You know, guys, there are no words I can write that will alleviate at all the nasty sting of getting THISCLOSE to grabbing Lord Stanley’s ass during a waltz and then having to stand by and watch His Lordship tango away with a Red Wing sporting a rose in his teeth.

But I can say this:

1. I wish they would throw a parade anyway, because I would love to get right up in Marian Hossa’s face and shout at him about how much of the space in my heart that is dedicated to hockey is currently being filled up with the awesomeness of him.

2. I’m so glad that Evgeni Malkin got that ugly, hairy, bug-eating, howler monkey off of his back and scored in decisive fashion last night. Osgood was all What? What? Was that the puck? What was that thing that just flew by me?

3. I just wish that I could have seen Gary Roberts hold the cup.

4. I wish that we weren’t going to lose Hossa and Malone, but we’re gonna, aren’t we? Pensgirl?

5. Last night on Twitter as the Yinz Twitterverse was all “F*#&!!!!!”, reader Jayesel likened that third Red Wing’s goal to Fleury “pooping it into the net.”

That is just the perfect way to describe what happened there. No puck. It’s a save. Whew. Wait. What’s that thing? Is he POOPING THE PUCK INTO THE NET?!

But Marc-Andre has been carrying twenty-six guys on his shoulders for six games, so he shouldn’t be beating himself up today over that. Truly he has performed miraculously, and he has his 17 wives and now THREE husbands to look forward to when he’s rested up.

6. What a fan-frickin’-tastic season. The blood. The guts. The swollen eyes, busted noses, broken teeth. The bodies thrown without caution into the paths of missile-like pucks. The fire. The strength. The will. The want. The need.

It sucks to go into the locker room as the loser, but once the pain and disappointment of that clears, I really hope our boys can look at themselves and each other and realize what an incredible accomplishment this season was and how much all of us would like to hug all of them.

Category: Evgeni Malkin, Penguins | tags: Evgeni Malkin, Pittsburgh Penguins | June 5, 2008 | | ShareThis