April 26, 2015
Ian Gooding
2015-04-26
Isles force Game 7, Wings gain advantage, Preds and Nucks go golfing.
Every year, at least one day comes around that I absolutely dread.
There's usually at least a few of them for me every year, for various reasons. But I'll focus on one particular day, because it's probably the most relevant to the subject matter of this website.
That's the day after the Vancouver Canucks are eliminated from the playoffs. It's like a hangover from a party that you'd rather soon forget about. (The day after that party being another day you absolutely dread, especially if you have to work or have an awkward conversation or two.)
Unfortunately, that for me day is today. But for a while, it seemed as though that day would be put off for at least a couple more days.
Not that I had any illusions that the Canucks would take the Cup this year. After all, they made some positive steps from the one-season Tortorella error era. But I at least thought they'd get by Calgary. But the never-say-die Flame train will keep on rolling all the way to Disneyland (no, the Flames didn't win the title yet, for those of you who know the commercials.)
But let's face it, if the Canucks can't hang onto a 3-0 lead, they deserve to get bounced from the playoffs. And that's exactly what I said after the score was 3-0. But after all was said and done, the Canucks were outshot 33-22 in this game. So you won't hear me arguing that the Canucks deserved to win this game, or the series. Or that officiating cost the Canucks the series (although it was far from the best I've ever seen). So now I'll focus on watching the Stanley Cup Playoffs as a (mostly) neutral observer.
But in a game like this, your best players have to step up. For Calgary, they finally did so. After being mostly invisible throughout the series, Jiri Hudler scored two goals and added two assists. Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan each scored a goal and added two assists. And Michael Ferland (two goals, one assist) has probably passed Brad Marchand as the player that Canucks fans most love to hate.
As for the Canucks, this series exposed them as a team whose core needs to get younger. Unfortunately, they probably can't with all the multi-year contracts on the team. The most interesting development may be in net, where I wouldn't be surprised if they try to shop Ryan Miller. From what I've seen from Eddie Lack, he looks like he is better than a backup, but still a long way from being one of the NHL's elite goalies. But he also has the potential to get better.
Prediction for the Flames/Ducks series, you ask? The Flames will keep on being the Flames and hang around games, making each game close the way that Winnipeg did with the Ducks in the first round. But the Ducks look like a nasty piece of business right now. If the Canucks managed to sneak past the Flames, even I wouldn't have given them much hope against the Ducks. In the end, expect the physical Ducks to have their way with the smaller Flames. Ducks in 6.
*
Hey, misery loves company. So Nashville Predators fans: Let's head down to the Honky Tonk and grab a malt liquor beverage or two. After all, you guys had both 2-0 and 3-1 leads in the first period of your game with Chicago.
For a while, this looked like it was going to be your season. But no Shea Weber means no second round. I only watched the final two minutes of this game, but I could see from the boxscore that the first-period two-goal effort from James Neal was wasted.
But hopefully there's no tear in your beer after what was a great season. Pekka Rinne was nominated for the Vezina Trophy. Filip Forsberg should have been nominated for the Calder Trophy. And Peter Laviolette should be nominated for the Jack Adams Award.
On the Filipside (pardon the pun), even though the Blackhawks made it to the second round, they still have some serious question marks in net. The goaltending pendulum swung again in Game 6, this time from super sleeper Scott Darling to struggling starter Corey Crawford. Darling allowed three goals on 12 shots in the first period before getting yanked for Crawford. It's not often that a goalie with a 4.19 goals-against average and an .850 save percentage will lead his team to the second round, but expect Crawford to start Game 1 of the next series against either Minnesota or St. Louis.
*
If there's one team that I'm genuinely happy for today, it's the New York Islanders. If Saturday's game was the final game at Nassau Coliseum before the Isles move to Brooklyn next season, then the Long Island fans received an amazing final performance.
A couple things impressed me about the Islanders in Game 6. First, the Islanders are managing things in spite of injuries on the back end to key defensemen Travis Hamonic, Lubomir Visnovsky, and Calvin de Haan. So if you watched this game, you probably thought that Nick Leddy (nearly 29 minutes) and Johnny Boychuk (27 minutes) were the only two defensemen left standing for the Isles. Good thing Garth Snow traded for both of them on one day.
The injuries also meant that former high first-round pick Thomas Hickey played 22 minutes. The other blueliners – Brian Strait, Scott Mayfield, and Matt Donovan – each received less than 20 minutes, with Mayfield and Donovan only seeing 10 minutes (although Donovan also received a 10-minute misconduct).
Not only were three regular defensemen missing, but the Isles also decided to scratch Anders Lee. One of the Geeks of the Year has been anything but a playoff sleeper so far, registering a single assist in Game 1 while being held to just 12 minutes in Game 5. I wonder if Lee was a healthy scratch, or if his scratch had anything to do with his fight with Tom Wilson early in Game 5.
Also, I was impressed by the Islanders' game-winning goal, where John Tavares took a hit from both Alex Ovechkin and Karl Alzner, yet still somehow managed to get the puck to Nick Leddy, who passed the puck to Nikolai Kulemin. This just goes to show that finishing your check isn't always the right choice. That was incredible how wide open Kulemin was on this play.