Friday, April 17, 2009

My Name is Luca, I Play in the Second Game

An angel descending from the north (see the halo?), Luca Sbisa makes his triumphant return to Flyerland in what is only the biggest game of the season. Welcome back, little Swiss guy.

Daniel Carcillo
finally got the Flyers on the suspension board this season, after being held suspensionless for an uncharacteristic 83 games. He'll have to watch from the press box, where scared reporters will try not to make eye contact with him for fear of him biting off their faces.

So what does Sbisa's return mean? Sbisa and Carcillo combined for zero goals this season, true, but Sbisa has the excuse of playing on defense most all of his time with the Flyers, whereas Carcillo's only excuse is that he's terrible.

Sbisa will be on offense tonight, which was always fun to watch. He is crazy fast and plays like he's crazy small (even though he's allegedly 6'2''), bouncing around wildly like a ping-pong ball. Whether he's good or not is not really important--he'll be a different look for the Penguins to deal with, and has to be a pain to play against. Facing Luca Sbisa on offense has to be like playing poker against someone who has no idea what the rules are. They have no idea what they're doing, but neither do you, so it's dangerous for both.

So please, Luca, do big things tonight. The bar is set dangerously low, just be careful not to trip over it.

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