The Los Angeles Kings are doing the same thing they did to the St. Louis Blues as they did to the Vancouver Canucks in round one.
They are basically steamrolling by their opposition.
Thursday night, the Kings were by far the dominant team in a 4-2 win over the St. Louis Blues to take a commanding 3-0 lead in the Western Conference Semi-Finals.
Defenceman Drew Doughty led the Kings offensively with a goal and two assists. Mike Richards and Anze Kopitar also had multi-point games, who are now 7-1 in the postseason and are one win away from defeating the no.1 and no.2 seeds in the West.
Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick didn’t give up a bad goal, unlike Blues netminder Brian Elliott who was very shaky in net. However one thing I feel Quick needs to do a better job with is his decisions with the puck. He was wandering a little too much this evening and it almost cost him on more than one occasion.
Meanwhile in the East, the New Jersey Devils got an overtime winner from Alexei Ponikarovsky to defeat the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 and take a 2-1 lead in the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals.
For the first time in the 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs, we had a legitimate marathon game in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Marian Gaborik scored at 14:14 of the third overtime as the New York Rangers defeated the Washington Capitals 2-1. The teams played almost two full hockey games in one night before deciding the winner.
The Rangers outshot the Capitals 49-46. Capitals goaltender Braden Holtby made 47 saves and Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist proved why he is a Hart and Vezina Trophy nominee as he made 45 saves.
With the victory, the Rangers take a 2-1 series lead in the Eastern Conference Semi-Final.
An impressive area of the Capitals game at the moment is that the team is buying in to Head Coach Dale Hunter’s defense-first system. In a hilarious quote, Jim Hughson of CBC said in the first period, “for the first time I’m watching Alexander Ovechkin skate backwards in the neutral zone.”
I woke up this morning to see the Internet flooded with the news that the Montreal Canadiens had named Marc Bergevin as the General Manager early this morning.
Sorry Pierre McGuire. I guess hockey fans will be listening to you for a little longer.
So who is Marc Bergevin? Well, he was a long time defenceman who played in the NHL for 20 years.
And I will go on to say that in my opinion it was a very quiet two decades. A stay-at-home defenceman, Bergevin only scored 36 times in 1191 games. That’s averaging less than two goals a season.
Bergevin played for the Chicago Blackhawks, New York Islanders, Hartford Whalers, Detroit Red Wings, Pittsburgh Penguins, Vancouver Canucks, St. Louis Blues and Tampa Bay Lightning from 1984-2004.
There was one thing that was going through my head while watching Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinal.
Was Larsson a defenceman the Edmonton Oilers let slip away? After watching Ryan Nugent-Hopkins in his first season, I say no, but at the same time it was interesting to see Larsson play so well in his very first postseason game.
The 19 year-old Swede got his chance to suit up in the playoffs when Devils Head Coach Peter DeBoer decided to move defenceman Peter Harrold to right wing because of the injury to sniper Ilya Kovalchuk.
Larsson made the most of his opportunity, scoring a goal, was a +2 and had five blocked shots.
After trailing 1-0 after the first period, the Devils dominated the third period scoring four unanswered goals on Ilya Bryzgalov en route to a 4-1 win.
Game three shifts to New Jersey Thursday night with the series notched at a game apiece.
Alexander Ovechkin was spectacular when Washington needed him most in Game two of the Eastern Conference Semi-Final.
Ovechkin scored the game winning goal while Rangers forward Brad Richards was in the penalty box with 7:27 left in the final period.
Despite only playing 13:36 of the game, six minutes fewer than teammate Jay Beagle, Ovechkin had a game high seven shots on net as Washington tied the series at one with a 3-2 win. A major reason why Ovechkin saw his ice time dip is because it appears Head Coach Dale Hunter was not satisfied with his defensive play. Should he have been on the ice more?
The other interesting result Monday came from the eighth seeded Los Angeles Kings who had an offensive explosion in the first period against the St. Louis Blues. This is the second straight series that the Kings seemed to have their opponent off guard. Anze Kopitar scored twice and Dustin Brown had three assists as Los Angeles defeated St. Louis 5-2 to take a 2-0 Western Conference Semi-Final lead. The Kings are now a perfect 5-0 on the road in the 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
This week on the show we’re looking at the second round of the NHL playoffs, the Roberto Luongo situation in Vancouver, some racist comments from Boston Bruins “fans” in reaction to Joel Ward’s series clinching overtime winner and the latest IIHF rankings.
In the GABBYs: Mark Visentin, the Edmonton Oil Kings, Tyrone Crawford, Mohamed Sanu, the Miami Marlins and a couple of Texas Rangers fans. The Punchline this week is the Charlotte Bobcats!
A star is being born in front of our eyes as the Stanley Cup Playoffs are proceeding.
On Saturday, American rookie left winger Chris Kreider scored a goal and an assist as the New York Rangers defeated the Washington Capitals 3-1 to take a 1-0 series lead in the Eastern Conference Semi-Final.
Kreider scored the game winner at the seven minute mark of the third period to give the Rangers the victory. Kreider’s fast emergence is interesting because he has not yet played a regular season game. So far in the postseason, he has two goals and one assist, since playing the season with Boston College.
It is interesting that the Rangers have shown more confidence with Kreider than the Senators showed with Mark Stone in the first round of the playoffs.
David Perron (Matthieu Masquelet, Wikimedia Commons)
Round Two of the Stanley Cup Playoffs gets underway this weekend with the Conference Semi-Finals about to begin.
The series I will be most interested in is the St. Louis Blues and Los Angeles Kings. Can Darryl Sutter incorporate a similar game plan to shock the Blues like he did the Vancouver Canucks? The Blues looked great in beating the San Jose Sharks in five games and look even more dangerous in the playoffs than they did in the regular season because they are very healthy. Andy McDonald, Alexander Steen and David Perron, who all missed considerable time during the regular season, combined for 14 playoff points in five games.
As for the Kings, captain Dustin Brown was their best player against the Canucks. He led the team with five points and was very physical along the way.
Game one is Saturday night at 5:30pm on TSN. My pick is Blues in five. Here are the other events I’ll be watching:
Saturday–ATP–Barcelona Open Semi-Finals–(3) David Ferrer–ESP vs. (11) Milos Raonic–CAN–5:30am–Sportsnet One–Milos Raonic won the match of his career on Friday, defeating Andy Murray of Great Britain in straight sets in the Barcelona Open quarterfinals. On Saturday, he will try and defeat another elite player in Spain’s David Ferrer. The Spaniard is 3-0 against Raonic including a victory in the fourth round of the Australian Open in 2011. Spaniards Fernando Verdasco is playing Rafael Nadal in the other semi-final.
Gabriel Landeskog and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins may have been the more high profile rookies in the Calder Trophy chase this season, but at the end of the day both of them would like to be in the shoes of Adam Henrique of the New Jersey Devils right now.
Henrique, who is considered by many as the third man in the Calder Trophy race, scored twice in game seven against the Florida Panthers in a 3-2 double overtime victory. Now the Devils are facing the Philadelphia Flyers in the Eastern Conference Semi-Final while the New York Rangers are facing the Washington Capitals.
Henrique also becomes the first player since Steve Yzerman of the Detroit Red Wings in 1996 to score a goal in double overtime of game seven of a playoff series.
The other Devil to score last night was Stephen Gionta, younger brother of Montreal Canadiens’ Captain Brian Gionta. Stephen Gionta now has more career playoff goals (2) than he has career regular season goals over the last two seasons (1).
The Ottawa Senators dominated puck possession in the third period of game seven of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinal against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night, They just simply couldn’t score.
In the end it will be the Rangers moving on with a 2-1 victory.
The Rangers got offense from their defense as Dan Girardi of Welland, Ontario and Marc Staal of Thunder Bay, Ontario each found the back of the net past Senators goaltender Craig Anderson.
Girardi and Staal each scored only goal in the series and saved their playoff magic for game seven.
For Marc Staal, it was his third career playoff goal and Girardi his first, and it came as the game winner of the seventh game.
Marc Staal also becomes the third Staal brother to score in the seventh game of a series, following Eric Staal of the Carolina Hurricanes who scored the game winning goal against the New Jersey Devils in game seven of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinal in 2009 and Jordan Staal of the Pittsburgh Penguins who scored against the Washington Capitals in game seven of the 2009 Eastern Conference Semi-Finals.
Last night the Washington Capitals defeated the Boston Bruins 2-1 on an overtime winner by checking line forward Joel Ward.
But it was the comments afterwards on Twitter by some racist Bruins fans that have become the center of attention. Ward, from North York, Ontario, is black, and received inappropriate backlash by two Bruins fans on the World Wide Web after the game.
This news is really too bad because it has overshadowed an outstanding series where every game in the seven match contest was decided by a single goal.
TSN has since made the point it is a little ironic because Willie O’Ree, who played for the Bruins, was the first black player in the NHL.
It must be said though that these two ignorant individuals do not reflect the opinions of all Bruins fans.
Tonight there are two more game sevens as the Ottawa Senators play the New York Rangers and the Florida Panthers play the New Jersey Devils.
The Phoenix Coyotes are off to the Western Conference Semi-Finals. The Winnipeg Jet-almosts beat the Chicago Blackhawks convincingly in Chicago Monday night by a score of 4-0.
The Blackhawks were the better team in the series in every area except one–the position of goaltending.
The bottom line was that Mike Smith was completely brilliant, compared to the shaky Corey Crawford who needless to say was horrible at specific times when the games were tight.
Last night, after the Blackhawks dominated the first half of the game but couldn’t beat Smith, the Coyotes dominated the third period. Former Oiler Gilbert Brule, Westlock’s Kyle Chipchura and Oliver Ekman-Larsson all notched a goal and assist as Phoenix will now play the Nashville Predators in round two.
In other hockey news, Oilers forward Jordan Eberle has been nominated for the Lady Byng. This season he had 34 goals and 42 assists and only 10 penalty minutes. He’ll be up against Brian Campbell of the Florida Panthers and Matt Moulson of the New York Islanders. Campbell will try to become the first defenceman to win the Lady Byng since Red Kelly of the Detroit Red Wings in 1954.
Eberle meanwhile is being joined by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who is being nominated for the Calder. No Edmonton Oiler has won a major award since Mark Messier won the Hart and Bill Ranford won the Conn Smythe in 1990.
The Ottawa Senators lost to the New York Rangers 3-2 last night in Game Six of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinal.
But a decision made by Senators Head Coach Paul MacLean completely left me shaking my head. Mark Stone, one of the Senators best players in all of Game 5, wasn’t on the ice and did not play game six.
The reasoning, according to CBC’s Cassie Campbell-Pascall, was that MacLean told her earlier in the day that the Senators were still in the rebuilding mode and wanted to evaluate Swedish prospect Jakob Silfverberg.
Silfverberg, like Mark Stone in Game 5, was playing in his first NHL career game last night.
Is it me, or did the Senators coaches and management pick a lousy time to evaluate Silfverberg? You don’t use an elimination playoff game to study your future? You go with your best and Stone, who delivered a great pass to Spezza in game 5 on the game winning goal in a 2-0 Ottawa win, wasn’t on the ice in game six. Silfverberg was not nearly as effective and in the end the Rangers forced game seven.
This week on the show we’re talking NHL playoffs & suspensions, along with some of the first teams to move on to the next round and another clock controversy from last week’s action. Also: we discuss a perfect game in the MLB and a legend leaving women’s basketball.
In the GABBYs: Martin Brodeur, Jamie Moyer, Washington Capitals fans, an Alabama parent, the Charlotte Bobcats and the Orlando Magic. The Punchline this week is high school baseball player Jameson Painter.
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