The New York Rangers and Anaheim Mighty Ducks, the teams with the best regular season records in their respective conferences, each held serve at home in Game 1 of their conference finals matchups. New York nipped Tampa 2-1 in a good battle at Madison Square Garden, while Anaheim got an early lead on Chicago and […]
The New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning rounded out the conference finals of the NHL playoffs over the last two nights. Here’s a look at how each team won their matchups with Washington and Montreal respectively… NY RANGERS OVER WASHINGTON IN 7 I was able to watch most of this series and it was […]
The second round of the NHL playoffs are halfway done, and the Chicago Blackhawks are the one team that has punched a ticket to the conference finals. The Blackhawks completed a four-game sweep of the Minnesota Wild last night in the Twin Cities. Here’s how Chicago did it… *If Minnesota was going to win this […]
I’m sure no one at NBC is complaining, because what the league does have are the three biggest American markets, along with a team from Canada that is only the most storied organization in the history of the sport. As conference finals go, you could do worse than Chicago, Los Angles, New York and Montreal as your foursome.
The Boston Bruins won the President’s Trophy, given to the team with the most regular season points, and the Bruins then ousted the Detroit Red Wings in five games to open the playoffs. But it all came undone in the second round, as Boston lost Game 7 last night at home to the Montreal Canadiens by a 3-1 count. How did it happen?
It would be a stretch to say the Boston Bruins are in a life-or-death spot in their NHL playoff series with the archrival Montreal Canadiens, trailing 2-1 in games after last nights’ 4-2 loss in Game 3. But the Bruins certainly need to have alarm bells going off and the biggest is the fact they’re most valuable asset—goaltender Tuuka Raask—is simply not getting it done in this series.
The Penguins, a team with immense offensive talent, can usually be relied on to fold up like a tent if they’re hit hard and forced into defensive games, which is usually what a postseason series against a genuinely good team amounts to. But after dropping Game 1 to the New York Rangers, the Penguins have won two straight games of the kind they usually blow
When the NHL playoffs began, my upset pick was Penguins-Blue Jackets series, with a pick of Columbus in seven games. My rationale was that Sergei Bobrovksy, the Vezina Trophy winner (the goaltending equivalent of the Cy Young Award) in 2013 would give the Blue Jackets the edge against a vulnerable Pittsburgh defense, at a time of year when defense and goaltending take on a bigger importance.
The NHL playoffs has its first team into the second round, as the Montreal Canadiens completed a four-game sweep of the Tampa Bay Lightning last night. Max Pacioretty scored with under a minute to play to break a 3-3 tie and bring an end to a series that looked even at the outset, but proved to be no contest
The Boston Bruins and Philadelphia Flyers bounced back, the Los Angeles Kings did not, and the Montreal Canadiens moved to within a game of advancing. Here’s a look back on the four games of Easter Sunday in the NHL playoffs…
Seven of the eight first-round series in the NHL playoffs played Game 1 over Wednesday and Thursday night. Here’s some thoughts on each of those games, plus a look at what’s ahead…
This is part of a series of posts previewing each of the four quadrants of the 2014 NHL playoffs. Below are the four teams that comprise the NHL Pacific Division bracket. We open with a big-picture look at each team and then close with brief comments on each first-round series matchup individually.