The NHL Playoffs

            With the conference finals underway let’s take a look back at the playoffs so far this year. First Philadelphia makes the playoffs in the final game of the regular season by winning a shoot out against the Rangers. The first round brought us plenty of upsets, in the east only the defending champion Penguins managed to beat the lower seeded team. In the west the Red Wings “upset” the young and upcoming Coyotes in 7 games while the higher seed prevailed in 6 games in the other 3 series.

The second round brought a few more surprises in the east and more of the expected in the west. Montreal went the distance against the Penguins beating them on the road in seven games, selling out their home rink to watch the game on the big screen. The Flyers made history coming back from a 3-0 series deficit to beat the Bruins in 7 games, only the second NHL team ever to do so. Making this story even better for the Flyers is that they lost their starting goalie, Brian Boucher, in game 5 and relied on backup Michael Leighton to get their final 3 wins of the series. The top seed Sharks took care of Detroit while number 2 Chicago took care of the 3 seed Vancouver. This set up exact opposites for the Conference Finals, the #1 and #2 seeds playing for the Western Conference championship and the #7 and #8 seeds playing for the Eastern Conference title.

The surprise stories for me are the Sharks in the West and too many to mention in the East but probably the Flyers and Canadians. Coming into the playoffs the talk was about whether or not the Sharks could overcome the choke tag that they had earned the past 2 years. A slow start to the series, losing the first game at home and leaving the ice to audible boos after a 2-1 loss put more pressure on the teams. They bounced back in the second game in a high scoring game then lost the third game on a bizarre play where Dan Boyle appeared to have the puck go in his own net. The Sharks bounced back however and won the series in 6 games. In the second round they jumped out to a 3-0 series lead against the Red Wings, missing only a beat when they lost game 4, then finished off the series at home in game 5. The Coyotes would have been the best story had they been able to finish off Detroit at home in game 7. Phoenix was a team that no one knew about or expected to succeed coming into the season, a 4^th place finish in the highly competitive west was needless to say a great story.

Personally my favorite story in the east was the Montreal Canadians beating Sidney Crosby and the Penguins in Pittsburgh in game 7. Hail Gill and company did such a great job of shutting Crosby down it prompted the coach about the type of game the Canadians were playing. Both the Flyers and Canadians have strong arguments for being the best story, when is the last time you saw a seven seed have home ice advantage in the second to last round? Jaroslov Halak has been the story for the Canadians, as they have been outshot in both of the series so far, shutting down Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby each for 7 games is no small task. For the Flyers once again how they made the playoffs, the loss of their starting goalie, or missing 3 of their leaders for at least part of the playoffs (Gagne, Laperriere, Carter). Either way you look at it the 2010 Playoffs have been great entertainment.

As for the third round I’m rooting for the Canadians, I would love to see a Canadian team make it to the finals the history and fan support there is unreal. If you haven’t yet tune in for the beginning of a game where they show the national anthems, at any point during the Canadian or American song the singer can stop singing and the crowd carries on for as long as asked, it gives me the chills every time. Out of the west I am rooting for Chicago, they are a very young team that no one really knew what to expect. Patrick Kane’s mullet is in full effect (his equivalent of the playoff beard) and they are just a fun team to watch. For the finals of course ill be rooting for the US teams we want to have some kind of pride to hold onto after the Olympics.