Of course, the skids were greased pretty well for your boys this year. Regionals in Green Bay, Frozen Four in Milwaukee- what more do you want?
Look for Michigan State to make some more noise next year. If only freshman sensation Jeff Lerg hadn’t turned into a sieve against Maine…
Biggest surprise so far has been Montreal throttling Carolina last night. Looks like the collar is getting a little tight for Carolina. The Wings seemed a little tight at the start of the game Friday and won on a cheap goal. Still, Detroit is notorious for dropping the first playoff game so maybe this is the year.
There’s a fine line between shooting too little and shooting all the time. Detroit didn’t give anything a chance to develop. They hit the face off dots in the offensive zone and fired the puck. Either the goalie would see it the whole way and kill the puck for a face off, or he’d make the save and the rebound would go right to Edmonton because there was noone there from Detroit to bang the puck in. If they are going to win the series, they need to show a little more patience with the puck. Get the goalie moving. Get someone in front of the net.
Also, they changed their power play to dump and chase rather than skating in three or four across and passing the puck to the player on the boards to get things set up. I can’t think of a reason to make the change.
Overall, the wings need to go back to playing Red Wings hockey.
Not quite sure what you’re saying here. On the off chance that you are against whistle swallowing, the word from Colin Campbell was that anyone caught not making calls in the playoffs. He’d better start making good on that promise, or ratings will drop and complaints will rise.
See if you can get any of the Buffalo games on a local station. They looked really good last night. Good puck control. Great speed. They owned play for most of the overtime periods. Hell, Ryan Miller’s an MSU boy. It doesn’t hurt that they will be whompin of the Flyers, who are my second most hated team.
Now that I think of it, I think todays wings/oilers game is on NBC at 1 pm. You’ve at least got an NBC affiliate, right?
Well, one period down and I’m less than thrilled in game 2.
Edmonton is trapping. I know it’s a perfectly cromulent strategy and all, but it’s so bloody boring.
There were three really obvious non-calls in the first period alone. All hits well away from the puck. One player crossed the ice to get away from the puck and make a hit. Is Colin Campbell watching these games at all?
I’m not particularly impressed with NBCs presentation of the game. It’s the same broadcast team that I hated on OLN which is the same group of chuckleheads that I hated on ESPN, with the exception of Ray Ferraro who kicks much ass. I miss Darren Pang and Steve Levy.
Nor am I with NBC’s coverage of the Sharks at Nashville which concluded a little while ago (Sharks 3 - Nashville 0 – yay!). Maybe I’m just used to the Sharks-centric local coverage, but national sports announcers sure sound condescending towards western hockey teams. It’s getting pretty old.
I wasn’t paying much attention to the game, but I’d bet that Edmonton had lined up 4 players on the blueline, and it’s virtually impossible to skate the puck in effectively when the opposition does that. To beat it you need to dump and chase.
Leafs? Playoffs? Explain to me how those words fit together?
All I can say is, Go Habs Go. Montreal beat the Hurricanes back to an itty bitty breeze last night, and if we can keep it up, we might make it! Well, to the second round, anyways. I’m realistic.
I’ll keep watching as long as there are Canadian teams left in the playoffs. Bring Stanley home, boys!
Not really. The strategy held well in the regular season. You skate in with three or four across and pass across to the boards when you cross the blue line. The shorthanded team is backing up, so the man with the puck stopped at the blueline can pass across or return it down to the man who skated in. They returned to it on the power play today. Looked a bit better.
Despite the loss, the Wings did look a bit better today. Two turnovers cost it for them. They’re also still firing the puck high at bad angles from no closer than the face off dots. The trap is getting to them. They either need to find a way to open things up or play better with the puck. There’s no question that if they keep playing like this, they will not make it past the opening round.
Tampa managed to tie up their series. That’s a fun one. Two fast teams keeping things nice and open.
Great game, although Ottawa needs to tighten up defensively. Too many turnovers and the Volchenkov-Meszaros pairing was giving up too much room. Hopefully we won’t be without Redden for too long, although I understand that right now, he’s got more important things than hockey on his mind.
Lots of even up games yesterday…making the playoffs even more interesting…I for one, love it.
As for the Ducks and Calgary, I feel really upbeat about the Ducks chances. As Harborwolf pointed out earlier, speed kills. And the Ducks have speed…lots of it. Kiprusoff is human after all, while Giguere was not 100% yesterday but still managed to keep a lid on the game. Even in Game 1, the backup goalie (Bryzgalov) gave a solid performance. Obviously, it was anyone’s game when Lupul rang one off the crossbar in OT while McCarty buried his shot. Duly noted that since these games were in Calgary, means that the Ducks pierced the veil of the Flame’s hometown mystique. And now, we go to Anaheim for the next two. Yeah, I feel good about the Ducks chances.
This series is going to be interesting, but it’s very hard to count a team with Kiprusoff in goal out. From what I’ve seen in their games v. Detroit, the man’s a freak. He never gives up on a save, and will flat out stone teams. He may be human, but it’s just barely.
Given Calgary’s offense though, if you score two goals you stand a good chance of winning.
Not only is Jagr sitting out tonight from a stupid self-inflicted injury during garbage time of a game we had no chance to win, but apparently the Blueshirts have given up on the Olympic gold medal winning goalie Lundqvist and opted for Kevin Weekes in the net.
sigh
Tonight I’ll be waiting until 11:00pm and catching the “Rangers in 60” hour-long version of the game. I just don’t have the stomach for another 3 hours of pummeling.
At least the Rangers did better than the Giants; one goal is better than being shut out.
I couldn’t believe that they went with Weekes. Lundqvist has been the man for them all friggin’ season. He goes down one game and they toss him for the back up.
Ellis, I’ve been watching the Rangers/Devils game. I wanted Buffalo/Philly. Trust me. You don’t want to know how the game is going. You don’t want to watch the recap. I’ll just say that the Rangers have given up. The way they played, the series is over. Spare yourself the pain.
The rangers game is one of the most pathetic games I have ever seen. They’d completely given up by the second period. Even with the gift of two minutes of five on three, they looked listless and it led to Maddens (technically Ozolinshs) short handed marker. This series looks over.
Now I’m on the Colorado/Dallas game (this is where all those “Nah. I don’t need to watch the game. You watch what you want.” nights during the regular season pay off ) One of the announcers is cracking me up. He sounds like some WWII movie news reel announcers.
Trust me. You don’t want to know how the game is going. You don’t want to watch the recap. I’ll just say that the Rangers have given up. The way they played, the series is over. Spare yourself the pain.