The Sixth Man

We knew this was going to happen, right?

The boys would come home, they would be confronted by a lot of finger-pointing and dark mutterings, they would be uptight for a bit. Then, gametime would hit, they would be showed up by the anthem singer (can you believe she's back at work, what, just a few weeks after popping out a baby?), and then the crowd in the Saddledome would take over.

I love the intensity of that crowd. I love it when they're on. And it sucks knowing I mostly can't be a part of that crowd, living on the other side of the country as I do. And I've come to believe it's the home crowd which focuses these guys and makes them ready to kick some butt. See, the guys can give up on each other when they're the Evil Twins and embarrassing themselves on the road. But the crowd at home won't let them give up. They won't let the Flames roll over once they're down by a goal. And the Flames use that energy to their advantage. And who could blame them?

Oh, right! They played hockey too!

Kudos to a lot of guys for finally stepping up. Stuart played strong most of the night, despite one egregious giveaway at the end of the game. Warrener and Phaneuf both took injuries which, in the regular season, probably would have been game-ending. But screw that, they came back to play anyways. Iggy finally capitalized on mistakes the other side was making. But the guy who really stepped it up this game was Mark Giordano. (Not that I'm saying anything original. It's been all over the blogosphere already, and before the series started too...)

Was it a perfect game? Hardly. There's still a lot of flaws - times when we're too tentative in Detroit's zone, times when we still suck in the defensive zone. But we got a lead, we won back the lead, and we kept the lead till the end of the game. And right now, I'll take it.

It's a step in the right direction, and it's a better game than we've seen from these guys for the better part of the last three weeks. I still have a little bouncy ball in my stomach. It'll rattle around a bit less if we tie it up tomorrow.