What a great playoff season this has been already. 7 games, all decided by 1 goal, including 2 in overtime. The eight seeds in both conferences are up 1-0 .
Tonight, the Chicago-Nashville series finally gets underway, be sure to check out tmi3rds' preview.
You never want to really think of Game 2 in a 7 game series as a must win but it's pretty close. Being tiedd 1-1 is a very different situation than gowing down 0-2. Expect to see some desperate hockey tonight from teams looking to bounce back from their opening defeats.
Pittsburgh and New Jersey are the two teams that simply did not play with enough intensity in their first games.
NJ wasn't physical enough, as evidenced by the Chris Pronger PPG where he was able to camp out in front of the net. That has to change. They also need to create more problems for Boucher in the Flyers' net. He was able to see the puck all night long and was only beat on a crazy deflection in the game's final minutes (with their goalie pulled). They need more of that early on.
The other big game is San Jose. Given their recent playoff meltdowns, the last thing they wanted was to fall behind to the kids from Colorado. The Sharks needed a strong effort to put the Avs away and not let that talented but young team have any reason to believe they could win the series. Now the Avs absolutely believe they can the Sharks have to have it in the back of their mind that this could get ugly and spiral out of control.
Phoenix and Detroit round out tonight's slate of games. I really thought the Wings were on too much of a roll but the Coyotes just kept coming at them and coming at them. Given everything they've been through this year (Who owns the Coyotes? Owns...) they certainly deserve it. Besides, how funny would it be to see NHL Commissioner Gary Betman present the Cup to....himself.
Enjoy the games!
Man, I like being wrong like that for a start! Preds win 4-1, and we'll see if it holds. Pekka Rinne was impressive, stopping 25 of 26, and J.P. Dumont chipped in 2 goals. The goals by Smithson and Erat were empty netters, but they made a 2-1 lead hold up for a loooooooong time. Good stuff!
ReplyDeleteI'll be blunt ...
ReplyDeleteThe Phx/Det game was good; really good firewagon hockey. That 3:58 span in the second period where both Howard and Bryzgalov seemed to forget how to stop pucks was awesome!
That said, I'm not happy with the result of the game. The Coyotes didn't do what they did in Game 1 to keep Detroit off it's own game.
They left out the physical contact. Yeah, they finished checks, but they didn't really play all that physical. In Game 1, Zetterberg wasn't on his game, and was learly about heading towards the Coyotes goal. That's because he was played in a physical way that had him second-guessing himself. The same goes for Datsyuk.
Aside from a couple periphery players (Lidstrom, Franzen, Bertuzzi), you take away Detroits top two guys, and you can control the game.
The Coyotes failed to do that in tonight's game. I do hope they'll relearn the tactics and strategy that allowed them to dominate Detroit in Game 1 after that first period debacle they had.
Thomas in Mesa