While the conference championships
are in full swing, the 2014 playoff have brought quite a few interesting story
lines. Here are the 5 best so far.
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| thehockeynews.com |
Ryan
Miller Won’t Stay –The St. Louis Blues acquired Ryan
Miller from the Buffalo Sabers right before the trade deadline and he was supposed
to be the missing piece of the puzzle for the Blues going deep into the
playoffs. After winning the first 2
games of the first round, the Blues lost 4 straight games against the Chicago
Blackhawks. The Blues recently signed
goaltender Brian Elliott to a 3 year extension and will not be bringing Ryan Miller
back. I thought Miller would be the Blues’ answer, especially with the great
team they had around him. Ryan will be a
free agent this summer, so don’t feel bad.
He can sit back and wait for a team to give him a lot of money.
Kings
Do What Few Have Done, Ever – The Los Angeles Kings came back
from a 0-3 deficit in the first round to beat the San Jose Sharks in 7
games.
Only 3 other teams have done this before. The 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs, the 1975 New York
Islanders, and the 2010 Philadelphia Flyers.
To put this into even more perspective, outside of hockey, only the 2004
Boston Red Socks have come back from a 0-3 deficit. No team in the NBA has ever done this and no
NFL team has ever done this either (NFL is 1 game elimination).
Milan
Lucic Inspires T-Shirt – It was no surprise that the
child like antics of the Boston Bruin’s Milan Lucic inspired a T-shirt that
went viral shortly after their game 7 loss to the Montreal Canadians. Lucic was on camera saying some pretty unsportsmanlike
things to the Montreal players during the post game handshake
Needless to say, if you
can’t read his lips, the t-shirt says it all.
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| thehockeynews.com |
Canadians Skip to 3rd String Goalie – It is always unfortunate when a starting goaltender gets injured during the playoffs and even worse when it’s your best player. Montreal’s Carey Price went down in game 1 of the conference finals and in game 2 the Canadians skipped over their backup goalie Peter Budaj and started their third stringer, AHL’s Dustin Tomarski.
Tomarski had 10 total NHL games before the
start and is expected to play the rest of the series. Good luck Montreal.
Rangers Keep Winning – Well well well. I will be the first to say I was wrong about the New York Rangers this playoff season. They have survived 2 game 7s and are two wins away from going to the Stanley Cup finals.
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| thehockeynews.com |
Henrik Lundqvist has
played well and the Rangers’ offense has scored when they needed to. Is this the year they end their 20 year
Stanley Cup drought? With Chicago or Los
Angeles coming out of the west, probably not.
Don’t forget to follow me @EJ_Hockey_Post on twitter or my Facebook fan
page ericjhockeypost
Hey Eric,
ReplyDeleteGreat blog, I too am a avid hockey fan and its always interesting reading what others like myself feel. Speaking of Montreal, losing Carey Price was a huge blow to their chances as he was the reason they beat Boston in the last round. I am sure it is not easy losing your starting goalie in the playoffs and still win, but starting your AHL goalie over a proven backup in Peter Budaj makes no sense. I guess they are hoping his youth and inexperience will prevent him from being overwhelmed and he might steal a game or two. But I don't see this happening, especially not in a city like Montreal. The Anaheim Ducks did the same thing in starting their AHL goalie Gibson over a proven winner in Hiller and I think we all know how that turned out. Teams that win the Stanley Cup all have proven goaltenders, maybe with the exception of Crawford in Chicago last years ago, but his team was so dominate in front of him he was not asked to stand on his head. I think it is a big mistake be Montreal to play their AHL goalie over a proven backup, but I guess we will see what happens.
Yeah Montreal makes no sense to me either. Budaj played well while Price was out during the seasion and it seemed like the players and fans were behind him. Tomarski did play well last night though.
ReplyDeletegood points! I am so happy to see New York doing well. and LA is always a great team to watch! I am just not too happy that our Wings are not in it this year. next year hopefully a solid restructure will get us past 1st round.
ReplyDeleteInteresting!
ReplyDelete