George Parros blog: the thrill of victory, and lessons learned in the Ivy League...

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Ahhhh sweet victory! I come to the blog-reader faithful with tales from the victor’s locker room. I can’t describe how nice it was to break our losing streak against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday night at Honda Center. Maybe that is why I chose to blog later in the week because I could feel the win coming.

Honestly, it had to happen at some point. We have so much talent on our team and we all knew we were underachieving. A popular phrase that we have around the locker room is, ‘Don’t get too high with the highs and too low with the lows.’ With that in mind, we were not a rambunctious group after the game but definitely a relieved one, already focusing on our next game and hoping to repeat the night’s events and get some momentum going in the right direction.

Aside from winning, the game versus the Lightning was a fun one for me and some of the other guys as well. Personally, it was fun to play against a friend of mine and fellow Princeton alumni, Jeff Halpern. There are not too many of us that make it to this level beyond the Hobey Baker Arena so it is always fun to play against a former Tiger, even though that punk scored against us and made the game a bit more interesting than we would have liked. I had a few choice words for Jeff out there and in turn he was yelling at me for cycling the puck past him while in the offensive zone.

This game was also a special one for my linemate, MacGregor Sharp, as it was his first NHL game. There are few better feelings than playing in your first NHL contest and I was really excited for him and enjoyed being his linemate for that experience. Unfortunately for Sharpy, he lost the linemate lottery and played on my line, which tends to reduce a player’s chances of recording a point. I think he will be around for a bit so we are going to work on that, though.

It was also a big night for Evgeny Artyukhin, who was playing against his old team for the first time, which usually proves to be a weird experience. It’s tough to play against all of your old friends and former teammates, but trust me -- it is a sweet moment when you can score against them and shove it in their face. Usually there are many reminders in the room before the game about how ‘they didn’t want you’ and jabs along those lines. It makes for fun banter and hopefully lights a fire under that player. With Arty it was no exception: He made some great plays and had a huge hit.

I imagine this posting will come out right before or possibly after our game against San Jose. I can only hope that we build on our most recent success and put on a good show for the Honda Center crowd. I guess you’ll have to check in next week to see if I ate humble pie or can claim Nostradamus status.

-- George Parros