The Puck Stops Here

Game two of the Calder Cup finals was much like game one in tghat it was an exciting battle between two very good Finnish goalies. Again Antero Niittymaki of Philadelphia was the better one. He stopped 48 out of 49 shots. Kari Lehtonen stopped 26 of 28 shots and was inexplicably named the gamers top star.

The scoring opened in the second period when Steve Maltais scored a power play goal for Chicago. John Slaney responded with a Philadelphia power play goal. That was it for regulation scoring. In the second overtime period, Patrick Sharp scoreg the first even strength goal of the series to give Philadelphia a 2-1 victory. The teams head to Philadephia with the Phantoms leading 2-0.

The series has so far been great. Two exciting low scoring games. The kind of low scoring games the NHL wants to crack down on. When Niittymaki and Lehtonen get to the NHL, there will be two more top goalies able to dominate games. Maybe the NHL should consider deporting these talented goalies in an effort to have higher scoring (and less exciting) games.