Two games into the Stanley Cup Final and it's pretty clear that the Ducks have been the better team so far. Both Anaheim wins have been one-goal wins, but they've been far more impressive. Some good goaltending by Ray Emery kept it close last night. A couple of early power play goals by the Senators made a game of it Monday.
Ottawa still hasn't scored a five-on-five goal in this series. That's hurt. The Sens inability to cash in on five-on-three power plays in both games has hurt too. The Senators top line has been a big disappointment. Bryan Murray broke them up last at times, but it had little impact. Jason Spezza's been the most visible, but not in a good way. He's had some brutal shifts out there.
The Ducks are getting great efforts from everyone. Samuel Pahlsson came up with the big goal last night. He, Rob Niedermayer and Travis Moen have been outstanding. Ryan Getzlaf has been excellent over the last four periods. Chris Pronger, Scott Niedermayer and Francois Beauchemin have done an excellent job on the blue line. J-S Giguere has been rock solid. He was great on that five-on-three.
Can Ottawa turn it around? I don't know. They look overwhelmed right now. Maybe home ice will do them some good.
Pretty impressive game by the Ducks last night. Take away the two power play goals by Ottawa and this was Anaheim's game for the most part. It's only one game and we'll see how Ottawa responds in Game 2. In Game 1 I think the Ducks pressure just took a toll on the Senators.
The Ducks' checking line was impressive. I am not sure the Senators top line has seen anything like that so far in the playoffs. Moen, Pahlsson and Niedermayer were physical and outplayed Heatley, Spezza and Alfredsson all over the ice.
I've used the three-line label on the Ducks before, but their fourth line of May, Marchant and Thornton made an impact too. They had some very good shifts too.
Ryan Getzlaf was excellent.
The Senators perhaps being a little rusty and all the Anaheim pressure had Ottawa coughing up the puck way too often. The Sens were like deer in headlights at times. I don't think they have seen anything like the Ducks, who have speed and size.
Again, any series is about adjustments and we'll see how the Senators bounce back Wednesday.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman held his so-called state of the league press conference before tonight's Stanley Cup Final opener. He talked about the state of the league overall, television, media coverage, Nashville and the possibility of another team landing in Canada some day. It was some interesting stuff. You can read the transcript here at NHL.com.
It's slow going as far as Stars news. But thanks to Dallas Morning News lifestyles columnist Alan Peppard, there is some gossip and other tidbits surrounding Mike and Willa Ford. Click here for the details.
The Stanley Cup Final gets under way Monday night and the atmosphere seems to be a little different in each city. There doesn't seem to be too much Stanley Cup buzz in Southern California. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times Stanley Cup Fever might be more aptly called the "Stanley sniffles. Mild aches and pains with a chance of becoming something stronger."
The other day I told you about Sportsnet having the audio of conversations between the referees and the video review booth at the Memorial Cup. Here's a sample from Friday's game between Plymouth and Vancouver. I wasn't capturing the video of of the game, so it is just the audio I recorded with my digital audio recorder. It is still interesting.
Here was the issue. There was a delayed penalty call on Vancouver (the white team) and Plymouth scored. The referee waved off the goal because he believed Vancouver had touched the puck and gotten possession before the goal had been scored and blew the whistle. The ref decided to go upstairs for a review of the play.
Below is the audio of the discussion they had. I cut out the waiting part after the initial discussion and then the video booth coming back it sees on the replay.
Jon, a reader of this site, asked me to pass along a story that ran recently on CBS 11. It's a story about a couple of disabled hockey players battling to play organized hockey. I told him I would pass it on and here it is.
Stars prospect has been getting a lot of attention at the Memorial Cup the past week. He's leading the tournament with five goals. The Sportsnet broadcasters constantly rave about him. The network had a nice interview with him last night during the second intermission of Thursday's game. In today's Province there is an article about how key it will be for the Vancouver Giants to shut down Neal in tonight's semifinal game. The bottom line is he has had a pretty good week in Vancouver.
I am watching the Memorial Cup via the web and Rogers Sportsnet had an interesting audio feature concerning the officials. Towards the end of the 2nd period the referee went to the phone for a review upstairs and you were allowed to hear the discussion. In this case it was no big deal. They were just adjusting the time on the clock. But it would be interesting on a goal review. I am not sure if this is something they just started tonight or not, but I haven't seen it any of the Memorial Cup games I have watched so far this year. I just thought that it was a pretty neat addition to the broadcast.
You have to give the Ducks credit. They were the hyped at the beginning of the season and so far they've lived up to expectations. We'll see how they do against the Senators. I haven't given that matchup much thought yet. What I have given some thought to is that Anaheim is no longer a joke of a franchise. Two trips to the Stanley Cup Final in the last four seasons and three trips to the West Final in the same time frame. That's pretty impressive.
The Penner, Getzlaf, Perry line was impressive at times Tuesday night. So was the Red Wings comeback in the third. That was a fun game to watch, especially at the end.
It should be a good series between the Ducks and Senators. Two very good teams. I am not sure I will be rooting for one team or the other. I didn't really care who won between the Red Wings and Ducks. Ditto with the Senators and Sabres. I just watched and enjoyed the games. I'll probably do that it with the next series, but I will be in Senators country if it goes beyond five games so that may sway my emotions. We'll see.
I ran across this article about Stars owner Tom Hicks and his soccer team, Liverpool, this morning and I think it provides some insight to where he stands philosophically as a sports owner these days. Here's an excerpt from the article, which you can read here.
The Dallas businessman explained that the Reds are re-structuring their youth policy. Hicks believes that success over a longer period is not dependent on merely buying players, although he did intimate that Benitez will have a substantial warchest in the summer.
"You don't build a championship team and sustain it over a long period of time by going out and spend all this money for just free agents or just transfers," he explained.
"You have to have some of that but you have to have your great young players that you develop yourself...because young players make a big impact.
"You got to have top, have that young, fast, spirited group of players to contend over every year.
"So I think you have a blend of your own players you develop, players you bring in, and some of the superstars you also bring in."
Nothing earth shattering, but it does bring up the issue of developing players. I know there are some people who are down on the Stars' ability to do that, but as Mike Heika pointed out on the Morning News blog recently, the Stars are way ahead of where they were a few years ago in that regard. They went from very little in the way of a prospect base to a pretty good stable in a short amount of time. Is there a blockbuster player in the system? Don't know. Time will tell. What they do have is some players who can be part of a good team.
I've spent the past couple weeks watching a lot of James Neal play in both the OHL playoffs and now the Memorial Cup. He is a very good prospect. He's been excellent at the Memorial Cup. His team has lost both its games, but his play has been drawing high praise from observers in Vancouver.
Matt Niskanen is a very good prospect. I got a chance to see a lot of him in the AHL playoffs. He is going to be a good player. Perttu Lindgren, whom I have seen a few times including prospect camp and a few times watching him play for Team Finland via the web, could be a good player. All three of those guys came out of the 2005 draft. Niklas Grossman and Loui Eriksson have both shown some potential. Joel Lundqvist carved out regular spot on this team with his play. Konstantin Pushkarev was a highly regarded Kings prospect who came over in the Mattias Norstrom deal. Mark Fistric, the first round pick from 2004, made great strides from the beginning of the AHL season to the end.
The prospect base is simply way better than it was five years ago. Way better.
What a pretty game-winning goal by Teemu Selanne in overtime. What an ugly turnover by Andreas Lilja that led to it. You throw that turnover in with Scott Niedermayer's power play goal with 47 seconds left that tied the game, the one that deflected off Nicklas Lidstrom's stick, and this was a tough loss for the Detroit Red Wings.
But it was more than a bad turnover and a bounce off a stick. Detroit's failure to cash in on some power play chances and extend its lead really hurt as well. So did some excellent goaltending by Anaheim's J-S Giguere, who came up with some huge saves. He's been big in the last two games. So has Selanne, who has two goals and three assists in the last two Anaheim wins.
Game 6 Tuesday at Honda Center, which I am sure will be rocking.
The good news Sunday was that I did not have to change the channel to stay with the game. NBC stayed with it this time, but they apparently had an out for Saturday's predicament. Here's some information on the NHL-NBC contract from the Globe and Mail:
NBC pulled the plug on coverage of the overtime period between the Ottawa Senators-Buffalo Sabres on Saturday, denying viewers in most of the United States the conclusion the Eastern Conference final's Game 5.
A source close to the National Hockey League Saturday called the decision to prematurely end the telecast "disappointing," but said the network's contract with the league allowed it to pull out after three hours.
NBC dropped the overtime period, which decided the series and sent the Senators to the Stanley Cup final, because it didn't want the hockey telecast running into its scheduled 90-minute coverage of the Preakness Stakes starting at 5 p.m. EDT.
The Detroit Red Wings seemed to get the better of play last night for great stretches, but the Ducks power play finally clicked, Teemu Selanne got on track, Ric Jackman (the former Star) steps in for the suspended Chris Pronger and scores a power play goal, and now it's a best-of-three series. That was a big win for the Ducks considering the Pronger absence.
Good game in what is turning out to be a great series. It's tough to get a handle on the series because the team that controls play isn't coming out on top a lot of the times. A lot of it has been execution, whether its on special teams or in the turnover area. Corey Perry scored off a Todd Bertuzzi turnover early last night. Ryan Getzlaf scored the game-winner with a wicked wrist shot with the Ducks on a PP. Ducks had a couple of big kills. It's been fun to watch. Game 5 is Sunday.
The Getzlaf shot is below.
No NHL games tonight so I will watch the Memorial Cup opener as Stars prospect James Neal and the Plymouth Whalers take on Vancouver.
It would be hard to find any holes in the Detroit Red Wings' performance Tuesday night in Anaheim. From the goalie on out they were superb. Their discipline was excellent down the stretch even when the Ducks tried the sending the message stuff once they got far behind.
I thought Tomas Holmstrom, who had already scored a pair of goals, returning to the ice to set up another goal after getting creamed into the boards by Rob Niedermayer and Chris Pronger was fitting. Calgary and San Jose tried to knock the Wings around and it failed. The Ducks may not have much luck either.
It's just one game and not a good one for the Ducks. We'll see how Anaheim bounces back.
If you didn't see the Ottawa-Buffalo game last night don't be fooled by the score, which made it appear the Sabres were close to being on the same level with the Senators. They weren't. Ottawa's domination started right after Daniel Briere shot wide on a good chance early in the game and continued on for three periods. Still, it took a favorable bounce off the endboards for the Senators to score the only goal and the Sabres were only a good bounce away from tying it all the way to the end. That's hockey. Luck plays a role in all this and Senators have that on their side right now along with their superior play.
Ryan Miller was excellent in goal for Buffalo. He kept his team in the game. Buffalo's power play was 0-6 an is now 0-18 in the series. Ottawa's PK deserves a lot of credit. The Sabres cash in here or there and this is a much different series. Right now it's 0-3 for Buffalo and one game at a time.
The Dallas Stars have launched an official page on MySpace.com. It's appropriately called the Official MySpace Page of the Dallas Stars. I know little about MySpace other than my kids have pages and I go there to see what they are up to and just who their friends are. I think it's a pretty good idea for the Stars. I know a lot of businesses do it to connect with customers and potential customers. Why not a hockey team? Anyway, here is the link: Official MySpace Page of the Dallas Stars.
Big win for the Ducks last night to get the split in Detroit. The turning point had to be the Travis Moe goal that tied the game at 3-3. That was big because Detroit had scored early in the third to take the lead and the Ducks bounced right back with a goal. It was a strange goal though, but I thought it was a goal as soon as I saw Dominik Hasek scrambling around in the net and trying to place the puck in front of the goal line. It got reviewed and the league made the right call.
It was a good night for the Ducks' grinders. Moen and Rob Niedermayer scored and Rob helps set up brother Scott's winner in OT. Sami Pahlsson picked up a couple of helpers. The Ducks won the game at even strength and those guys were key.
The game overall was great. This is shaping up to be a potentially great series. We'll see how the East goes tonight. It's a huge game for Buffalo.
It's trouble for the Sabres. Down 0-2 and heading to Ottawa for Games 3 and 4. Special teams play is killing the Sabres. They were 0-7 on the power play Saturday night and Ottawa was 2-4. For the series Ottawa is 4-10 on the power play and Buffalo is 0-12.
Otherwise it was an excellent game. Strong push early from Buffalo to get the 2-0 lead, Sens bounce back to take a 3-2 lead and then Danie Briere scores with 5.8 seconds left in the game to force the OT. Joe Corvo's skipping shot from the point wins it in the second OT. Just an entertaining game all the way around.
It's an entertaining series to watch because of the high skill level and the style the two teams play. Besides holding the advantage in special teams play so far, I think the Senators are simply a better defensive team than Buffalo. It's all adding up to some serious problems from the Sabres.
Iowa Stars are finished for the season. They lost 5-1 in Chicago Saturday night and dropped the series 4-2. It was a very good season for Iowa. They made a strong push to make the playoffs at the end and won one round. Not bad for a team that went through a lot of call ups because of the injury situation in Dallas.
The NHL is starting to make video feeds available for web sites and blogs available through an agreement with a company called Voxant, which runs something called TheNewsRoom. It's basically an ad revenue sharing deal for all those involved. You also get material - video, images and text - available from other sources such as CBC, Reuters, . All of it licensed.
So here is the NHL video feed, which is still in its infancy. Like YouTube, it takes them a while to get things on the site. Below the video is an example of some of the other material you can get from TheNewsRoom, which has agreements with a variety of content providers. The one I picked was a Detroit Free Press picture of one of those scrums at the Detroit net during last night's game. Not sure what I am going to do with this, but it is out there. I am still thinking about it.
Pretty entertaining game tonight between the Detroit and Anaheim. It was a pretty well played game. It was physical. There were some decent scrums and even a fight. Red Wings' two power play goals were the difference in a 2-1 win and neither of the goals was pretty. Pucks were put on net and Detroit got the bounces. Red Wings played a very solid game except for getting themselves in early penalty trouble. The penalty kill came through, especially on that five-on-three in the first period. The Dominator was solid in net. The Ducks were 0-7 on the power play. They had 11:42 of PP time and couldn't take advantage. That hurt.
I was impressed that Anaheim's fourth line got a lot of play in the game.
I thought some of the funnier moments were Andy McDonald roughing up Dominik Hasek in the crease and Corey Perry talking tough to Pavel Datsyuk.
I mentioned special teams as an advantage for Ottawa and did it show last night. It was a key in the Senators' 5-2 win along with Buffalo's less than stellar play with the puck. Ottawa scored two power play goals and one shorthanded. I thought Mike Fisher was outstanding for the Senators. Scored a shorty, drew a couple of penalties that set up a power play goal. The Sens got the game-winning goal (scored by Oleg Saprykin) from the fourth line. All that stuff adds up to a win.
Ducks and Red Wings get underway tonight. Lots of good story lines in this one. Mike Babcock used to be the coach of the Ducks and Brian Burke decided to go in another direction. You've got the big 3 of the league's defensemen in the series with Anaheim's Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer and Detroit's Nicklas Lidstrom. Dominik Hasek and J-S Giguere are both playing well.
I think the teams are evenly matched. Anaheim's penalty kill has been statistically good, but the Wings' power play is a little more threatening than that of Vancouver. It will be interesting to see how Detroit handles Anaheim's physical play. The Red Wings seemed to fare well against Calgary and San Jose, where thought to have advantages in that area.
The injuries on the blue line may take a toll on Detroit. Anaheim is basically a three-line, four defensemen team, but those 13 players are top notch and give them a slight advantage. I am going with Anaheim in 7.
Here's another interesting tidbit from Willa Ford. This one has to do with the team itself and the chaos surrounding it. I don't how much stock to put into this stuff, but it makes things interesting and gives people something to talk about. Then again, Mike is no different than the rest of us. He goes home and gripes to his significant other about work.
Q: What was it like watching Mike play in what was the most dramatic first-round series -- that seven-game series loss to the Canucks?
A: It was tough, lots of ups and downs. There are some holes in the system when it comes to the Stars right now. There are some changes that need to be made and I think everyone is pretty aware of it. Within the coaching staff, you know that "too many cooks in the kitchen" thing; there's a bit of a struggle. One head coach is saying one thing and then you have another coach saying another. They either need to come together on that or see eye to eye because it's a little confusing to the guys, I think. This is all stuff I noticed firsthand. You can clearly see it on the ice, but when you live it like I do, it's tough. I know everything that goes on.
Willa Ford, the bride-to-be of Stars center Mike Modano, was interviewed by ESPN.com recently. Most of it is about Mike and the Stars. Not to bring up a dead issue, but she was not too happy with all that captain stuff just before the season started. In fact, she was pretty ticked off about it. Here's an excerpt from the interview, which can be found here.
Q: Is he worried he won't have another chance at a Cup?
A: He is just a phenomenal player and gets respect at all levels. There are just a few pieces that he feels like are missing and he needs to get that next Cup. The team has got to go out and get his wingers for him. There are just a couple of things that need to happen because there is a lot going on that is very frustrating for him. And last year, when they didn't make it past the first round of the playoffs, it was like, "Oh, let's throw it on Mike's back because he's the captain and make him an assistant captain now." I mean, that was the cheesiest thing. That was the most classless thing the organization has ever done.
Q: How did you respond to that?
A: I was completely flabbergasted and pissed off to be quite honest with you. I mean, how rude. He is a franchise player who has given his all to his team. It was like somebody didn't want to lose their job -- nobody wants to lose their job. "Let's just blame it on this and maybe this will fix it." Clearly, that didn't fix it. Mike's leadership has never been an issue. Mike speaks and the guys listen. Mike's feeling is, "I'm not here to baby-sit these guys. As a captain, I'm not here to baby-sit and check on people. Everyone has their job. My job is to make the whole thing work. Everybody come together, I need to speak when it's time for me to speak, but otherwise, there is no need to baby-sit people."
I think the staff and the GM [Doug Armstrong] have a different idea of what a captain should be. They think a captain should be yelling at their team. They think a captain should be absolutely as verbal as possible. I know from running a household with Mike how he can be quiet; but when he says something, it can be very powerful. I really think it was one of the saddest moments of Mike's career, I really do. It was a long time coming to even get the captaincy. He waited a long time, considering [Derian] Hatcher was there and he already had it. There's no need to ever demote somebody and give it to someone else. Mike would never want that. I think the whole thing was really nasty, how it went down. But Mike being the athlete that he is said, "OK fine. You want to do that, now I'm going to prove a point." He went into this season trying to put up numbers better than the last two years. "I want to show that just because I'm almost 37 years old, I'm not done." I think he did this year. He really put up good numbers, even through injury.
I found a question Detroit coach Mike Babcock was asked today and his answer was interesting in light of all the talk about Stars coach Dave Tippett and his system. In essence, Babcock said his system doesn't change but how the system is perceived change based on the goal scoring results.
Anyway, here is a transcript of the question and answer as provided by ASAP Sports.
Question: How much did your message have to change in terms of the style of play you wanted Detroit to play since last spring?
Babcock: Not really at all. It's interesting. You get this all the time. When I was in Anaheim, we were a defensive team. They wanted to open it wide open. Then they did that for a couple months, then they started the check.
We came to Detroit and scored all these goals and played exactly the same way, lots of ways, as we did in Anaheim. A lot of the same principles. But we had more talent.
This year, we played exactly the same way, but the puck wouldn't go in the net. When the puck doesn't go in the net, everyone started talking, it was like seven games into the year, now we were this defensive team that checks, checks, checks, but we didn't score.
Instead of the score being 5-2, and you open it up a little bit more, the score was 2-2 and we had to check like crazy to find a way to win.
Now, I'm a big believer in you work with what you have. You'd like to score a whole ton every night. When I looked at Anaheim, scored about the same amount of goals, we were both pretty good defensively, I still believe you got to look after your own end to allow success to come out.
But I think our message here wasn't about offense or defense; it was about being more competitive, being harder to play against. I thought Anaheim really helped us with that this year. We went into their building and they abused us the first game of the year, so did San Jose. That kind of got us on our way. If we want to be successful, if we don't want to be one-and-done at playoff time, we better become more competitive.
Part of that is the roster changes that take place. You don't turn apples into oranges very often. We were able to make changes. But not just make changes -- the people we had first-year players last year, there were a lot of them on our team, are now in the second year, playing harder. Cleary, Franzen, Samuelsson, huge parts of the that, Lilja, Markov. I think that's more what's changed here than anything. Long answer, sorry.
Buffalo and Ottawa get underway tonight in what should be a great series. You've got two evenly matched teams that are very good. Two franchises hungry for a shot at the Stanley Cup. There is some history here with past playoff matchups and the brawl from earlier this season.
Buffalo's been good from start to finish this season. The Senators got off to a slow start, but by the end of the season they were playing as well as anyone. They have really improved their overall team defense and that's been a key to their success.
The Senators can roll four lines as do the Sabres, but I don't think the can match the overall balance of the Sabres. The Senators' top line of Daniel Alfredsson, Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley has been brilliant though and that has me calling the forwards department even at this point.
The Senators have the advantage on the blue line. Chris Phillips, Wade Redden, Tom Preissing, Anton Volchenkov, Andrej Meszaros and Joe Corvo is a pretty solid group. It will be interesting to see how Henrik Tallinder and Toni Lydman, who have done a good just in the playoffs so far, fare against the Sens' top line.
The goaltending edge goes to the Sabres with Ryan Miller, but Ray Emery has been impressive. This series will be a big test for Emery.
Special teams go to the Senators. The Buffalo power play has been so-so and the penalty kill hasn't been that good. The Sabres' special teams haven't been that great all season. Ottawa's power play has been pretty good in the playoffs and the PK has been solid.
Overall, I think it is a dead heat. I think Ottawa is playing better right now, but I am still going to go with the Sabres. They haven't played their best hockey yet and perhaps a series with the Senators will bring it out of them.
Buffalo in 7.
Of course I'll be watching that game along with the Iowa-Chicago AHL game tonight. USA and Finland play at the World Championship later this morning. Lots of hockey.
So long, San Jose. The Red Wings move on to the Conference Finals, joining Anaheim, Buffalo and Ottawa in the the Stanley Cup Playoffs' version of the final four. No huge surprises this year. All of them of are top teams and have been for most of the season.
The Red Wings were superb Monday night in eliminating San Jose with a 2-0 win. Dominik Hasek was superb. Mikael Samuelsson with two goals. The Sharks have a good young team, but the fact that they are one of the youngest teams in the league showed at times. They just seemed to wilt at times and their inexperienced showed. A lack of poise was mentioned a few times on the Versus broadcast. The fact that their power play tanked didn't help. I still think that Nabokov gaffe in Game 5 was the turning point in the series and they never seemed to recover. It was downhill from there. Before that it was a series of ups and downs and the Sharks' ups were making it an interesting series.
Detroit and Anaheim should be a good series. I picked the Ducks at the beginning of the season, so I'll stick with them heading into this thing. It doesn't matter to me who wins in either series. Both of them should be good and the Stanley Cup Final should be a good series as well. Lots of top end talent and four good teams. It should be some good hockey.
The Sabres move on to the Eastern Conference Final and a showdown with Ottawa. There's some history there and that should be a great series. Yesterday's game between the Sabres and Rangers was excellent. Instead of another 2-1 game, we got a 5-4 final. I thought the excitement level was not much higher than the previous games, just a higher goal scoring total. The Rangers played well in the series. Very well. I am not sure Buffalo has been at the top of its game in either of the first two series. That will have to change against Ottawa, which may be playing as well as any team in the tournament right now. I picked a Buffalo and Anaheim final way back at the beginning of the season, so I'll go with the Sabres in this one. But I like the way the Sens are playing right now.
Detroit and San Jose tonight. It will be interesting to see how the Sharks respond to what I considered a meltdown in a crucial Game 5. They've got to figure out a way to maintain a more sustained effort over 60 minutes or it may be lights out for them tonight.
Somebody caught on to the similarities between the two goalie miscue's by San Jose goalies in each of the last two playoffs and put them together on YouTube. As I mentioned in my last post, They look almost exactly the same and both resulted in San Jose losses at key points in key games.
Uh oh for the San Jose Sharks. Another strong start, they get the lead and then they can't hold it. They are great when they are on top of their game, they just can't stay on top of it long enough. Give a lot of credit to Detroit. They seem to counter punch well, get a goal, take momentum and then find a way to win the games. The Zetterberg, Datysuk and Holmstrom trio has been outstanding at times. Another blow to the Detroit defense though.
Mathieu Schneider is out of the playoffs with a broken wrist. That hurts with Brett Lebda and Niklas Kronwall already out. If Lebda isn't ready to return from his ankle injury the Red Wings will have to go with Derek Meech, who played a few games at the end of the season.
It's too early to tell if Evgeni Nabokov's miscue that led to Pavel Datsyuk's game-winning goal will be a defining moment in the series, but it reminded me of a play in last year's playoffs involving the Sharks' other goalie. That would be Vesa Toskala and his screw up in Game 4 against the Oilers. The Sharks, who were leading 2-1 in the series, had a 3-2 lead in the game and Toskala misplayed a puck, Sergei Samsonov tied the game at 3-3 and the Oilers went on to win 6-3. I thought the series sort of turned on that play. I wonder if I'll look back on the Datsyuk-Nabokov play the same way. We'll see going forward.
Here's a YouTube clip of Toskala's botched play in last year's playoffs.
Senators move on past New Jersey tonight. Ottawa was simply the better team. Lou's coaching move backfired. It was a rough series for Marty Brodeur. I like Ottawa's chances against either Buffalo or the Rangers. That's a good, talented and deep team. Buffalo and the Rangers tomorrow afternoon. I have a feeling that series may go seven.
The four divisional semifinals series have been pretty good and close. Even though the Ducks took a 3-1 series lead last night with an overtime win in Vancouver, I think the Canucks have played them well pretty well over the last three games. I'd even go as far as to say Vancouver has outplayed and outworked Anaheim for the most part over the past three games. But as the Stars found out in losing to Vancouver, outplaying and outworking someone always doesn't get it done. You've got to make plays and get a few breaks at the right times to win.
The Rangers-Buffalo game last night was excellent. I thought the play at the end was a goal, but the video replay they had available wasn't conclusive. There's not much else the officials could do. Anyway, the better team won on this night. The Rangers have been great over the past two games in shutting down the Sabres and neutralizing their speed. The Rangers were a very good defensive club down the stretch and got great goaltending from Henrik Lundqvist. They are getting that now. And they've got some big play guys like Jaromir Jagr and Brendan Shanahan who are delivering.
Big game between the Sharks and Red Wings tonight. San Jose has a chance to take control of the series with a win. If they didn't blow that 2-0 lead in Game 2, they could be up 3-0 right now instead of 2-1. I think they might be the team playing the best hockey right now.
No Stars were among the finalists for the major NHL awards. Here's the list of finalists, which was released by the league Tuesday afternoon. There are four finalists for the Vezina since there was a tie for third place in the voting.
CALDER MEMORIAL TROPHY (outstanding rookie): Evgeni Malkin, Penguins; Jordan Staal, Penguins; Paul Stastny, Avalanche.
FRANK J. SELKE TROPHY (outstanding defensive forward): Rod Brind'Amour, Hurricanes; Samuel Pahlsson, Ducks; Jay Pandolfo, Devils.
HART MEMORIAL TROPHY (most valuable player to his team): Martin Brodeur, Devils; Sidney Crosby, Penguins; Roberto Luongo, Canucks.
JACK ADAMS AWARD (outstanding coach): Lindy Ruff, Sabres; Michel Therrien, Penguins; Alain Vigneault, Canucks.
JAMES NORRIS MEMORIAL TROPHY (outstanding defenseman): Nicklas Lidstrom, Red Wings; Scott Niedermayer, Ducks; Chris Pronger, Ducks.
LADY BYNG MEMORIAL TROPHY (sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct): Pavel Datsyuk, Red Wings; Joe Sakic, Avalanche; Martin St. Louis, Lightning.
LESTER B. PEARSON AWARD (most outstanding player as voted by fellow members of the NHLPA): Sidney Crosby, Penguins; Vincent Lecavalier, Lightning; Roberto Luongo, Canucks.
VEZINA TROPHY (outstanding goaltender): Martin Brodeur, Devils; Miikka Kiprusoff, Flames; Henrik Lundqvist, Rangers; Roberto Luongo, Canucks.
