangers revved it up in the third period. But Toskala was up to the task and so the OT and then the dreaded shootout and then the sixth win in seven games and now on to Detroit to face the storied Red Wings.
Steve Valiquette stops Maple Leafs---
I would have liked to see Valley get into with Matt Stajan, who smacked at the rebound of his miss during the shootout, and got Steve upset.
What would the refs do, give Valley a major for fighting? Can you even draw a penalty during the shootout? What would they do? Just an interesting sidebar to ho-hummer game.
Interesting question. The rule book says nothing specifically about penalties in the shootout period. I would take a wild guess that they would send Vally out and probably give a game suspension at least. Not sure what else they could do.
Shooters should get something against them for the second shot, they know better than that so it is very much intentional.
jb & blow-me-down-Eddie Giacomin would have shot the puck at Stajan. They should have "the Stajan" rule. Remember the Avery rule that was made on the fly. If you rebound a shootout shot your team loses one shootout player.
Yeah, and Eddie would have hit him too LOL. Losing a shootout player would get any team's attention. I know I've seen the second shot before, and it always comes across as disrespectful.
Just witnessed us getting shafted by good old McCreary and company on the bogus too many men penalty. What kind of an ass do you have to be to make that call in a game like that? It ruins it. Aaargh. Best game of the year so far by the boys without a shadow of a doubt, it was a great display.