NHL playoff - general discussion

of course they deserved some of the penalties... i'm not saying san jose shouldnt have had zero powerplays here! but with 10 in the first 28 minutes, believe me there's alot of room for several that were legit and several that were straight fiction

ANYWAY... i'm also glad to see osgood back, they were sounding like the prophets of doom after he got hurt - tonight we see exactly how much life the BLUES have in 'em

oh and ugly smack just don't work for missouri pal - sorry but thats a dan marouelli call you're making there

 

Great win for the B's, I am so sick of the Canadiens diving and whinning after every questionable call. Kovalev needs to continue to play an not worry about trying to get a call.

 

As much as I hate to say this, but put a fork in the Wings. They lost the series in game 3, believe it or not. They just can't seem to stop the odd man rushes and Vocoun has gotten into their heads. The Preds will grind out a win against us on Friday and finish us off on Sunday. I don't know what the Wings are missing, but I am baffled that they can't figure out a way to beat them.

 

I wouldn't quite say the Wings are done yet, but there's some definite deja vu so far in Hockeytown...

Great win for the B's...

And what a performance by the Sharks to come out and then hold off the surging Blues. And now the perfect opportunity for San Jose to clinch this series at home, at the Shark Tank, in front of the die-hards.

 

obviously i'm quite far away from the situation, so i'm really curious what happened to the BLUES this season - past the first third of the season, they had the best record in the league... and then came january - i know they sorely missed macinnis and jackman all season, but they have debilitating injuries every season like clockwork and they've always handled it better than this - did quenneville lose them somehow somewhere? that vicious slide they went through for games 33-65 was the longest and worst i can remember them ever having... and yet they still finished nine games over .500! i'm almost glad i'm not watching every game as in all previous years

what happened this winter? i'd love to know if anybody has a good idea

 

1. Losing Barrett Jackman and Al MacInnis really hurt, like you said. Really, really hurt. Two of your top three defensemen right there.

2. The aftereffect of losing Scott Young and Tyson Nash. When Jackman went down, the Blues no longer had the irritant who could consistently take opponents out of their games. Nash used to do that, too. Not having Young has particularly hurt against SJ, because he torched the Sharks throughout his career. FWiW, Young had an off year in Dallas, anyway (but still scored on SJ...).

3. Disappointing points output from some good players.

4. See #1.

STL was one of the NHL's best teams, on paper (and on the ice at the beginning of the season), and probably could've won the Western Conference had things gone their way. That said, Blues fans have to be happy with the way the team finished the regular season, after flirting with not making the playoffs for the first time in team history. They'll be back next year.

*****

Way exciting game last night, with the Blues swarming at the end trying to get the equalizer. Sharks got two each from unusual suspects (Korolyuk and Thornton). I hope Thornton's okay. Looks like he twisted his leg when he got tangled up with Cajanek.

 

Now it's gonna take a re-run of the 2000 Eastern Conference Finals for the defending champs to stay alive in the East. Not that I think that's gonna happen. But funnier things have happened...

 

So how are the second round matchups decided? Are they randomly drawn or is it based on seeds?

 

They get reseeded.

So if, say, seeds 1,2,6 and 5 go through, 1 plays 6 and 2 plays 5.

 

actually they have made the playoffs every season since '79 - they did miss out a few times in the '70's

 

Before last night's game I thought that in a typical good Devils year, they would follow up the Game 3 win with a dominating, stifling, and really quite boring 1-0 or 2-0 win to knot the series. Brodeur would be a rock, and 1 goal would be enough to get them level. That's the way they've done it in the past in just this kind of situation, and I half-expected, half-hoped to see exactly that happen last night.

It didn't. And come what may on Saturday, I think it's safe to say this isn't going to be a Devils sort of year.

 

I too was excited about the Blues early in the year, but there are several things that went wrong, mostly due to the payroll freeze put in this season. The Blues failure to advance to the second round last year, especially painful after being up 3-1 in the series, cost them some good money. To keep their top players, they had to let go guys like Valeri Bure, Cory Stillman, and Martin Rucinsky. While they had some star power at forward, they had no quality depth. They hoped players like Bogunieki and Peter Senja would chip in. This worked early in the year, but it caught up to them eventually. For most of the season, Doug Weight has been playing with deadwood on the wings just wasting all of his creativity. Injuries to MacInnis and Jackman were also big, but at least Christian Backman has come in to help on defense.

Last year, the Blues could score plenty of goals. This year, they just don't have the same firepower.

 

i guess this combined with the jackman, macinnis and khavanov injuries is probably as good as explanation as any... but then i wonder why coach Q got fired - the sad part is they are getting the solid goaltending now and that's been the only thing missing from recent squads

 

It sounds like a very short-sighted decision designed to shake up the players. He's a very good coach, and he'll be back in the NHL very soon.

The GM Larry Pleau has received plenty of criticism this year for the lack of solid offensive players. The funny thing is he used to warn others about the danger of putting too much of your payroll into so few players like the Blues have now. In 2000 he was criticized for not going out and acquiring big name players since the Blues had so many good, young players, both in the NHL and the minors. It sounds like he gave into that in 2001 when he got Tkachuk at the trade deadline. (And by the way, you are right about goaltending. That 2001 team was just a solid goalie away from the Stanley Cup). The acquisition of Weight also drained the organization of young players.

The sad thing is that last year, it was looking like the Blues may have another shot of at least reaching the finals. They lead 3-1 on Vancouver and the Wild and Ducks were clearing out the top 3 teams. Then one of the strangest thing in the playoffs: A bunch of players got the flu. I'm not even talking about the flu as a code for a team trying to cover up an injury. A BUNCH OF PLAYERS ACTUALLY GOT THE FLU!!! Plus, MacInnis also hurt his shoulder early in that series. They just couldn't hold out any more and collapsed to Vancouver.

Oh well, Game 5 has almost started. We'll see what happens.

 

No worries. Wings bounce back with a crushing 4-1 win in game 5 and I expect they will close out Nashville in game 6.

 

Prior to last nights game, I was very much a "glass half-full" kind of guy. My fear was that the they would come out like they did in games three and four and not produce any goals again.

I just had to tell myself that if they can't beat the Preds in seven games, then they have absolutely no right to challenge for the Cup. I was getting sick of hearing the excuses from everyone. They finally came out and got Vocoun moving side to side. Daytsuk pulled his head out. They got a power play goal, finally. Shanahan gets the shorthander. And the Grinders did what they always do best. Hell, the only thing that didn't change was the goaltending. They played so well that you could have put a traffic cone in goal and they would've still won.

Having said all that, I think they'll drop game six. Everyone knows that anything can happen in game seven.

More than anything, I was just pissed that they weren't playing their game. And yes, I completely fell off the bandwagon. My chi was not balanced. Then again, I said I wasn't going to watch last night, but I still did. They're my team. I want to be there no matter what happens.

 

Nobody else has noted that San Jose was the first team to move to the Conference semis, so I might as well be the first...

The Blues tried hard to stave off elimination, but the Sharks just worked hard to keep them off the scoresheet after their first goal. If San Jose ends up facing Colorado in this next round, I expect an outright war... the "no-names" vs. the star-laden Avs.

Now my hope is the Devs can do what St. Louis couldn't....

 

You notice I didn't post until after game 5. I was just barely hanging on to the side of the bandwagon myself, after I really expected last night's performance to happen in game 4 and it didn't. I just hope they get by this series and move on, Nashville has played them really tough all season.

 

Got to see some of Game 3. GO FLAMES GO! I should be able to watch Game 6 tonight, it's on ESPN2. And I agree they could be this years' Ducks. Their relentless forechecking will drive the Wings even more insane than Nashville ever could. And as much as I've appreciated Nashville's spunk in the playoffs, they don't have anyone that compares to Iginla at all up front. He'll be 5 times tougher to move out of the way than the Preds forwards. A DET-CAL series in Round 2 has six game upset written all over it.

 

Jersey Is Done!!!!!

 

Dude, admit it. You're praying for a Calgary win because you don't want your Avs to play the Wings next.

 

I hope its Avs vs. wings next round. AVS will get be SWEPT! I hate colorado. Their fans are the biggest **************s. Forsberg, Kariya, Sakic, and those scrubs Tanguay and hejduk wont do anything. wings have lots more depth with 5 top quality defensemen. I just wish Roy and claude were still around to get their asses kicked.

 

Oh yeah, this is kind of random but: What's the situation with Pavel Bure? Is he gonna play again?