Yesterday after the Ottawa Senators were royally trounced by the Pittsburgh Penguins 7-3 to fall behind in the best-of-seven series 3-1, Daniel Alfredsson spoke to reporters. One asked him a fairly generic question that, for once, drew an original response. He was asked if it was feasible to beat Pittsburgh three straight times, which is the type of rote exercise that usually launches Athlete Answer Playlist 16, which starts “of course, we’ve beat them before, one game at a time…”
Alfredsson said “Probably not.”
He added: “With their depth and power play right now it doesn’t look too good.”
Fearing that might come off as too negative (or that’s my guess, anyway), he continued with what might as well have been “blah blah blah”: “I know what we’re going to do – we’re going to go out and we’re going to play one hell of a game. That doesn’t worry me at all. We know the odds are against us in every way but we never quit.”
Okay then.
So what we have today is people around the hockey world weighing in on Alfie’s comments, some berating his leadership, some saying he’s rolling over, and some just flapping their internet gums because hell, that’s what we do now. I’m in the process myself.
So let’s get to it. Here are all the reasons Alfredsson’s brief initial comments were awesome: Read the rest of this entry »
