Sunday, April 29, 2007

Devils tie series,Browns trade up again,Seahawk rundown and Matt Belisle strikes again

The New Jersey Devils went straight to the lead early,allowed Ottawa to rally and then took advantage of a Joe Corvo miscue to sink the Senators 3-2 in two overtimes and even their series at 1-1.
Jamie Langenbrunner fought off Corvo and broke away all alone to beat Ray Emery for the Devil win.
The Devils scored both of their regulation goals in the 1st period,Brian Gionta early and Sergei Brylin with less than a second to go before the break.
The lead held until Dany Heatley,with the goalie pulled,beat Martin Brodeur to force the extra stanza.
A MUST win for the Devils,having already lost home ice by losing game 1,while Ottawa has to feel good about the 1-1 split in New Jersey and almost grabbing both games.
Game 3 Monday night at 7;00 in Ottawa.

Phil Savage and the suddenly aggressive Cleveland Browns made a bold and (in my opinion) silly trade to move into the second round last night.
Savage traded the Browns 3rd and 4th round pick in this draft and flip flopped 6th rounders with the Cowboys (Yes,again) in exchange for the Cowboys 2nd round pick.
The Browns then used this pick on UNLV Corner Eric Wright.
Now as I wrote in my Browns needs post,Corner is a huge need for this team.
However,the Browns paid a high price to move up roughly 10-15 spots for a player that has had legal problems in the past.
NFL.com compared him to the Steelers Ricardo Colclough.
Geez,not sure that is the guy I want to be compared with period, let alone for a guy that Cleveland gave all this up for.
Color me unimpressed with this move.
I have my doubts that Wright will be an impact player and it is starting to look like Savage and Crennel will need him to be exactly that.

The Seattle Seahawks added two players yesterday in rounds 2 and 3.
The Seahawks tabbed Josh Wilson,CB Maryland in round 2 and even though I think the Seahawks needed a safety more than a corner,I think Seattle fans are going to love Josh Wilson.
I have watched Wilson many times during his time at Maryland and his motor never stops.
I could see Wilson moved to safety now or down the road and maybe Seattle has that in mind.
Great pick,very pleased,as the Hawks,IMO got a better CB than the Browns did in Eric Wright and did not have to peddle picks to land him.
Seattle in the third round picked Brandon Mebane of California.
Mebane,a 300+ plus defensive tackle,appears to be slated as the Seattle run stuffer.
Not sure that this was a huge need for Seattle,but could simply be rated as their best player available at that time.
I will give this one an incomplete for now,will have to give it more thought.

The draft concludes today.
Cleveland has a 5th rounder,Dallas' 6th and their own 7th.
Seattle has their own pick in each round today plus they have a compensation pick at the end of round 6.

Matt Belisle did it again to the Pirates in a 8-1 Cincinnati win.
This guy is cannon fodder for everyone else,yet against the Bucs-He is Bob Gibson.
Tom Gorzelanny struggled and lost his first game of the year falling to 3-1.
Chris Duffy picked up the only Bucco RBI.
The series concludes today with Paul Malholm,attempting to follow up his superb outing vs Houston,against the Reds Aaron Harang.

Juan Diaz retains his WBA Lightweight title and added a lesser trinket by defeating Acelino Freitas in Mashantucket Ct when Freitas did not answer the bell for round 9.
Freitas controlled the fight early,but on my scorecard Diaz took round 5 through 8 and was dictating the flow of the fight.
Diaz seemed to hurt Freitas in both the 7th and 8th rounds and simply took the will from the Brazilan.
To me,Freitas could have continued,but simply refused.
This was Freitas' 2nd loss and his other to Diego Corrales ended in his surrender as well.
Perhaps it is time for Acelino to move on to his post-boxing career.
Diaz moved his record to 32-0,while Freitas falls to 38-2.
My scorecard showed Diaz ahead 77-75 at the time of the stoppage.

Will be back later today with Browns and Seahawks day 2 recaps and opinions,Pirates-Reds action and more on the finale between the Hagerstown Suns and Delamarva Shorebirds.

1 comment:

Ryan H. said...

I know I don't feel good about the 1-1 split as a Senators fan.
Game One should have been a blowout and the Devils were allowed back in game, and Game Two could still be going in Joe Corvo was a competent defensive player. The best move the Sens could make is put Corvo at forward and move the hard-hitting Christoph Schubert back to his natural position on the blueline.
The Sens experimented with Chris Phillips at forward a few years back, and while that didn't really pan out long-term Phillips was a better and more complete player when he moved back to Defence.