For our new readers and members, the Top Six Minutes is a continuation of the discussion in the game thread. We try to keep it light and entertaining. Full recaps are up the morning after every game.
Pre-game
- First game back after a four-day holiday break. Let’s hope the Habs have all the turkey out of their system. No tryptophan comas for us tonight, right fellas?
- We have five rookie defenceman manning the blueline tonight. This could be a lot of fun… or really not.
- Armia is on the top line. Is Dach out? Nope. Is Anderson out? Nope. I guess Joel got his Christmas wish./
First period
- 1:55 in and the Lightning strike first. Allen, this really is becoming a “thing”.
- Oh, look. Tampa’s giving us a man advantage after opening the scoring. Isn’t that sweet?
- Or they’re showing their mean streak because they knew we couldn’t do anything with it. I’m going with door #2.
- Stamkos gets checked on his way to the net and is denied by Allen. Bonus: He wanted a penalty and didn’t get it. Teehee…
- For those of you who don’t know, I’m very anti-Tampa Bay Lightning so I take any win I can get.
- Allen’s making up for letting that initial goal in. How’s about we get on the board to help him out a bit?
- Point makes me eat my words. With a power-play goal nonetheless. ‘Cause they’re mean.
- Perbix gets called for a little knee-on-knee action on Dach. Off to the power play we go again. Yippee.
- Suzuki to Anderson who backhands to Xhekaj who gets a good shot on Vasilevskiy. Nothing came of it but it was an enjoyable little play at least. /
Second period
- Remember when Suzuki and Caufield were scoring all the time? That was fun.
- Tampa gets called for too many men. Amateurs.
- Ouch! Edmundson takes a puck to the face.
- No need to fancy things up by flashing the leather Vasilevskiy. A simple save will suffice.
- Anderson gets a good chance to sneak one past Vasilevskiy but the bugger is too fast in the crease.
- Kucherov is beelining towards Allen but offside is called. Whew, that was…
- Damn you, Brayden Point and your fancy little deke between all four Habs. Yes. Four. And Allen makes five.
- Caufield with an off-the-goalpost tease. /
Third period
- The shots are even-ish and this game isn’t overly terrible so there’s not much blame to go around.
- I blame Jon Cooper.
- Harris walks on in and takes a chance but guess what happens? I’ll give you one guess.
- Suzuki is starting to look a little frustrated. This is new.
- Hagel makes it 4-0. I get the frustration, Suzuki. However, I’m sitting on my couch so you have a better opportunity to do something with that frustration. I can only drink.
- There’s a little kerfuffle around Allen as Xhekaj starts to show his own frustration.
- Remember when I said shots were even-ish and this game wasn’t overly terrible? Nevermind.
- I still blame Jon Cooper.
- Pezzetta is forced to take on Corey Perry. You realize you’re up 4-0, right? You’re throwing gloved punches because…?
- With 2:39 left Guhle destroys Vasilevskiy’s shutout! I’m counting that as a win.
- If anyone is reading this because they chose to watch the Laval Rocket or Team Canada tonight instead, you can see that you chose right./
EOTP 3 Stars
3) Nine of 10 dentists disagree
2) I didn’t even realize he was playing
1) Can all six defencemen just be Kaiden Guhles?
