FanHouse MarcAndreFleury

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After what seems like forever, the NHL gets back on the ice tonight with the start of the Western Conference Finals tonight in Detroit as the Red Wings host the Dallas Stars. The Eastern Conference Final gets in gear tomorrow night for the battle of Pensylvania as the Penguins host the Flyers in Pittsburgh.

I'm not sure anyone is surprised that Detroit and Pittsburgh made it this far, though seeing Dallas and Philadelphia still alive this late in the game has to count as something of a shocker. As you'll see from our panel, while the discussion was nearly unanimous regarding predictions for both series, there were plenty of folks who were hedging their bets.

Here's a little brain exercise for a lazy Sunday afternoon. Out of all the recent storylines in the NHL, try and think about which one seemed the most unlikely to occur two months ago.

• Winter classic a massive success
• Pamela Anderson hooks up with mascot
• Chris Simon sets NHL suspension record
• A Philadelphia Flyer does something dumb (again)
• Ty Conklin fills in for an injured Marc-Andre Fleury and goes 7-0

Yeah. I would have said the last one, too. If you had told me two months ago that Ty Conklin was going to be a serious threat to scoring in the NHL I would have thought you took one too many blows to the skull as a child. The Pamela Anderson thing is a close second, but really, most of Hollywood hasn't had standards in decades, so nothing that comes out of there really surprises me anymore.

But Ty Conklin. Now that's something else. Conklin has helped the Penguins to go from worst to (almost) first in the Atlantic division with ease. He has a 7-0 record since he started filling in for Fleury, and the Penguins have won eight of ten to move to within one point of the Atlantic Division lead. During that span, Conklin has surrendered only 12 goals, giving him a 1.71 GAA during that time with two shutouts. This is from a guy who has been a career backup and has not posted a GAA of under 2.80 for a season since prior to the lockout. Thanks to the recent run, his career save percentage has now finally gone above .900 to .905.

How is this even possible?