The Washington Capitals keep surviving and the New York Rangers keep pushing themselves to the brink. The Caps beat the Rangers 2-1 last night in the lone NHL playoff game on the docket, and in doing so forced a Game 7 on Saturday afternoon in Madison Square Garden.
For the second straight game, the Rangers played a pretty good overall offensive game. They got shots—31 of them to be precise—and while I’d have liked to have seen more involvement from Marian Gaborik, he did get the team’s lone goal with less than a minute left in the game, while Ryan Callahan got four shots. But the danger for New York—and the hope for Washington—is that Braden Holtby is getting locked in again. New York’s hit him with 69 shots in the last two games and the kid has turned back 66.
I’m sure regular readers of TheSportsNotebook’s NHL playoff coverage must be sick of hearing me harp on this kid, but this is an extraordinary sports story. The 22-year-old started five games all season, only got the playoff gig because the two mediocre veterans in front him were hurt and all he’s done is first win a seven-game series against Boston’s Tim Thomas—in a series where the Double T was also locked in—and now he’s headed for a Game 7 against New York’s Henrik Lundqvist, who has only been the league’s most renowned goalie all season. And as the shot volume, both in this series and the Boston one attest, it’s Holtby, not good team defense, that’s doing this. It’s the equivalent of an unknown rookie quarterback—let’s just say Kirk Cousins, since we’re on a Washington D.C. team—jumping into the playoffs and calmly winning shootouts against Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees.
Washington got on the board first, with Alex Ovechkin scoring on a power play goal, assisted by fellow veterans Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green. Backstrom then delivered an assist to forward Jason Chimera, who stayed aggressive offensively in getting five shots.
There’s two days off in the NHL playoffs now. Tomorrow we’ll post a preview of the Phoenix-Los Angeles Western Conference finals—no schedule has been announced, but I’m still thinking it makes the most sense to begin on Sunday.
The New Jersey Devils became the third team to punch their ticket to the conference finals in the NHL playoffs and the first one to move forward in the East. In Tuesday’s lone playoff game, the Devils beat Philadelphia on the road 3-1 to clinch the series in five games.
Philadelphia played without center Claude Giroux, suspended for a hit in Game 4 and whose passing ability keys their offense. If it were just about this one game the Flyers would have a valid excuse, because without Giroux that had no one to create flow and the Devils turned in a terrific team defensive effort, holding a normally potent attack to less than 30 shots and Martin Brodeur played an excellent game in goal, stopping 27 of 28 shots. The veteran Brodeur may not be the elite stopper of his prime, but we have to note that in the two games in these playoffs were New Jersey had played to advance (Game 7 against Florida in the first round and then last night), Brodeur has delivered 71 saves and allowed only two goals. New Jersey also played a clean defensive game, as the Flyers got just one power play—something their undermanned offense could surely have used more of.
And while we can give Philly an excuse for last night, we can’t explain away the entire dismantling New Jersey put over the past week. Forwards Zach Parise and Ilya Kovalchuk were solid all series long, and last night was no different. Parise wasn’t able to get on the board, but he was active with five shots and keeping offensive flow moving. Kovalchuk delivered an early assist and then with a 2-1 lead in the third period, it was his slapshot with 15 minutes left that all but sealed the Devils’ advancement.
New Jersey now awaits the winner of the NY Rangers-Washington series and that goes to Game 6 tonight in D.C. The Capitals have pushed themselves to the brink all year and somehow pulled back safely and its do-or-die in the Verizon Center tonight. The media focus has been on how they gave away Game 5 with a foolish penalty at the end and the resulting power play enabled the Rangers to tie the game with seven seconds left and then win in overtime while the power play was still in effect. This is indeed a big story, but as noted in this space after the game, a bigger problem is that New York decisively outplayed Washington for the entire game, and only a great effort by 22-year-old Braden Holtby in goal made it a game. I want to see the Caps get Alex Ovechkin involved—he astonishingly made it through a pivotal Game 5 without taking a single shot. A big gun is worthless if it’s never fired. And I want to see the team defense win the battle with New York’s Ryan Callahan and Marian Gaborik and keep the two scorers off the puck. Because we don’t see those things, we will see a Rangers-Devils conference final, a rematch an epic battlethe teams had at that level in 1994.
There’s still no date for the Phoenix-Los Angeles opener in the Western Conference Finals. I’m guessing Sunday, but nothing’s official. If Washington and New York need a seventh game that will be Saturday, otherwise my best guess is that the East Finals would open that same day. Whenever the schedule is announced, TheSportsNotebook will have previews of both series in anticipation of the first puck drop.
The NHL’s Western Conference finals are set, as the Phoenix Coyotes finished off the Nashville Predators in five games to move forward to face the Los Angeles Kings. And while the Coyotes were reaching new heights for what’s been an embattled franchise, the Washington Capitals were reaching new heights in finding ways to torture their loyal fan base, as they dropped a heartbreaker in New York. TheSportsNotebook looks back on both games and ahead to Tuesday night’s lone game…
Phoenix 2 Nashville 1: The Predators did what they had to and hammered Phoenix goalie Mike Smith with 33 shots, while shutting down the Coyote attack and limiting them to 17 shots. But for the third time this series, the Preds got an unsatisfactory outing from goalie Pekka Rinne, who allowed two goals, while Smith turned back 32 of 33. It’s generally accepted in the NHL playoffs that not only does a goalie have to sustain his regular season level of play, he has to lift it. Rinne, one of the league’s best, went in the opposite direction this series, with subpar games all three times in Phoenix. Nashville is not a great offensive team—even with the 33 shots, the problems of depending too heavily on the defenseman showed, as Shea Weber’s seven shots were easily the most on the team last night. Phoenix is built around one singularly great goaltender who continued to carry his team. Nashville is built on a deeper team defensive concept, but that doesn’t work when it only takes 17 shots to score twice. Congratulations to the Phoenix Smiths—we may as well name the team after the guy—as they get set to host the first two games against Los Angeles.
NY Rangers 3 Washington 2 (OT): Washington was seven seconds away from stealing a road win at Madison Square Garden and taking control of the series, when the Rangers tied the game and then won it a minute and a half into overtime. The Caps now trail this series 3-2 in games, and they’re a triple-overtime game plus seven seconds away from having closed it out in five. For a franchise desperate to win its first Stanley Cup and exorcise years of frustration, this one’s reaching new heights. But we also have to acknowledge that as close as Washington came to winning this game, they were not the better team on the ice last night. The New York defense played its best game of the postseason, limiting Washington to 18 shots and astonishingly holding Alex Ovechkin without a shot. While Ovechkin did get an assist, it’s probably a bigger miracle they were seven seconds from winning than it is that New York finally tied it. Ovechkin’s non-activity contrasts sharply with Ranger stars Marian Gaborik and Ryan Callahan who combined for 12 shots and helped keep the pressure on Capital goalie Braden Holtby, whom they peppered with 38 shots. Cut the kid a break—to hold off that kind of sustained attack, most of it coming from the team’s best players all game long is almost impossible.
New Jersey can reach the conference finals tonight when they visit Philadelphia. The Flyers got word that center Claude Giroux is suspended one game for a hit in Game 4. Giroux is one of the NHL’s best passing centers and the key to a prolific offense. To take him away is like the NBA suspending Chris Paul from the LA Clippers. I don’t write this to say the NHL was wrong in handing out its sentence, but to illustrate how big an impact this will have on Philly. I would say that they’ll have to do it with defense and goaltending, but I don’t have a laugh track to insert here. Between a weakened Flyer team tonight and a home game in Game 6, if New Jersey can’t avoid a Game 7, they deserve to lose. As for Philly, you have to take all the problems and turn them into an opportunity—if they can win without Giroux, all the pressure goes on the Devils the rest of the way.
Alex Ovechkin answered the critics who say his lessened ice time in these playoffs is the reason the Washington Capitals are still hanging around. In a Game 4 that was awfully close to must-win at home, Ovechkin scored in the first period to set the tone, laid a big hit in the second—and stayed involved in the offense throughout, as the Caps grabbed a 3-2 win over the New York Rangers and tied the series two games apiece in the lone NHL game of Saturday.
After falling behind 1-0, New York rallied behind Artem Anisov, who first scored and then fed Marian Gaborik for another goal, both sandwiched around a Caps score and the game was tied going into the third period. With five minutes to play and Washington on the power play, defenseman Mike Green scored what held up as the game-winner.
Washington won the battle of shots 26-20 and the fact four came from Ovechkin and four more from Alexander Semin tells you they were high-quality shots. Conversely, while Gaborik continues to start scoring, he was limited to two shots and fellow scoring forward Ryan Callahan was a complete non-factor. The Rangers failed to seriously test Braden Holtby, the kid goalie who looks more like one who had a magic two weeks against Boston and Tim Thomas, then a real Stanley Cup-quality goaltender. New York goalie Henrik Lundqvist continues to oscillate between championship-caliber and frustrating, a circumstance that makes me wonder how many heart attacks and nervous breakdowns the Rangers will be responsible for in the fan base if they keep this run going all the way through the playoffs. The human psyche is just not made to go and up and down that many times.
There’s two games today and the NBC game this afternoon at 3 PM ET is Los Angeles’ effort to close out a stunning sweep against St. Louis. Remember, Vancouver was able to win a Game 4 in the Staples Center with all the money on the table. Now St. Louis has to at least give their fans another home game with a win here. Then in prime-time it’s Philadelphia-New Jersey. As this series unfolds, the inconsistency of Flyer center Claude Giroux is becoming a storyline. He doesn’t need to score, but the offense has to run through him to be effective, so let’s see how active one of the league’s best passers will be against one of the league’s best team defenses.
The Phoenix Coyotes have moved to within one win of advancing, as they got a critical road win against Nashville in Game 4. On a quiet night in the NHL with just this one game, it was even quieter, as virtually all the action took place in the first period.
Coyote forward Shane Doan got the game’s only goal with about five minutes left in a period that saw each team take three penalties apiece, including a fight that created a 4-on-4 situation for five minutes. After that the play got clean, the defenses settled in and with two great goaltenders in Mike Smith and Pekka Rinne, it was lights out.
Smith, after a rough performance in Phoenix’s Game 3 loss, came back and turned away all 25 Nashville shots. Rinne saved 23 of 24. The fairly modest shot volume tells you the defenses were doing the job in front of the goalies and further delving into the box score shows the best offensive players weren’t getting the looks. Although I guess I big part of that comes from the fact Phoenix has no great offensive players—but even their good ones—Radim Vrbata and Ray Whitney, didn’t get many opportunities, and Nashville’s shot leader was defenseman Ryan Suter with four. The Preds are a team dependent on their defenseman for offense as well as D, and the lack of a great scorer on the frontline certainly shows in situations like this.
Saturday’s another one game day, but New York’s crucial Game 4 in Washington will be nationally televised by NBC at 12:30 PM ET. Bounce-back is going to be the big theme of this one as the teams come off their triple overtime battle on Wednesday night. So far in this series, the Rangers have gotten their key offensive people involved, and Marian Gaborik seems to coming to life. If the Capitals defense can’t develop an appropriate response it’s going to be very tough for them to win any more games, much less the series. The shot totals for Gaborik and Ryan Callahan are the hidden stat I’m watching in this one.
There was more overtime in the East and more unlikely domination in the West, and Los Angeles and New Jersey won last in the NHL playoffs. TheSportsNotebook looks back on both games and ahead to Friday night…
Los Angeles 4 St. Louis 2: The Kings have a 3-0 lead in games, as the complete disappearance of the St. Louis team that won the Central Division remains the biggest mystery of these playoffs. If you base the size of a surprise on the seed (say that real fast—then try and imitate Danny Kaye’s performance here in the Court Jester), then 8th-seeded LA’s win over Vancouver in the first round would be bigger. But St. Louis was much better suited to avoid a playoff upset, with great goaltending and sound defense. As it turns out, the goaltending has been lacking for three games. For a series with two teams built on defense, it’s appropriate that it was Los Angeles defenseman Drew Doughty who stepped up the biggest last night. He and center Anze Kopitar combined on an assist for the game’s first goal. St. Louis tied it on a goal from Chris Stewart in the second period, but the Kings countered with two more, including a Doughty/Kopitar assist. After Stewart scored his second goal to make the game close, Doughty finished it off with a goal at the 12-minute mark. To me, the benchmark of a better team playing inexplicably poor in a playoff series—not just having bad luck, but seeming so completely out of it—is the Oakland A’s in the 1990 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. The Blues seemed determine to rival that, with Brian Elliot having forgotten how to stop a shot in the goal, with LA just needing 22 attempts to light the lamp four times.
New Jersey 4 Philadelphia 3 (OT): The Flyers scored first, with Danny Briere and Jaromir Jagr each briefly forgoing their scoring role to combine on an assist. But Ilya Kovalchuk first fed Patrik Elias to tie the game and then scored himself to give the Devils a 2-1 lead. Philadelphia tied it in the second period. Then Zach Parise scored on a feed from Elias, before Briere tied it up for the Flyers. The teams played over 17 minutes of overtime before Kovalchuk dished another assist, finding Alexi Ponikarovsky for the game-winner. I’m convinced the overriding theme of the series is that the New Jersey’s key offensive players are into the game. Between Parise, Kovalchuk and Elias you’re getting constant offensive activity, and if that continues to hold, the Devils can make up for the Flyers’ overall offensive talent edge. Elias has outplayed rival center Claude Giroux, who was not heard from last night and the Philly offense works best when Giroux, one of the best passers in the league is at the heart of it.
The sequence of Game 4s start tonight with Nashville hosting Phoenix and the home team looking to tie the series. Phoenix goalie Mike Smith had a poor game in Game 3 after what’s been an otherwise impeccable playoff run. Nashville goalie Pekka Rinne broke a string of two bad games to start this series with a big performance in Game 3. I sense a great Smith-Rinne battle in the works tonight.
The New York Rangers and Washington Capitals provided the latest demonstration of why the NHL needs to use the shootout in overtime. The Rangers and Caps played into the third overtime before Marian Gaborik scored the game-winner for New York in a 2-1 final.
I know hockey purists don’t like the shootout because they feel it’s gimmicky. But is it really less authentic than having exhausted players skate around interminably just hoping a puck finds the back of the net? The style of play in any sport evolves as the game goes on, so I don’t see the problem with a shootout. I certainly wouldn’t go to it as quickly as in the regular season, where the teams only play a five-minute overtime. Playoff hockey should have at least a full 20-minute OT session before we settle it this way, but the shootout is an exciting way to end a game. And you can’t tell me there weren’t large numbers of fans for both teams—those with a vested rooting interest in who won the game—who didn’t just secretly want somebody to score and end this thing. That should never happen and a shootout can stop it.
Now, on to New York’s win itself. You’ll notice I mentioned Gaborik scoring the OT goal. He also had an assist to Ryan Callahan on a power play goal in the second period. The absence of Gaborik from the offense has been a prominent of theme of TheSportsNotebook’s discussion of New York’s playoff run. He got involved with seven shots—given the fact this was almost two full games played, that’s as dramatic as it might otherwise be, but Gaborik was more involved, and more effective when he was.
The Western Conference semifinal game got settled early as Nashville got two early goals off Phoenix and it stood up the rest of the way in a 2-0 win. Predator goalie Pekka Rinne returned to his outstanding form of the regular season and in the first round as he turned back the Coyotes on a night they didn’t play badly on offense. Phoenix generated 32 shots on Rinne and most of their key frontline people—Radim Vrbata and Shane Doan primarily—were involved in the attack. But Rinne did what a goalie has to do and just put a team on his back.
Nashville still trails Phoenix 2-1 in games, while New York has a 2-1 lead over Washington. The other two semi-final series have their Game 3s tonight…
*St. Louis goes to Los Angeles desperate for a win, having dropped the first two at home. The Kings have Dustin Brown playing like he’s Wayne Gretzky—okay, that might be a little extreme, but what other King great can I compare him too? The Blues win by keeping games tight and playing sound defense, so there will be a lot of nervous moments for their fans tonight, but given the team’s style of play its imperative they not confuse urgency with panic.
*New Jersey and Philadelphia take their contrast in styles to Meadowlands. If the Flyers get 30 shots a game, that’s too much for Martin Brodeur to handle at this stage of his career, and against the quality of talent in the Philly offense. But the New Jersey defense coalesced in front of their goaltender for Game 2 and has to do the same again tonight.
The New Jersey Devils did what they had to do in Philadelphia last night, and even though it took a couple periods for it to payoff, it was the complete team concept that delivered the Devils a 4-1 win and a 1-1 series tie against the Flyers in last night’s only NHL playoff game.
Philadelphia got an early goal, but the Devils got settled into lockdown defense and the Philly offense, one of the most prolific in the league all season and the best so far in the playoffs, couldn’t get a shot off, having just 11 shots through two periods and 20 for the game. Meanwhile, New Jersey was staying aggressive. They got 25 shots in periods 1 & 2, but still trailed 1-0 as Flyer goalie Ilya Bryzgalov looked like he was finally ready to earn even a fraction of the nine-year $51 million deal he got to be the man who can put this team over the hump in June. But the Devils kept pounding and they eventually broke through with four goals in the final period. They were evenly dispersed throughout the period and nine players got credit for a point so there was literally no time when Jersey didn’t have productive players on the ice in the third period.
It was an impressive display of hockey in a situation the team really needed to win. After the game the Flyers’ players and coaches blamed themselves for exposing Bryzgalov to too great a degree—and with 34 shots allowed, that’s fair enough. But at $51 million it’s also fair enough for Flyers fans to expect at least one “get me one goal tonight and we’ll win” kind of effort from the goaltender. He’s playing better than in the Pittsburgh series, but goalie is still an issue with Philadelphia and this series heads across the border into New Jersey.
All the series are two games in right now, with both Eastern Conference series’ tied, and in the West, Los Angeles and Phoenix having jumped out to 2-0 leads, over St. Louis and Nashville respectively. Tonight it’s NY Rangers-Washington and Phoenix-Nashville.
In the Caps-Rangers series, the lack of playing time for Alex Ovechkin is becoming a bigger media story. The star played only 13-plus minutes in Game 2. Look, I understand Washington needed to be more defensive-oriented to avoid previous playoff flameouts, but this is over the top. You’re talking about one of the best players in hockey playing less than a quarter of the game! It makes even less sense when there’s a correlation between Ovechkin getting his shots—even when he’s not scoring—and the Capitals offensive success. It’s one thing to become defense-oriented, it’s another to turn an elite scorer into a role player, as though he’s just a sixth man coming off the bench or a #3 wide receiver in football.
There’s less mystery in the Phoenix-Nashville game, in the shadow of Grand ‘Ol Opry, but more urgency. The Predators have played some bad hockey in the first two games and even though they are the lower seed, they’re favored in this series—the Coyotes only have the #3 seed by virtue of winning a weak Pacific Division. I wish I could say something more analytical or inspired than “they need to play like they’re the better team, but until they can get a win under their belt, that’s all this is about.
It can’t be shocking that the St. Louis Blues lost last night to the Los Angeles Kings in Game 2 of the NHL’s Western Conference semi-final—I’m surprised to be sure, that they’ve dumped the first two games of this series at home, but home ice matters less in the NHL than any other sport, and with a goalie like the Kings’ Jonathan Quick, they’re going to be in every game. What has to be considered shocking is the way St. Louis completely melted down right from the start. TheSportsNotebook recaps this, as well as the New York-Washington game from last night in the NHL playoffs, and looks ahead to tonight.
Los Angeles 5 St. Louis 2: Team defense and goaltending have been the St. Louis calling card this season and the reason they were the #2 seed in the West. Both qualities were nowhere apparent in the first twenty minutes of action last night. LA center Brad Richards took a pass from Dustin Penner and gave the Kings a quick goal before the crowd could get settled in. Then Dustin Brown, a big emergence in these playoffs, fed center Anze Kopitar, a player Los Angeles needs to get rolling. A 2-0 lead with Quick in goal has you thinking lights-out already, but the Kings had more to come. Penner delivered another assist, and then the Brown-to-Kopitar combo lit the lamp and it was 4-zip Kings by the end of the period. Did I miss anything? Oh, yes, the second of those goals came on the power play—the St. Louis power play.
Brown cashed in another assist before the game was over, but what has to alarm St. Louis—aside from the 0-2 series hole, the two impending road games and the horrible start—is Los Angeles didn’t play some extraordinary game. They got 21 shots in goal, which against the Blue defense and Brian Elliot usually can spell shutout. The Kings were whistled for penalties and St. Louis got nine power play chances—but that shorthanded goal Los Angeles scored was the only one on any of the nine. For those that don’t follow hockey regularly, to illustrate how many power plays that is, note that the Rangers-Capitals game we’re about to discuss had a combined six for both teams. I’ve agitated for St. Loo to play Elliot in goal over Jaroslav Halak and the latter’s injury—he’s now expected out the rest of this series with a bad ankle—made the decision for St. Louis coach Ken Hitchcock. But Elliot didn’t make those of us in his camp look very smart last night in a pretty big game.
Washington 3 NY Rangers 2: Ranger goalie Henrik Lundqvist didn’t have a meltdown, nor is his status the subject of any real debate. But hockey observers do wonder whether Lundqvist can translate regular season excellence into postseason dominance. Last night in MSG gave the critics some material. Washington, after a completely impotent offensive showing in Game 1, came out with two early goals, including an assist by Joel Ward, the man who scored the Game 7 OT goal against Boston in the first round. Trailing 2-0, the Ranger offense got its key people involved. Marian Gaborik fed Dustin Richards to cut the lead in half. Nobody scored again until the third period, when Ryan Callahan tied the game on a power play feed from Richards. But nobody creates havoc through their activity on the offensive end like Washington’s Alex Ovechkin and with a 7 ½ minutes left he scored a power play goal of his own that stood and the Capitals had tied the series at a game apiece.
New York did a good job in getting Richards, Gaborik and Callahan to all be a part of the offense. Now the shots need to be distributed more to the latter two. Richards, an excellent passing center, took five shots, more than Gaborik and Callahan, scoring forwards, took combined. Now Richards shooting is better than mediocre talent or defenseman launching the puck, but the New York offense will be its highest level if its best scorers are taking the shots (ingenious theory, huh?). Contrast that with Ovechkin, who got seven shots at the net. Get your big guns enough shots, and they’ll find the back of the net eventually. And overall, a mediocre outing from Lundqvist, who got reasonable defensive protection and only faced 25 shots.
There’s only one game on the NHL schedule tonight and it’s New Jersey-Philadelphia for Game 2. Even though the Devils lost Game 1 in overtime, I thought they did a good job defensively against a potent Philly attack. If they can keep the shots under 30 and prevent Claude Giroux and Sean Courtierer, the centers on the top two lines from creating situations, New Jersey will win. And I think they’ll get it done tonight. By the conclusion of this evening, all four series will have two games under their belt.
The nation’s two biggest cities had reason to be happy in hockey yesterday, as the New York Rangers and Los Angeles Kings, coming from opposite ends of the playoff bracket, as well as the national topography, each posted 3-1 wins to open their respective conference semi-finals. TheSportsNotebook recaps both games and looks ahead to Sunday’s playoff doubleheader…
NY Rangers 3 Washington 1: The defenses were in lockdown mode on both sides here. Alex Ovechkin might as well have stayed in D.C. and gone to a Robert Griffin III draft party for all the impact he made on this game, and gone to an RG3 draft party. The Caps got only 18 shots on New York goalie Henrik Lundqvist and when you have that little offensive activity, you’re lucky to score once.
What’s frustrating for Washington is that their own defense answered the bell. They allowed only 14 shots, and four of them came from defenseman Ryan McDonagh, who is the type of player the Caps would prefer launching the puck. But Braden Holtby let three in the net, including two in a 90-second timespan in the third period that decided the game. The 22-year-old goalie was so dominant in the first round over Boston, that in a discussion yesterday with a friend who’s a Caps/Redskins fan, I asked where he thought Holtby ranked along with RG3 and Stephen Strasburg in the pantheon of Beltway athletic stars in the early twenties. We reached the conclusion that Holtby was on a temporary high where he could challenge Strasburgh for the two-spot in that pecking order (NFL quarterbacks by definition have to be #1 in today’s sports culture), but that the goalie could lose his status by Friday if he cools off. Game 1 met that cooling-off criteria.
Chris Kreider was the offensive hero for New York, scoring the third period go-ahead goal and then having the lead assist (in hockey, up to two players can be credited with an assist) on the clincher. The Rangers also have to be pleased about the work they got from their centers, with Derek Stepan being involved on the assist to Kreider, and then Brad Richards being the one who scored the third goal.
Los Angeles 3 St. Louis 1: Both goalies were tough yesterday, as St. Louis’ Brian Elliot and LA’s Jonathan Quick went at each other in a pitcher’s duel that would have made Chris Carpenter and Clayton Kershaw proud. The Blues scored early on a goal from David Backes, but it was tied by the end of the first period, and then the Kings got a shorthanded score in the second period. Dustin Brown, whose scoring outburst stunned Vancouver in the opening round, got an assist on this goal.
The game stayed scoreless until the final fifteen seconds when Los Angeles tacked one on in an empty net situation. The defenses for both teams were decent, allowing a manageable 29 shots on goal. Elliot was good, with his 26 saves adding up to a 92.9% save rate, which would be among the league’s best. T Quick did what NHL goalies have to do at this time of year and that’s lift his game to another level, and his 96% save rate did that.
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The New Jersey-Philadelphia series will be the last of the conference semifinals to open today, and you can read TheSportsNotebook’s series preview here. We also have Game 2 of Nashville-Phoenix from the desert, with the Coyotes looking to win their second straight. Throughout Phoenix’s series with Chicago in the first round I talked about how the Blackhawks needed to double up on the Coyotes in shots to make up for a goaltending mismatch. In Nashville’s case, they need to bring a defensive performance that makes scoring virtually impossible. Pekka Rinne in goal will play better than he did in Game 1 and Phoenix’s mediocre offensive talent can be locked down by defenseman Shea Weber and Ryan Suter. If the Rangers and Capitals could hold each other under 20 shots, than Nashville can do it to Phoenix. I want to see the Predators make that happen and then somehow sneak out a goal against Coyote goaltender Mike Smith to win it.
The Phoenix Coyotes picked up right where they left off as they began play in the Western Conference semifinals at home last night against Nashville. They were outplayed up and down the ice. And goalie Mike Smith picked up where he left off, as he put the ‘Yotes on his back and carried them to a 4-3 win in overtime to take a 1-0 series lead.
Radim Vrbata was one Phoenix forward who got active early and throughout the game, getting five shots on goal and he cashed in an early chance off an assist from Ray Whitney. Before the period was out, Nashville had tied it up. In the second period, Phoenix’s Rotislav Klelsa scored early and had an assist late, each sandwiched around another Predators’ goal and the home team held a 3-2 lead in the final period.
At this point, Nashville launched a massive assault on Smith that was left unanswered by Phoenix. The Predators got 16 shots in the final period, compared to just one for the Coyotes. If you’ve been following Phoenix throughout these playoffs, you might wonder why I keep singing Smith’s praises so much when teams seem to keep getting late game-tying goals against him—and they did again on Friday night, with less than five minutes left. It’s because if you put any goalie under this kind of fire, eventually one is going to slip through. Nashville got 42 shots for the game compared to Phoenix’s 24 and only an uncharacteristic off-night from Predator goalie Pekka Rinne prevented them from winning. As it was, Martin Erat scored on the power play to force overtime.
Smith’s 39 saves were able to keep Phoenix alive and Whitney came through early in the overtime session, scoring the game-winner.
The I-295 Interstate that connects New Jersey and Philadelphia will anything but the road less traveled over the coming week-plus. The Devils and the Flyers are set to tangle in the NHL’s Eastern Conference semi-finals and TheSportsNotebook previews the coming Border War…
Philadelphia has home-ice advantage, holding the #5 seed, while New Jersey is #6. The Flyers are the more rested team, having closed their series win over Pittsburgh out last Sunday while New Jersey went to double overtime just last night to win Game 7 in Florida. But while the Flyers may have been the one Eastern Conference semifinalist not to go the distance to win its opener, they were anything but impressive.
Goaltending problems are not new in Philly, but now that they don’t have Pittsburgh’s Marc-Andre Fleury to beat up on, the Flyers are left with the reality that their own netminder, Ilya Bryzgalov, was woeful in the first-round series, as Philly and Pittsburgh played what was easily the worst defense in the postseason. Furthermore, Philadelphia did not execute well in the five-on-five game, relying instead on hammering the Pens with power plays. The negative to this is that’s not going to work against New Jersey, a team whose penalty kill is among the league’s best. The positive is that the Flyers’ poor play in 5-on-5 is a departure from an area that was a team strength all year along. Perhaps it was just a one-series aberration.
One area the favorites have no problems in is scoring goals, an area that holds a substantial edge over their rivals. Philly’s offense was the second-best in the NHL during the season, while Jersey was in the middle of the pack. The Flyers do a proportionately excellent job at shot generation, while the Devils are terrible in this area. With center Claude Giroux being one of the game’s best passing centers, and Scott Hartnell and Jaromir Jagr on the wings, Philadelphia will challenge a New Jersey defense that is equally strong at stopping shots.
New Jersey goalie Martin Brodeur was heroic in his team’s Game 7 win over Florida, but the Devils’ defense must return to more of its regular season form against Philadelphia. Stopping 40-plus shots against a weak Florida frontline is one thing. Doing it against a Giroux-led attack is quite another. The Devils were one of the league’s better defensive teams because they were precisely that—a team—and they will need to be again if they’re going to stop this offense.
I don’t pick bad defensive teams to win at this level of the playoffs in any sport, much less the NHL. So I’m picking New Jersey to win this series, but if they’re going to take advantage of Philly’s lousy goaltending situation they need to stay on the attack.
The Devils’ have capable scorers. Ilya Kovalchuk and Zach Parise are the most noteworthy and the ones I mentioned most frequently through the first round, but we can also include David Clarkson, Adam Henrique and Petr Sykford as nice supporting pieces. The Flyer defense around the net is not bad—they are in the league’s upper third in preventing shots and certainly you can’t beat a goalie if you’re not attacking him. There were too many instances where New Jersey’s key people seemed to float in and out of the Florida series and they were fortunate to escape. I think they come out more consistent this time and win the series in six games, but if there’s any letup, the Flyers have the talent to exploit what the Panthers couldn’t.