Jim Rice gets his due,Questionable call costs Devils in Anaheim

Jim Rice finally got what he deserved today-Enshrinement in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Rice was elected in his final year of eligibility with 412 votes from a possible 539 and a percentage of 76 %.
The 1978 MVP was an eight time All Star and was the dominant American League hitter of his time.
Rice will be joined by the all time leader in stolen bases and the consommate leadoff hitter,the well traveled Rickey Henderson in his induction in August.
Looks like we will have to move onto a new cause candidate on the regular ballot as the Veterans Committee seems to have little chance of inducting anyone that played past 1951......

The New Jersey Devils lost in Anaheim in a choppy and uneven effort 4-3.
The game was tainted with a bit of controversy as a third period goal by Anaheim's Chris Kunitz was declared a goal despite no one actually seeing the puck cross the goal line.
Replays showed the puck was not into the net,but did not show the pucks location and therefore the call of a goal could not be overturned.
Devil goals to Zach Parise (24),David Clarkson (8) and Bobby Holik (2).
The Devils travel to Vancouver tomorrow for a game against the Canucks.

Hell Raisers

1) This game turned in the first period after the Devils took a lead on Holik's redirection of a Mike Mottau shot.
George Parros came out on the ice and started hitting every Devil in sight without retribution.
The Ducks tied the game shortly thereafter and seemed to control the tempo of the game thereafter...

2) That reason is why I believe that the fans of finesse' hockey miss the boat.
Hitting and intimidation is part of the game and Parros did his job for his team.
Take the hitting out of hockey and you have ice dancing with sticks....

3) The Ducks took the lead with seconds to go in the first period when Travis Moen centered a pass to Sami Paulsson that beat Scott Clemmensen shortly after.
My problem was that Moen beat Paul Martin to the puck.
To me,it looked like Martin was counting the seconds to the periods end and was not going all out and paid the price.

4) The Devils had only 21 shots on goal against the Ducks and Jean-Sebastian Giguere,but the save that made the difference was when Giguere stopped Jamie Langenbrunner on a shorthanded breakaway.
I wish Langenbrunner had tried to lift the puck,but he didn't and Giguere was able to come up with the blocker.

5) During intermission,MSG+ had Sherry Ross from the radio booth as their guest and Ross said something that made me think a bit about the Brendan Shanahan signing.
Ross admitted that she thought little about the rumors of an imminent signing of the veteran as she didn't think they were realistic,but afterwards she said that this could be the first domino of deals to come to add the often wished for attack minded defender or another player of note.
Ross knows her stuff and is honest enough to admit when she is wrong as well....

Bonus Rounds
Anaheim's uniforms are just awful......

But the Ducks Bobby Ryan sure isn't.
I was quite impressed with both the rookies abilities and that he seems to have some grit to his game as well.

Bullpen Notes

Now that football season is officially over,we can focus on spring training coming up soon.
33 days to go!

A few words on the retirement on Tony "roll over" Dungy.
One,my dislike for the Colt coach is not personal,he seems like a very nice man.
Two,he leaves the Colts with a World title,but one could argue that Indianapolis could have had one or two more considering their talent laden roster.
Three,Let a year or two go by and Dungy's name will come up for every open job like Bill Cowher's does now.

Until tomorrow when I hope to finally write about some things that I haven't had time to!!

Photo Credits
Rice:Unknown
Rupp:AP Photo