UGH*


Honestly, that's how I felt Thursday night. Plainly put, it sucked to watch the Pens get eliminated from the playoffs. On Thursday night, I didn't care about the wonderful regular season or about the fact that one of the youngest teams in the NHL had just gained valuable and invaluable playoff experience. All I felt was...

That sucked. That was brutal. That was awful. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth. It was a bitter ending to a wonderful season.

And you know what? Not just for fans, but for the players themselves, all the wretched feelings that came with playoff elimination were necessary. Not just for the sake of "getting through the experience," but actually to experience.

Don't tell me that the bitter end to this season won't be something the players remember the next time they appear in the postseason.

And with that being said, on to analyzing what went right and what went wrong.


* (Note: All posts published today, save for "An Explanation That Wasn't," were originally written the Sunday after the Sens booted the Pens from the playoffs. Sigh. The NHL on NBC won't have the Pens' company until the 2007-08 season.)