Canes whip Bruins -- gameday commentary.

On Saturday night, the Canes played about 50 minutes of good hockey, and fortunately 50 was all it took to defeat the visiting Bruins 5-2. Bruins netminder Tim Thomas would complain after the game that the Canes were running up the score. More on that later.

Throughout the game, we were shown out-of-town scores, just like usual. Because of the busy day in college football, with all of the conference championship games, there was a lot of that, too. A roar came out when we saw that UCLA had stunned #2 USC. A big roar came up when we saw that Wake Forest had won the ACC championship game and will be going to the Rose Bowl. The biggest roar of approval, though, came when the NHL scores were posted, and we saw that the Caps were busy beating the Sabres. Even though it's in our interest to see the Caps (a divisional opponent) lose, we're always happy to see the Sabres lose. Personally, I don't have much against the Sabres. I have a few friends who are Sabres fans, and I've been known to pull for the Crossed Swords Sabres on their behalf. Still, part of me hates them. And I think it's safe to say that a vast majority of the Caniac Nation would root for Al-Qaeda sooner than they'd do the same for the Sabres.

With that, the perfect opportunity to link to my favorite Onion article ever. Every time I read this, it makes me cry with laughter.

After the Canes took a nap in the latter portion of the first period, they looked much sharper in the second and third. They ended up winning 5-2, putting an end to the Bruins three-game winning streak. Before that little streak, the Bruins lost to the Canes on the day after Thanksgiving 5-1. In that game, Tim Thomas was chased from the nets after three goals. He would get no relief this time, picking up his second loss to the Canes in eight days. On Saturday, he stopped 25 of 30 Canes shots (.833) and was out of position all night long. While it's true that he didn't get a lot of blue line assistance, he was giving up big rebounds and got out of position a lot.

After the game, Thomas complained about the Canes padding their stats.

"They're a point-hungry team," Thomas said. "I'm not talking about points for the win. The end of the game there, they were all doing a little bit of cheating to get their point totals up, so they can get a bigger contract next time."

What?? Seriously? I don't see how in the world there can be any stats padding in a 5-2 game. At 4-2, the game is still in question, and the fifth goal was scored at 11:24. The TOI stats are pretty evenly balanced up and down the forward lines, so it wasn't a matter of keeping the big dogs out there longer.
This isn't some high school football game where one team is up 74-0 and still using their star running back. The last time I checked, this is the NHL, and a 4-2 lead isn't safe in the new NHL. Padding stats? Yeah, they really poured it on by scoring an insurance marker with 9 minutes to play.

Idiot.


Game update is in the works.