Stanley Cup Playoffs 2011-2012

My guess is that they all watched the Stanley Cup Finals last year. How did Boston beat what was, by all accounts, a superior Vancouver team? The biggest reason was superior goalie play, but the close second was that they physically beat the crap out of them. Just like most sports - you see copycats. If it worked once, it can work again.

 

Part of me hopes they push it to OT of game 7 and then lose, getting a taste of what they did to the Hawks last year.

 

The same cannot be said today. Makes me sad to see the Pens go, but I'm as happy as a pig in **** to be able to watch Western conference games on a Canadian network without having Vancouver shoved down my throat. The commentators on CBC are so insanely biased towards the Canucks I ended up watching the finals last year with the TV muted half the time!

Now, if we can just knock out Ottawa and the Flyers (next round, of course) I can watch the playoffs worry free. I've done so much trash talking over the years that if Ottawa ever wins the Cup I'll never hear the end of it!

 

I cannot deny that the 1st round exit is disappointing. I had hoped - even somewhat expected - that the Pens would make a bit of a run. Yeah, they were the 4th seed because they didn't win their division, but they were as good as, if not better than two of three top seeds. (Although to be fair, I suppose we could say about the same for the Flyers and Devils.)

But at least the Pens lost to a team of similar skill level. The Flyers winning that series was an upset, but not totally shocking. But the Canucks... I mean come on. Losing the the Kings in itself is not embarrassing, as the Kings aren't half bad. But losing the series in just 5 games, when you finish the regular season with the league's best record... that's pretty embarrassing.

 

Giroux opened up with a nice hit on Crosby and then put the puck nithe net. It set the tone for the game. Can you say "Team Captain" anyone...

 

Now that my Hawks are out it's time to cheer for my backup-backup team: GO PREDS GO!!

Am I the only one who thinks the West is just more interesting than the East right now? At this point I'm almost assuming Philly is going to make quick work of the rest of the East, I really don't see anyone stopping them now. The West, on the other hand, the four remaining teams are just firing on all cylinders right now. Regardless of which team makes it to the finals I won't be too surprised.

 

One thing that always fascinates me about hockey is that there are more upsets in playoff series than you see in any other sport. The whole concept behind a series is that the better team should win. If it's just one game, a team that plays exceptionally for that one game could win.

To use an example of football from this past year, I doubt that Giants would have beaten the Packers in a 7-game series, not that football is a sport that lends itself to series play.

In basketball again, it's one thing for an underdog to win a game or two in the series, but in general the better team wins out.

In baseball, it's a little different, because in the playoffs, teams cut down on the number of players they use - most notably pitchers. So the team that has the best two or three pitchers, is for playoff purposes, the better team, and that team usually wins. So even if the team with the best couple of pitchers didn't have the best record in the regular season (maybe their 4th and 5th starters weren't very good), there is a logical explanation why you see this in the baseball playoffs.

With hockey, you'd think it would be more like basketball, where talent wins out in the end, but hockey seems to be the sport where there is the least advantage of being among the top seeds. Look at how many times a #1 seed has made a first round exit in just recent years alone. There is no real difference between the number of players used in hockey - it's not like you only play your best two lines in the playoffs, like in baseball where only your best pitchers get starts. I have no explanation for why this occurs.

 

Ugh that does explain a lot. Two of your key forwards playing poorly against the hottest goalie still playing and that is just a recipe for disaster.

The West blows me away right now. The fact that none of the remaining teams have ever won a Cup will make for an interesting finals, I think. At this point I just don't want the Coyotes to win because that might make people think Bettman knows what he's doing.

Then there's the East. If you took the players on Philly and stuck the under almost any other team name, I'd definitely be cheering for them. Sadly, in the decade I've been watching hockey the Leafs have only made the playoffs twice, and both times were eliminated by the Flyers, so out of sheer principle I cannot cheer for them, regardless of how much I like all the players.

 

If the Caps don't win, I'd absolutely love Phoenix to win it. For some little market from the desert who nobody is meant to care about to win the cup would be just magical. And it would give NHL.com another chance to pull out the epic 'That's all she Yote!' pun.

 

Well my original plan forthe evening was watch the NYR-WSH game, then watch the end of the PHX-NSH game. Definitely wasn't expecting the former to be the 20th longest NHL game in history...

May not have had the outcome I was hoping for, but it still featured some fantastic goaltending. If Holtby can keep playing this well next season and beyond, then the Caps will finally have the security they need so desperately in net.

 

What the Caps need is a huge clear out. Semin, Green, Chimera, Brouwer, Poti can all go and stop sucking up cap space.

 

Ovechkin is worth too much to the franchise of the ice to ever trade him. There's just no way.

 

An epic match.