You know, Jason Krog hadn’t scored a goal since Game 2 of the Western Conference Final. He scored three tonight as the Wolves ended the season with a championship — and Krog ended it with a little trophy of his own. He’s the playoff MVP as well as the regular-season MVP.
Krog picked off an errant clearing pass in the slot to give the Wolves a 2-0 lead, but the Pens came back with two goals later in the second period, the second a Mark Ardelan goal just as a five-on-three ended. So Krog scored again in the third period off a Jesse Schultz feed early in the third, and then scored on a breakaway later on.
Krog tied Darren Haydar and Tim Brent for the league lead in playoff goals with 12. Only four other players scored more than 26 playoff points; that’s how many assists Krog had, tying a league record. So he also led the league with 38 points. Yep, a Triple Krog once again. By the way, in between those two goals he had back in Game 2 against Toronto and those three he had tonight? He had 12 assists.
The first (and so far only) Sound Tiger to notch a hat trick in the playoffs, Krog records one to clinch the Calder Cup for the Wolves, becoming the third former Sound Tiger (Ray Schultz, Eric Manlow) to win it. He’s the first man to win both the Les Cunningham Award (MVP) and Jack A. Butterfield Trophy (playoff MVP) in the same season; the latter was first awarded in 1984, and only two other players (Tim Tookey, Derek Armstrong) have won both.
If it does come to pass that both Krog and Alain Nasreddine are off to Europe, a tip of the cap to them, both, for they were always good to us here. And to Dennis Bonvie, who’s now a retired player, the same.
Jonathan’s pregame blog entry included a chart of the Pens’ and Wolves’ records with a given referee. (The Koharski therein appears to be Terry.) If you want to isolate the head-to-head, the teams split two with Morton (before tonight) and split two with Pochmara, and the Wolves won with St. Laurent.
I had thought this might be the summer Scott Gordon gets out of this league. Maybe it’s the summer it happens for John Anderson.
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Back here in the offseason, the unthinkable cycle has continued: Buffalo and (ahem) Portland* announced their affiliation today. Meanwhile, Syracuse’s coaches are back.
Ron Wilson lands on his feet; now will Marc Crawford? A fond adieu to Mattias Norstrom and Trevor Linden. The song lives on, albeit on another network. Anaheim rented Marc-Andre Bergeron for two months and basically just moved from 83rd to 85th for the privilege.
As long as we’re talking about officiating, if you’re wondering who the two teams are in this NY Daily News report on bettin’ NBA ref Tim Donaghy, well, um, there was only one seven-game NBA series in 2002, and people seem to have been wondering about it back then.
And finally: Wednesday morning, it’ll be 100 days until the scheduled first day of training camp. Happy summer.
Important dates, as we have them so far:
June 20-21: NHL draft
June 25: Tender qualifying offers to Group II free agents by 5 p.m.
July 1: The meat market opens
July 14: Kiddie camp at Syosset
Sept. 12: Rookie camp opens (tentative)
Sept. 19: Training camp opens
*-Thanks, Web Man