Senators 8, Lightning 4, Fans 1,000,000

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

instigating and fighting.

Dany Heatley and Zdeno Chara scored during the stretch for Ottawa to make it 7-2. Tampa Bay came back with power-play goals by Ranger and Pavel Kubina, but by that time the game was well out of reach.

Heatley and Chara didn't make it to the end as they were part of a brawl with 2:17 left.

Heatley squared off in a fight with Nolan Pratt, and Chara locked up with Vincent Lecavalier. Ottawa's 6-foot-9 defenseman cocked his right arm and held it menacingly over Lecavalier, who was down on the ice, but restrained from throwing the big punch.

The melee, sparked by Vaclav Varada's boarding penalty against Tampa Bay's Ruslan Fedotenko, capped a physical game that featured 129 penalty minutes -- 79 for Tampa Bay -- five fighting majors, and seven misconducts.

Jesus Christ.

I am very happy that the first game I took Dayna to featured 10 goals, 2 fights, a waved-off goal and a penalty shot. But I would seriously donate a toe if I could take a date to a game that featured over two hours of combined penalty minutes.

I like how a guy for TB has the first name "Rusian." I hope he really is from Russia. It's like their answer to American McGee, only their version doesn't attach his name to horrible video game concepts, but rather, a horrible pair of FIGHTING FISTS. Plus, you have to like a game where a player killed a guy. Same sort of thing as to why I never really look away when the Baltimore Ravens are on.

[gsdgsd]

It was good, good stuff. The Senators always have this rep as a "soft" team, but they go full-on nuts more than any team I can think of.

I was hunting for the pic of Lecavalier cowering as Chara debated whether or not to deliver the final blow, but couldn't find it -- so settled for the one I linked to, showing Zdeno going nuts. He's always been sort of the lumbering giant type -- seeing him full-on enraged was rather terrifying (though I was safely OUTSIDE the TV screen). Anyway, I finally tracked down the actual pic I wanted:



Meanwhile, for old times' sake, here's the Sens and Robb's team going at it: here.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Ha ha ha!

The Flyers made it interesting. I went to bed as soon as I got home last night, so I didn't check to see if it was on. But I'm not "back in this series."