The Icing On The Week: Round Two – Week One

As discussed last week round one is now complete and we are straight back into the action with the Conference semi-finals both this coming week and the week passed. Pittsburgh, Chicago and Boston were the only teams to take advantage of their higher seeding in the opening round and those three outfits are, understandably, the frontrunners in a lot of people’s eyes.

President Trophy winners Chicago will be looking to break a ‘curse’ that has only seen seven regular season winners take Lord Stanley home in the same season. The last time was in 2007-08 when the Detroit Red Wings managed the feat, as they did on 2001-02. Since that second Red Wings hoodoo jinxer only Vancouver has managed to get to the final. Indeed four Pres Trophy winning teams since 2001-02 have bowed out of the postseason in the first round, those being Detroit 2005-06, San Jose 2008-09, Washington 2009-10 and Vancouver last year.

Many expected Chicago to steamroll their way to the Conference finals despite the curse but they have been given a reminder of quite how difficult the postseason can be after their fairly straightforward opener versus the Minnesota Wild.

In their opening game they saw off the Detroit Red Wings with an ease that may have done more harm than good. Their 4-1 victory saw an initial forty minutes of complete dominance and the stats made for grim reading for Hockeytown with their Original Six foes peppering Jimmy Howard’s net with forty two shots, (including one empty netter) compared to the Wings’ twenty one.

The fact Pavel Datzyuk was restricted to zero shots on goal may have been an even bigger worry though as without their big-game players Mike Babcock’s charges have little to no hope.
That seemed to concentrate the minds of those players though and game two was a complete turnaround. A Patrick Kane opener looked, on paper, to be going with form but the Red Wings had dominated the hosts to that point and continued to do so thereafter resulting in four unanswered goals.

The game saw the ‘hawks big timers stall with the only notable action other than Kane’s goal being the tragic affect that gravity seems to have on Marian Hossa, hopefully some sort of cure is found for his condition ahead of tonights game three.

Series tied 1-1 – Games scheduled Monday, Thursday, Saturday (Monday & Wednesday if required)

The other Western Conference match up seems to be witnessing the LA Kings hitting their straps at just the right time. They were two games down to St. Louis Blues in round one before winning four straight. They are currently 2-1 up against the San Jose Sharks after winning the opening brace of games but whether their comeback against the Blues in round one plays on the mind of either team is to be seen this week.

Game one was a low scorer, as seems to be the case with most Kings playoff games, which the Kings bested, as seems to be the case with most Kings playoff games, thanks to Jonathan Quick’s blanking of Couture and Co. 2-0.

That seemed to puzzle the Sharks and they got off to a slow start in game two until Patrick Marleau and Brad Stuart levelled the scores at 2-2 in the second. Marc-Edouard Vlasic netted the Sharks’ go-ahead goal but at 18:17 and 18:37 saw goals from the Kings’ Dustin Brown and Trevor Lewis, both on the powerplay. Those were two of three PP goals the Kings notched in the game and clearly showed the indiscipline of Todd McLellan’s men was what cost them.

It should be no surprise, therefore, that Saturday’s game saw the Sharks take advantage of the special team opportunities they were afforded and took the lead 1:32 into the opening period through Dan Boyle. Both Quick and Antti Niemi came out on top of the forward lines of their opponents with only Tyler Toffoli’s equalising goal, also in the first, being notched in regular time.

So to overtime they went and unusually it was the Kings that suffered, on the penalty, with Logan Couture taking advantage of Marleau and Thornton assists. Tuesday will see whether the Kings’ comeback is reversed in round two or they display the fortitude the Blues could not.

LA lead series 2-1 – Games scheduled Tuesday, Thursday (Sunday & Tuesday if necessary)

Over in the East Pittsburgh are playing seventh seed Ottawa which, coupled with their 27.0% powerplay should see them through quite easily right? Well, yes and no.

Games one and two saw four goal games for the Pens with the first a routine 4-1 victory and the second a 4-3 win thanks to number 87 (hides behind sofa in case Prust takes offence).

Last night’s game on the other hand was a much closer bout and was the first to go to double overtime in this year postseason. The first goal was scored in the second period when Tyler Kennedy struck on 38:53 and, with the Pens failure to dominate as they often did against the Isles in the first round they had to rely on Tomas Vokoun who has managed to do what Fleury could not. Without him they could have been trailing going into the latter stages of the game.

Yet they did lead but then blew that lead when all five Pittsburgh players seemed to only have the ability to focus on the puck. That enabled Alfredsson to bury a seam pass from Milan Michalek that split the ice in the closing seconds of the third to level at 1-1.

The game ended with 50 SOG from Pittsburgh and 48 from Ottawa and the last of those clinched the game when Colin Greening buried a rebound 7:39 into 2 OT that got away from Vokoun .

The salary cap has somewhat levelled the quality of players throughout the league and this series, along with the opener against the Isles, demonstrates even stacked teams like Pittsburgh need their big-game players to play otherwise you can get smoked by anybody, particularly at this time of year.

Pittsburgh lead series 2-1 – Games scheduled Wednesday, Friday (Sunday & Tuesday if necessary)

The only team not to win in round two thus far is New York. The Rangers lost game one in OT after tieing 2-2 in regular time. The fact they managed to get as far as to lose to Zdeno Chara’s OT winner, his second point of the night, was impressive. The B’s fired 47 SOG before the winner but thanks to Henrik Lundqvist they were still in the game.

Game two seemed to be some sort of breaking point for the Rangers defence though and it was not a surprise to those that have watched Tortorella’s men in this postseason. The Swede has kept them in the hunt so far as well as in the latter stages of the regular season and the tally was bound to show eventually.

The predictability of the result did not make it any less ugly though and their fans will be hoping the 5-2 loss may be a kick-start as it was for the Red Wings after their own humping in game one and they do get to play the next two games in their home barn and that should neutralise some of the momentum the Bruins have.

The problem with the playoffs, as I alluded to earlier, is that nothing can truly be predicted. Just ask those teams who went out to the lower seeds.