“You’re Lucky”

What a game last night!  The title of this post is the words that Steve Downie was yelling at Alexander Ovechkin from the penalty box, in one of the most exciting periods of hockey at the St Pete Times Forum in a long time.

A quick synopsis of the game.  First period, we crushed them.  We were up 4-1 after the first stanza.  I want to say off the top of my head that the shots were 15 to 7 after period 1.  Goals by Vincent Lecavalier, Steven Stamkos (2) and Stephane Veilleux for the Bolts and Alexander Semin for the Caps.

The second period was an exact reversal of Period 1.  The Caps came out firing, we came out flat.  Shots in the 2nd period were 16 to 5 in the Caps favor.  Goals by Mike Green (2) and Eric Fehr for the Caps, and Martin St Louis for the Bolts made the score 5-4.

The third period is where the real fun began.  We made the score 7-4 on goals by Kurtis Foster and Jeff Halpern.  At about the 12 minute mark, it looked like someone slashed Alexander Ovechkin’s stick and broke it.  He got mad, whined about it, skated to the bench to get a new stick, and then charged at Steve Downie full speed.   Downie was not pleased, dropped his gloves, and drilled Ovie in the face with a right hand.  Being as though 8 is one of the superstars of the league, the refs came in and broke this little tussle up as quickly as they could.  Downie was pissed, and was screaming at Ovie from the penalty box. They showed it on the big screen in the Forum and you could clearly see Downie yelling, “You’re Lucky!.”  With 11 goals and some hostilities brewing, the Forum was quite loud for being half full.  Downie and Ovechkin both got Roughing penalties for 2 mins.  The second they got out of the box, Downie wanted to finish business.  He slapped Ovie on the shins, both guys dropped gloves, took off helmets, and then Matt Bradley skated in from the side, stealing all the thunder!!!!  I don’t blame Bradley for not letting his Captain and best player fight, but Downie was pissed.  Bradley kind of came in from the side, and it was kind of cheap, especially since Ovechkin had dropped the gloves already.  Bradley through a bunch of punches, missed, got drilled with a few himself, and ended up underneath an infuriated Steve Downie who ended up getting a 10 minute misconduct because he kept trying to skate at Ovechkin.

At this point, it was obvious there was going to be one more fight, and a shift after our power play our man Zenon Konopka took the ice.  Him and Dave Steckel immediately droppped the gloves and prepared for some fisticuffs.  I don’t even want to explain this fight, because the video says it all.  BEATDOWN!!!!! Zenon was fired up, doing a little shake before the fight, and switching his stance in order to fully maximize the beatdown!

Great W for the Bolts, exciting hockey, with 11 goals and a few droppings of the gloves.  You can’t ask for more as a fan!