From the West...
-The Vancouver Canucks finished their sweep of the St. Louis Blues Tuesday night, giving the Vancouver franchise it's first postseason sweep in playoff history. Vancouver dominated a physical series and goaltender Roberto Luongo was solid in net with a 1.25 GAA over four games, including a shutout in game two. Vancouver has yet to cool down from when they started heating up in early February, and this opening round sweep has them primed for a deep run. Watch out for Vancouver.
-The Sharks have continued their playoff-choking ways. I have no explanation for why this is. They earned the President's Trophy this year as the top scoring team in the NHL, but then the playoffs start and the output from their top players begins to dip. The Ducks are up 2-1 in the series, including two wins in San Jose. Woe are the Sharks.
-Are the seeds of a rivalry being sewn in the Chicago-Calgary series? The series is tied at 2-2, the games have been exciting, physical, and the team that has scored first has yet to win that game. As Barry Melrose put it, "This is the meanest, nastiest, diritiest, rottenest series." Check out this 80's-esk finish to game two.
-Detroit is still Detroit in the playoffs, and if they win tonight, they'll complete their sweep of Columbus. Booooring. But...remember all that talk about Detroit's goalie question-marks? Well, Chris Osgood is the top netminder in the playoffs right now with a 0.67 GAA and a .974 SV% (granted, they're playing Columbus, but still an interesting note).
From the East...
-Boston surprised nobody and easily dispatched of Montreal in four games, and with the Rangers up 3-1 in their series against Washington, it looks like Boston is primed for a Cup run (if New York wins their seires, Boston's road to the Eastern Conference Finals would be paved with victories over the eight and seven seeds...).
-Speaking of the Rangers, they surprised a lot of people by shutting down Alexander Ovechkin and the rest of the Washington Capitals. They lead the series 3-1 and are showing no signs of slowing down. And Washington, in the midst of a goalie crisis at the worst possible time, and Ovechkin unable to score, look like a dissapointing two seed. Too bad.
-Penguins are up 3-1 in their seires over Phili, and tonight they look to close it out. Marc-Andre
Fleury looks amazing in net for Pittsburgh and Evgeni Malkin has been one of the top offensive performers in the playoffs. Pittsburgh moves on to the semifinals tonight.
-New Jersey and Carolina are neck and neck, with the seires tied at 2-2. This is all you need to know about this series. Exciting, a lot of goals; this back-and-fourth series has had it all.
And what else have we learned after a week of the NHL playoffs? We learned that I can sort of grow a beard (I don't know if it constitutes as a beard; but whatever. I've been called a "scurv," on a couple of occasions, but I could detect a hint of jealousy in their voices).
Scurv.
ReplyDelete