After watching Vancouver play stout defense in front of All-Star goalie Roberto Luongo during a sweep of St. Louis in the first round, more was expected. The Canucks looked like a team committed to playing strong in their zone, and they knew if they could keep lanes clear for Luongo and make the extra effort to get to rebounds, they could go far.
It all blew up on them in the second round. A younger, faster, exceptionally determined Chicago team took out the Canucks in six games, and they scored 21 goals to do it. It's got some in Vancouver wondering about Luongo's future, which is the last thing that should be up in the air now.
The NHL cranks up the conference semifinals Thursday night, as Chicago opens their series at Vancouver. With both teams off impressive opening-round victories, who has the advantage? And will we see any hair-pulling theatrics this time around?
Let there be no question that the St. Louis Blues have character. They have guts. They have fire. Oh, and they have some great young players who will only get better as the years go by.
Trailing 2-0 in the game and 3-0 in the series, the Blues showed zero quit, rallying to tie the score on two second-period goals, and then getting some great goaltending from Chris Mason, who dueled with Roberto Luongo through a scoreless third period. That duel continued deep into overtime, before Alex Burrows scored his second of the game to eliminate St. Louis, 3-2.
Exactly 1,230 regular season games have been played. We're down to the best eight teams in each conference. The Stanley Cup Playoffs begin Wednesday night with four series lid-lifters.
The Western Conference is home to the league's best team (San Jose), the defending champion (Detroit), and the two most intriguing Cinderella stories in the league (St. Louis and Columbus). Can Cinderella put off the stroke of midnight, or will an established power advance their way to the Finals?
Newsmakers in the NHL is a weekday morning attempt to clear yesterday's rebounds and look to the day ahead.
Blues 5, Blue Jackets 2: After knocking off Columbus in a shootout on Saturday, the St. Louis Blues completed their weekend home-and-home sweep of the Blue Jackets with a 5-2 win at Nationwide Arena. Patrik Berglund picked up a goal and two assists for the surging Blues, while Brad Boyes scored his 30th goal of the season, giving him two straight 30-goal campaigns.
T.J. Oshie made some highlights on Saturday for his crushing hit on Rick Nash, and followed it up on Sunday with his 14th goal of the season.
The Penguins and Hurricanes entered Tuesday's game in Pittsburgh separated by one point in the Eastern Conference standings, and when you consider the two teams occupied the No's. 9 and 10 seeds respectively, with an opportunity to jump into the No. 8 seed closing out the first half the season, well, it was a pretty big game. Cam Ward rose to the occasion for the Hurricanes, stopping 32-of-33 shots, leading them to a 2-1 win.
Ward was fantastic most of the night, but saved his best play for the final five minutes of regulation when the Penguins were on a four-minute power play. Over the past two nights, the 24-year-old netminder has stopped 66-of-67 shots.
There are certainly at least two really good teams in the NHL's Western Conference. Defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit and fast-starting San Jose appear in the clear to duke it out for the right to play for the Stanley Cup later this year.
Of course, we know that anything can happen in a best-of-seven series. In addition, we still have half a season left to play. What we don't know is which team in this conference is set up to challenge either the Red Wings or Sharks. They've beaten - at least once - pretty much everyone who has stood in their way, including each other.
While the top of the conference appears to virtually locked in place at this point, there are still serious battles to be fought, especially for the last four positions in the West. Currently, eight teams are separated by just six points. St. Louis, the last-place team in the West, is just nine points out of eighth.
First, they signedMats Sundin before Christmas, and got him in the lineup for the first time last week.
Now, the Vancouver Canucks have gotten even more good news. The backbone of their team in the first part of the season, team captain and star goaltender Roberto Luongo, appears ready to get back in the lineup this week.
Out since suffering a groin injury in Pittsburgh November 22, Luongo has finally started practicing with the team, and the Vancouver Sun speculates that his return to the lineup could come as soon as Thursday at home against Phoenix.
Columbus goalie Steve Mason entered Friday's game in Colorado having registered three consecutive shutouts. He managed to keep the Avalanche off the board for 17 minutes, until Darcy Tucker snapped Mason's streak with his fifth goal of the season at the 17:20 mark of the opening frame. The 20-year old rookie posted 199 consecutive minutes of shutout hockey for Columbus, and Tucker's tally in the first period was the only goal he surrendered on the night, as he turned aside 23-of-24 shots in a 6-1 Blue Jackets win.
Mason has been a great story for the Blue Jackets, as he's pretty much carried them this season when you consider they've scored only nine goals in the eight games he's lost, including being shutout three times. He's allowed more than three goals only two times this season, and has yet to surrender more than four in a single game. Should be interesting to see how long he can continue to ride this hot streak.
As for the rest of the Blue Jackets, following Tucker's goal they pretty much took this game over and erupted for six goals over the final two periods. Rick Nash finished with a four-point night (penalty shot goal, three assists) while Kristian Huselius (two goals), Mike Commodore, Jakub Voracek and R.J. Umberger also scored for Columbus.
The win actually puts Columbus one-point ahead of Colorado for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, while the Blue Jackets are 3-0 to open their current six-game road trip, extending their winning streak to four games overall.
Oh my, they're not going to like this in Buffalo. After the Penguins and Sabres skated to a 3-3 tie in regulation, Sidney Crosby deflected an Evgeni Malkin slap shot behind Buffalo goalie Ryan Miller in overtime, giving the Penguins a 4-3 win. As you can see from the above video, it was oh-so-close to being a high-stick.
They key, however, is that the call on the ice was that it was indeed a goal, meaning they would need conclusive evidence to overturn it. Is that conclusive? It's pretty darn close. The fact it's Crosby on the positive end of the call isn't going to sit well with anyone outside of Pittsburgh, I'm guessing, especially after he got away with punching some guy in the goods a week ago. So, cue the conspiracy theories! Anyway, what's done is done, Penguins win, and the Sabres blew three different leads on the night, including a 2-0 advantage in the second period, while going 1-for-6 on the power play.
Pittsburgh's Alex Goligoski picked up three points (two goals, assist) in the win, while Malkin added three helpers in his quest for 100. Malkin, by the way, now has 43 assists on the season -- an amazing number when you consider there were only three players in the NHL entering play on Monday with 43 points (Malkin, Crosby and Alex Ovechkin).
After watching Vancouver play stout defense in front of All-Star goalie Roberto Luongo during a sweep of St. Louis in the first round, more was expected. The Canucks looked like a team committed to playing strong in their zone, and they knew if they could keep lanes clear for Luongo and make the extra effort to get to rebounds, they could go far.
Let there be no question that the St. Louis Blues have character. They have guts. They have fire. Oh, and they have some great young players who will only get better as the years go by.
The Penguins and Hurricanes entered Tuesday's game in Pittsburgh separated by one point in the Eastern Conference standings, and when you consider the two teams occupied the No's. 9 and 10 seeds respectively, with an opportunity to jump into the No. 8 seed closing out the first half the season, well, it was a pretty big game. 
There are certainly at least two really good teams in the NHL's Western Conference. Defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit and fast-starting San Jose appear in the clear to duke it out for the right to play for the Stanley Cup later this year.
First, 
Columbus goalie 
