I love the NHL playoffs. It might be second only to the NCAA tournament as my favorite sporting tournament, and that is a toss up. After battling injuries to key players all season long, the Wings went on a mission to make the playoffs after the Olympics, going 16-3-5 and jumping from 9th place to 5th place in the west. Their first round match-up against Phoenix was kind of bipolar. They played pretty poorly in game 6 at the Joe, a game that could have won them the series. Instead they lost, forcing a game 7 in Phoenix where they won easily. It was vintage Detroit, out shooting Phoenix 2:1 and winning 6-1. It seriously looked like a NHL '95 game, it was ridiculous. Next up is San Jose, a team that notoriously chokes in the playoffs, and with the exception of the 1994 playoffs, is terrible against Detroit.
On the east coast, Washington completely choked it against Montreal. They were up 3-1 before the Canadians stormed back to take the series last night in game 7. Watching eastern conference hockey is interesting. It is much different than western conference hockey. I think the EC is more physical defensively and offensively it is more of a dump and chase game as opposed to the puck possession game of the western conference. The Capitals put up a lot of shots against the Habs in game 7, but it was a lot of run-and-gun throw anything at the net kind of shots and the goalies in the playoffs are just too good for that kind of hockey. You need to pass the puck around some and get good quality shots to score in the playoffs. I was disappointed to see the Capitals lose as I was really hoping to see a Cries Baby/Ovechkin rematch. Ovechkin is the best player I have ever seen play (didn't really catch Wayne in his prime).
While we are talking about hockey, kudos to the Versus network on their side ice reporters. They are much, much less annoying than that bald dweeb Pierre McGuire who is always interrupting the game with his dumb biased comments.
Lindsay Soto:
Charissa Thompson:
Detroit went brain dead for 90 seconds Thursday and unfortunately that cost them the game. Otherwise I think both teams played equally well. There wasn't much puck possession in the game and the referees were whistle happy.
ReplyDeleteThe refs in game 2 sucked. San Jose had 10 power plays, Detroit 4. Five of those 10 power plays came in the 3rd period, and 2 of those 5 were 5 on 3! What a joke. The refs in the NHL are usually really good, and thus I don't complain about them much, but this game was awful. Truthfully, even most of the calls against San Jose were terrible calls. The league needs to review this game and sit these refs down and ask them what the hell they were thinking. Two 3 on 5 situations in one period?!? What a joke. Probably cost the Wings their season.
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