Brett Smith did not make the trip to South Dakota. I was told if there is a Game 7 he will try to play.
That's another reason why the Komets kept Leo Thomas in the lineup on Sunday, because they needed another center in case Brett had to come out.
Brett Smith did not make the trip to South Dakota. I was told if there is a Game 7 he will try to play.
That's another reason why the Komets kept Leo Thomas in the lineup on Sunday, because they needed another center in case Brett had to come out.
Comments
After 71 games you'd think they'd know better.
Not the Komets. Not this year. Same post game comments (excuses) we've heard all year long. Doesn't matter whose mouth they come out of. Chaulk, Auger, Smith, Schrock or Coach Sims always knows what went wrong AFTER the game. No one can seem to translate the action and its cures during the game.
My good buddy Jack called me yesterday well before the game. He was nervous and so was I. "The first goal of the game will be huge", he said. I agreed. Looking back now, the first goal of the game was just a spot where the Komets decided as a team to quit working. After 71 games you'd think they would know better.
I told Jack that I thought whoever would win game five would win the series. That was quite an obvious statement if the Komets won. But they didn't win. Now a fired up Rapid City team returns home to go after game six. They are healthy, and barring a complete collapse certainly will win game six. With Smith on the sideline the Komets lose their sparkplug on the second line. With Smith in the lineup the second line only has 3 or 4 goals and Smith has two of those. Not much to be confident about.
The defensemen have exactly zero goals in this series. They were a big part of the offense and after 71 games we have gotten used to the fact that Milam and DeAngelis will chip in more than their share of goals. Not now.
After game six both teams, again, will have to scramble back to Fort Wayne for the seventh game on Thursday. The Rush will be upbeat, happy, and have a stranglehold on old man momentum. The komets will have an 1100 mile, 20 hour trip to come to terms with the word choke. That fifth game was so important. Hard to believe they could just ease up and not play hard until the final whistle. Speaking of whistles, the final whistle is going to be heard by someone Thursday night. I hope it's not a train whistle running over a deflated Komets team. After 71 games I never know which Komet team will show up, do you? And, even more than that, if the right team shows up I never know when they will turn into the team that feels they sre so good they can coast.
After 71 games I have not yet seen the team play a full 60 minutes. After 71 games I have seen, plenty of times, a team that will play down to its competition or, as in the case with Rapid City, absolutely will not pound them when they have the lead.
Not a great feeling. Not a post I enjoy contributing. I keep feeling that somewhere inside me, these guys will break out with a 7 or 8 goal game. Maybe Tuesday???
You'd think after 71 games I would know better.
Not sure if after 71 games...and 12 years watching the Komets play hockey, I have ever agreed more with a statement than I do with this one. Great way to connect with what I've watched all year. I hope you're wrong with your intuition, but reality says your not. I could care less if we get 7-8 or 1-2 goals Tuesday...But, can we play like we want to win for longer than 20 minutes.....
There was no way we were gonna take 4 in a row from RC or anyone in the playoffs this year. This series will be decided in overtime in game 7.
The team that survives the brutal physicality of the CHL playoffs, will be the ones to win the cup.
Its going to be a long playoffs
Yes, it's hard to win 4 in a row in the playoffs just like it's hard to put a team away on the first opportunity. I guess what's bothering people isn't that they failed to do these things. It's because they didn't really appear to be trying to do them either. So we'll see how things go tonight. There's always Thursday, in any case. Of c ourse, if Alan is right, it will at least appear to give special significance to the dream I had last night. In the dream, the entire Komets team had gotten stuck upside down with their heads and shoulders in the ice (which was inexplicably 2 feet thick). When I asked how in the world such a thing could have happened, someone who witnessed it said, "It was very cold." Which of course didn't explain anything.
Yes, burgee60, on the outside it is very difficult to win four games in a row during the playoffs. However, that task is greatly simplified when you have won three in a row and go into the third period of the fourth game with the lead.
Wendy, that was one heck of a dream! My interpretation of it is that their heads being upside down into two feet of ice meant they couldn't skate any longer and their brains were frozen. And, as I recall, that was pretty much how they played during the second and third period.