Vancouver: Winners in OT vs Nashville, Jays lose Another Close One

With the start of a new month, it's time to blog once again. This post will focus on the title subjects - Vancouver winning Game 3 of their 2nd round vs the Nashville Predators and the Toronto Blue Jays losing another baseball game, this time to the Tampa Bay Rays. The game started out bad for Vancouver, with Nashville striking first on a goal by David Legwand in the first period to go up 1-0. That of course is how the period would end. However, the Canucks wouldn't go down easily. In the 2nd period, Vancouver went on a power-play that had started at the end of the 1st and Ryan Kesler scored on a tip-in play that tied it up at 1-1. Thus, the 2nd intermission saw the game tied at that score. Now, during the 3rd period we saw Chris Higgins score early on for Vancouver to make it a 2-1 score. However, Nashville kept pressing and trying to give their sellout crowd something to cheer about. Eventually, the Predators responded and scored on a late goal by Joel Ward late with around 6 minutes left in regulation time. This tied the game up at 2-2 and set the stage for a great finish. Both teams skated hard after that goal and tried to get that final winning goal. Both Roberto Luongo (Vancouver) and Pekka Rinne (Nashville) had to stand tall for their teams and make great saves. However, the game went to overtime. In that overtime, Kesler again scored for Vancouver to give them a 3-2 victory and a 2-1 series lead. Vancouver also won easily on the shots on goal category: 47-30. Game 4 is Thursday at 8:30 PM in Nashville. Here's the recap.

Last night, the Jays took to the ball diamond in their first game of this current series vs the Tama Bay Rays. It started well enough, with a good performance by struggling starter Jo-Jo Reyes who went 6 innings and only gave up 1 run and 4 hits to Tampa while striking out 4 himself. He was actually looking to be the winner until the 9th inning when the bullpen crashed again for Toronto. Jon Rauch, the closer for Toronto blew the save by giving up a 2-run walk-off home run to B.J. Upton for a 3-2 Tama victory. The Rays have now won 3 straight games while the Jays have lost 3 straight. Here's the recap.

That's all for now. The Jays will try for a win in Tampa Bay tonight at 6:40 PM and will put Brendan Morrow on the mound to face off against Jeff Niemann. Take care!