Playoff thoughts thus far.

Playoffs

The Playoffs have been awesome so far. Here are my thought and the series so far.

SJ/ANA

This series is more proof that SJ is built to win regular season games but not playoff tough. Down 3-1 despite having home ice; OUCH!! Thornton, Marleau, and Nabokov are the core here, if they lose Game 5 at home and exit early again, changes have to be made. They fired the coach last year, maybe it’s the GM’s turn, maybe Joe Thornton or Patrick Marleau get traded for some proven playoff producers.

DET/CBJ

This series was over before it began. Detroit was always going to win, Columbus looked like a team that had never been in the playoffs, Steve Mason finally looked like a rookie, and despite a great comeback effort in Game 4 they lost because of a sloppy line change that led to a too many men penalty. Osgood in game 4 looked like Osgood in the regular season, not good for the long term success of the wings. The Wings are the first defending champion to advance to the second round since the Avalanche in 2002. (Keep this in mind if your ever on jeopardy, The Avs lost to the Wings in the 2002 Western Conference Final. What does that mean? I remember too much hockey trivia.)

VAN/STL

This was a bonus year for St. Louis. Next year was supposed to be the year they made the playoffs. Bonus or not they still wanted to win at least one game. Keith Tkachuk has hardly noticeable. O pts a -1. The St. Louis PP was awful. Vancouver looked like a playoff team, St. Louis looked like a intermediate level roller hockey team. If Chris Mason gave up some of the goals in a dek hockey league, they would have still been soff (thanks Mike Therrien). First time Vancouver has ever swept a 7 game series.

CHI/CGY

Home ice matters here, the first goal matters in the opposite way. No home team has lost in this one, and the team that scores first has lost every game. If I’m the Bulin way tonight I let the first shot go in so as to not tempt fate. Calgary got brutalized in game 4. Roy is suspended, Langkow and Conroy both left with injury and didn’t return, rumor has Leopold may be hurt. If these three don’t come back this series is done. Jonathan Toews has looked like anything but a 20 year old, he has looked like a 20 year veteran Captain. I think Chicago wins two in a row and takes it six.

BOS/MTL

More than half of the Canadiens are headed for UFA status this summer. This team will look dramatically different next season and that’s probably a good thing. The Canadiens were to this year’s playoffs what the Senators were to last year’s playoffs; a team that just barely snuck in and had no chance of winning against a buzzsaw opponent that had something to prove. Not much to discuss here. Boston dominated. I don’t know if Montreal ever got the playoff schedule from the office, because they didn’t show up most nights. For a 20 year old kid, Milan Lucic is a beast.

NYR/WSH

Prepare for some harsh truth Caps fans: This is not what a playoff team looks like. The Caps are a run and gun team with little defensive toughness. Sure everybody on this team is about 6’8’’, but that’s not good enough. Ovechkin’s do-it-yourself doesn’t happen very often in the playoffs, and if he tried that against Brooks Orpik, Zdeno Chara, most of the Devils, Canes, or Flyers come playoff time, they’d still be pealing pieces of him out of the ice. The Caps offense is good enough to win a few games here and there, and Varlamov has been outstanding, but the Rags aren’t an offense power house. If you can get Lundqvist on a bad night 9 times out of 10 you win. That was the story of game 5, Rangers win Game 6 at MSG, AO fails to make it out the first round again.

NJ/CAR

Goaltending, Goaltending, Goaltending. The goalies have been the story of this series. Even the Great Brodeur can get distracted by traffic, as game 4’s .2 second goal proved. Game 5 was the best goaltending duel of the this playoff year. This one has all the makings of a 7 game series and I don’t know if anyone can predict who wins. (On a side note, now that Marty has supplanted Roy as the winningest goaltender, does that mean we’ll see more Royesque meltdowns out of Marty like we did in game 4? Just curious).

PIT/PHI

Goaltending, Goaltending, just kidding. The Penguins only have a lead in this series because of jeune Monsieur Fleury, and because Monsier Biron is easily rattled. If Tyler Kennedy would have licked his stick in the first period of Game 5 and buried the wraparound that Biron lost sight of the Pens would have crushed the Flyers and would now be relaxing while the tremendous leader Mike Richards lead his group to the golf course. I’m not blaming Kennedy for the Pens loss in Game 5 simply offereing an alternate reality of what would have been. Bottom line here is that Marty Biron is a solid goalie when Marty Biron believes he’s a solid goalie, which is when you allow him to believe he is a solid goalie, which happens when you don’t drive bodies to the net and allow him to see every shot like it’s warmups. Biron has enough talent to steal a game, every NHL goalie does, but he’s not good enough to steal a series unless you let him. Penguins have to get bodies and pucks to him. Just my opinion, but I think Sykora is hurt and has been for sometime. He’s looked like a shell of himself for a few months, he left practice before Game 1 in “obvious pain.” I think his back is not quiet right, speaking as a guy who’s hurt just about everything you can hurt playing hockey, he’s been shooting and skating like his back is bothering him. Rumor has it Bylsma has more changes for Game 6 may God(ard) have mercy on us all.