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Nashville-Phoenix series

NHL Playoffs: Phoenix Shuts Down Nashville

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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.

NHL Playoffs: Rangers-Caps Marathon A Case For The Shootout

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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.

Flyers Go OT For Game 1 Win

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Philly-New Jersey was the last of the NHL’s four conference semi-final series to swing into action on Sunday, but the Flyers and Devils made it worth the wait, going into overtime and requiring the puck to find the back of the net not once, but twice in the extra session. TheSportsNotebook recaps Sunday’s games and looks ahead to Monday…

Philadelphia 4 New Jersey 3 (OT): The Devils got off to a good start when two players that need to be involved teamed up on a goal, as Zach Parise took a pass from Patrick Elias. Incidentally, I have to know if I’m the only person, who, whenever I hear of an “Elias” in the Jersey/Big Apple area thinks of the fictional mob boss in Person Of Interest. There are more nuances in his story than there is in this series. Back on the hockey rink, Philly opened up in the second, including a goal by Danny Briere, and got out to a 2-1 lead. Parise and Ilya Kovalchuk then fed Travis Zajac to tie the game. Again, a positive for the New Jersey offense as more players that are critical to their attack are showing up ready to go.

What wasn’t a positive for the Devils, is that their team defense lost what’s going to be a great series-long battle with the Flyers’ offense. Philadelphia got 36 shots on goal, and including seven in less than five minutes of overtime play. Goalie Martin Brodeur will not stand up to that kind of heat, and eventually he broke here. Center Claude Giroux scored on a power play in the third period, although the Devils were able to tie it 3-3. The NJ offense wasn’t great, getting 26 shots, but that’s enough to get you three goals a game against mediocre Flyer goalie Ilya Bryzgalov. In the OT session, Briere scored what looked to be the game-winner, until replays showed he kicked it into the net. Undeterred, Briere calmly did it again minutes later and Philly had Game 1 in hand.

I picked New Jersey to win this series and if they continue to get this kind of offensive involvement from Parise, Kovalchuk, Elias and Zajac, I think they’ll figure their defense out. But the Flyer offense showed they won’t pull a Vancouver and slink quietly into the night.

Phoenix 5 Nashville 3: The Coyote coaches and players called this their best performance of the playoffs, and they are absolutely right. Playing against a very good defensive team and an even better goalie, Phoenix attacked the net, got 39 shots and was able to finish, overcoming an uncharacteristically mediocre showing from their own goalie Mike Smith. But at some point in these playoffs, the ‘Yotes were going to need a win that didn’t come on Smith’s back. Antoine Vermette scored an early goal, and then Phoenix broke open a 1-1 tie with three goals in the second period. Offensive key Radim Vrbata scored and had an assist, while veteran Shane Doan scored. Nashville got some offensive involvement from Ryan Suter, who scored in the second period to keep it close at 3-2 and scored again in the third to cut the lead to 4-3. But Doan—whose last name is pronounced “Don” and has been dubbed “Doan Of The Desert” by Grantland’s hockey writer Katie Baker, scored again and we had the 5-3 final. If this was. Nashville has played two lackluster hockey games to start the series. Perhaps a return home for Games 3 & 4 will alert them that their situation is getting dire in a hurry. This is the one series with two games in, and Phoenix is halfway home.

Tonight’s it’s Washington-NY Rangers and LA Kings-St. Louis. TheSportsNotebook has stressed offensive involvement from key players, even when they aren’t scoring and both the Caps, with Alex Ovechkin and the Rangers, with Marian Gaborik, have players who need to get active. The Kings-Blues is the more defensive-oriented series and I’m just looking for the favorite Blues to play more cohesive defense in a series where there is no margin for error.

NHL 2nd Round Preview: Nashville-Phoenix

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The NBC coalition televising the NHL playoffs undoubtedly would have preferred that Detroit and Chicago reach the Western Conference semi-finals rather than Nashville and Phoenix. But the Predators and the Coyotes it is, and even if this series doesn’t have marquee value for TV, it’s got solid value for hockey fans. TheSportsNotebook previews that Nashville-Phoenix battle that starts in the desert on Friday night…

I’ve been saying it throughout the playoffs and it’s certainly obvious to those closely following the NHL scene, but Phoenix is a one-man show. Fortunately that one man is between the pipes and its goalie Mike Smith. The Coyotes were able to win an admittedly weak Pacific Division during the regular season in spite of ranking 18th in offense, being one of the worst in allowing shots on goal and having a lousy power play. Essentially any statistical category that didn’t involve Smith was a weak point for Phoenix.

>The first round series against Chicago bore out that same pattern. The 40 shots a game that Smith faced on average through that six-game series was the highest allowed by any defense in the playoffs. Only two players between the goals were worthy of mention for Phoenix and only one of those was for a good reason. While Raffi Torres got deserved negative publicity for his vicious cheap shot on Chicago’s Marian Hossa and subsequent suspension for 25 games (basically the rest of the playoffs),center Antoine Vermette was a force for good, scoring four goals and helping the ‘Yotes win a series where the first five games went to overtime.

Nashville brought a better-balanced team into the playoffs, with a top-flight goaltender of their own in Pekka Rinne, who promptly outplayed Detroit’s Jimmy Howard in the Preds surprisingly easy five-game win over the Red Wings. As a team Nashville was somewhat of an anomaly during the regular season—they allow a lot of shots, but still rank 10th in overall defense. That’s explainable by Rinne’s brilliance, but the offense was able to be a Top 10 group in spite of ranking only 25th in shots. For some teams—notably Washington—this kind of disparity can be explained by the presence of an offensive superstar who increases the value of each shot. But Nashville’s offense has to come from its back end, with defenseman Ryan Suter and Shea Weber needing to instigate action with their passing. Neither one did so very well against Detroit, but Rinne picked them up. The entire Predators offense needs to be more involved and needs to pressure Smith consistently because a few targeted shots aren’t going to get it done here.

Suter and Weber should be able to take some risks on the offensive end, because even if they get caught on the wrong side of the ice, Phoenix lacks the game-breaking offensive talent to really cash in open ice situations. Ray Whitney may be able to step up and contribute more offensively for the Coyotes, but it’s not as though he’s Alex Ovechkin waiting to break out.

In spite of Phoenix’s clear limitations, I still like this matchup. The series against Chicago showed that you have to generate 35-40 shots a night against Smith just to have a chance and I really believe this is a goalie inviting a team and a town to hop on his back while he carries them. The Coyotes will only be beaten by a truly complete team. Chicago lacked the goaltending. Nashville lacks the ability to generate consistent offensive pressure. In another series filled with heart-stoppers, Phoenix prevails in six.