Ponds and Pucks

First, how did I do in the last round?
Wings/Flames (My Pick: Wings in 6) — Correct
Ducks/Wild (My Pick: Ducks in 5) — Correct
Canucks/Stars (My Pick: Stars in 7) — Right number of games, wrong team
Predators/Sharks (My Pick: Predators in 6) — Wrong
Sabres/Isles (My Pick: Sabres in 5) — Correct
Devils/Lightning (My Pick: Lightning in 6) — Wrong
Thrashers/Rangers (My Pick: Rangers in 6) — Right team, wrong number of games
Senators/Penguins (My Pick: Senators in 7) — Right team, wrong number of games
Let’s call it 3-3-2

Last night’s Stars/Canucks game had some nice play.  I particularly liked Joel Lundqvist’s goal in the first period — you could tell how much he had on that shot with the particularly loud clang that came off the pipe right before it went in.  That was, however, the last great moment for Dallas.  Vancouver took over and took the game.  There was a sea of white in the stands as their fans were waving towels and the level of support that they had makes me wish I lived in Canada.

Three stars for the first round:

1. Henrik Lundqvist (NYR) –  The Rangers took the Thrashers in 4 straight.  But they wouldn’t have been able to do it without their goalie who kept Atlanta under 3 goals per game in 3 out of 4 games.  The Rangers had a good (and sometimes great) offense, but it wouldn’t have meant anything if Lunqvist hadn’t been as superb as he was.
2. The Detroit Defense — In the 4 Detroit wins, the Flames scored 1 goal in each game.   But that’s not the incredible part.  Here’s the part to make you stand up and take notice, the number of shots taken by the Flames in each game: 20, 15, 24, 20 with the last one in 2 overtime periods.  Even in their 2 wins, the Flames only had 28 & 21 shots.  So Detroit gets credit for keeping them down and giving Hasek as much help as they could.
3. Joe Thornton (SJS) — This was a tough one.  I was looking through the Stars box scores looking for the key players and I kept coming back here.  Thornton had one key stat: 6 assists.  That’s what sold it for me.

The semi-finals start tomorrow night with two games at the same time.  This kills me, because the two game are Rangers/Sabres & Canucks/Ducks.  They can’t play the West Coast game any later than 7PM Eastern?  That’s 4PM local.  All I can do is hope that it’s a mistake on the web page.  I will break down the semi-finals tomorrow.  Until then, you stay classy, San Diego.