Well, all the drama seemed to happen in the East. I remain convinced that lack of good goaltending is going to cost someone a Cup in the West as well, so let's do a rundown...
#1 San Jose vs #5 Detroit
San Jose let Colorado hang around much longer than was acceptable. Evgeni Nabokov did improve as the series went on, and the Sharks did get their offense together. Nonetheless, Colorado was minutes away from a 2-0 lead going home to Pepsi Center (or "The Can" if you're a Denverian). Joe Pavelski has more or less carried the Sharks thus far, and to his defense, Nabokov really only had one bad game.
Detroit are certainly not the Detroit of yesteryear, but when the chips were down in Game 7 versus Phoenix, the usual suspects stepped up. Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Nicklas Lidstrom... just sort of seemed to say "hey, wait, we're the Red Wings" and crushed the life out of the Desert Dogs with startling ease. Jimmy Howard has been everything the Wings could hope for in net, and the league's hottest team down the stretch seems to be awakening in a new fashion in the playoffs.
San Jose has more firepower, at least on paper, and seems at first blush to have better depth.
Irrelevant. Wings in six.
#2 Chicago vs #3 Vancouver
The story of the playoffs for Vancouver has without question been Mikael Samuelsson... the Sedin twins have been impressive thus far, but the clutch, key goals have been Samuelsson's. Roberto Luongo has been steady, but against a Los Angeles team that held on for dear life to make the playoffs, steady may not hold up against the firepower-heavy Blackhawks.
The Blackhawks, on the other hand, have benefited from timely scoring (particularly Patrick Kane) and a relatively punchless Nashville squad being unable to organize on the power play. Defensively, the shutouts seemed less a function of Antti Niemi and a star-heavy Blackhawk defensive corps and more a function of Nashville ineptitude offensively (boy, it pains me to say that).
In any event, Chicago has better firepower and more depth defensively. Niemi has had a couple of shutouts in these playoffs, and Chicago seems eager to repeat last year's annihilation of Roberto Luongo.
Luongo will have one of his classic meltdowns, which will propel Chicago to the conference finals in five games.
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