After last night’s other Game 2, I’ll be glad to watch some hockey tonight with complete apathy towards the winner. Watching the St. Louis Blues and San Jose Sharks play hockey is like entering one of those free bracket challenges for March Madness – you know you aren’t going to win, but it’s fun to play along while it lasts. Red Wings fans don’t get much out of a Blues or Sharks victory, but at least tonight we don’t have to be foaming at the mouth when certain players touch the puck.
LAST GAME’S RECAP
Look, this one is going to be short and sweet today because if I dive too far into this, im gonna end up with a 3,000 word rant about how much I hate #87. Unfortunate things will be said, you’ll be reading forever, someone will get upset… and none of that is needed. Just know that this one was pretty back-and-forth, with Tampa Bay trailing Pittsburgh 2-0 at one point but everything tied up at 2-2 to end regulation. Then he-who-shall-not-be-named from the Penguins fired a shot that Andrei Vasilevskiy should have stopped but didn’t, finding the back of the net and ending the game 3-2 in favor of Pitt 40 seconds into the extra period. I guess this chalks up as a moral victory for Tampa, winning Game 1 on the road and pushing Game 2 to OT, but I was still hoping to watch as little of Pittsburgh this round as possible. Some hatreds die hard.
TONIGHT’S ACTION
St. Louis Blues vs San Jose Sharks (Game 2), 8:00PM EDT, NBCSN
Last game, these two teams stayed pretty evenly matched overall with neither exactly owning the ice. St. Louis took the early lead, San Jose really pressed in the second period but came up empty, and the Blues hung in in the third to get the win. Both squads probably feel like they had the right effort in Game 1, and the same efforts in Game 2 might yield the same or different results – it really was THAT kind of game where it looked like either team could have taken it. While I still believe that the Penguins were in a do-or-die situation last night, I don’t think the Sharks are anywhere remotely close to facing that kind of pressure tonight. This series looks like it might be back-and-forth for 7 games.
Why You Care Enough To Watch: If anything, this has a good chance to be another close, tense hockey game with no pressure for Wings fans for one winner or the other. For all the vitriol and anger that seem to be spurred by Tampa and Pitt among our fanbase, the Sharks and Blues don’t seem to have anywhere near the same effect on the pro-Detroit crowd. If you’re like me and got far too worked up over the end result of last night, take tonight to just relax with some beer and pizza and some solid playoff hockey.
Which remaining team do you dislike most?
| Penguins | 76 |
| Lightning | 24 |
| Blues | 3 |
| Sharks | 5 |
