Did Captain Alfie Sink The Ship?
Every series has a turning point. Chris Drury scoring with 7.7 seconds left to tie the Rangers in Game 5 of round 2, Scott Niedermayer's tying goal with 48 seconds left in Game 5 against Detroit, and Joe Corvo's bouncing double OT winner in Buffalo were all series changing events that eventually led to the demise of each team's opponent. The question is, was Daniel Alfredsson's shot "at" Scott Niedermayer the series changing event for these Finals?
Whether or not Alfie did it on purpose is debatable but in reality, it's irrelevant. It doesn't matter what his intentions were, the only thing that matters is that the Ducks interpreted it as an intentional and classless act. It was all the Ducks needed to come out firing in the 3rd period to get the eventual game winner. The shots in the 3rd were equal, but Ottawa could not ride the momentum of the late 2nd period Heatley goal into the 3rd due to the buzz-kill of a "failed" shoot-in attempt by Alfie as time ran out. Had Alfredsson not shot that puck, perhaps Ottawa could have rode that wave of good momentum into the third and perhaps scored the decider, but instead, Anaheim capitalized on their emotions and now head back home one win from a Cup.
Like I said before, maybe Alfie aimed for Niedermayer and maybe he didn't. Truth be told, unless he is the dumbest Swede this side of the ocean, I can't see the Ottawa captain doing that on purpose, even as much as I would like to think he did. But none of that matters. What matters is that the Anaheim players thought he did, used it as motivation to play hard and wound up with the win.
If things end up not working out for Ottawa in this series, players and fans will look back to find that one play or one shift where things went bad. If this is to be the case, the unfortunate thing for Alfredsson is that his shot that hit Niedermayer will most likely be the play that people will interpret as the bad play that sunk the ship.
Whether or not Alfie did it on purpose is debatable but in reality, it's irrelevant. It doesn't matter what his intentions were, the only thing that matters is that the Ducks interpreted it as an intentional and classless act. It was all the Ducks needed to come out firing in the 3rd period to get the eventual game winner. The shots in the 3rd were equal, but Ottawa could not ride the momentum of the late 2nd period Heatley goal into the 3rd due to the buzz-kill of a "failed" shoot-in attempt by Alfie as time ran out. Had Alfredsson not shot that puck, perhaps Ottawa could have rode that wave of good momentum into the third and perhaps scored the decider, but instead, Anaheim capitalized on their emotions and now head back home one win from a Cup.
Like I said before, maybe Alfie aimed for Niedermayer and maybe he didn't. Truth be told, unless he is the dumbest Swede this side of the ocean, I can't see the Ottawa captain doing that on purpose, even as much as I would like to think he did. But none of that matters. What matters is that the Anaheim players thought he did, used it as motivation to play hard and wound up with the win.
If things end up not working out for Ottawa in this series, players and fans will look back to find that one play or one shift where things went bad. If this is to be the case, the unfortunate thing for Alfredsson is that his shot that hit Niedermayer will most likely be the play that people will interpret as the bad play that sunk the ship.
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