As it turns out, it’s the West finals that ended up being more predictable. Top two seeds slot in where they should be, both with a good little scare along the way. In the East, it wasn’t quite as predictable with the 3rd and 5th seed set to do battle for the Eastern title.
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My predictions for the Eastern Finals:
Bruins (3)
Lightning (5)
Both teams swept their opponents last round and ended up having to sit and wait for the Western Conference to sort themselves out. The players will tell you that the huge delay doesn’t play to anyone’s advantage, but don’t be fooled folks – this is the only thing that even allows Boston to make this a series. As I had posted earlier about why the loss of Patrice Bergeron is so huge for the Bruins (Changing on the Fly), Boston has had to reform two new lines for this series and have lost their playoff MVP. It would have been tough for the Bruins to get thrown right in to a series against a team that had been rolling.
Here are FIVE reasons why this break benefits Boston:
Round 2 is always so much harder to predict than Round 1 for some reason. You could say that it’s because it’s closer given that only the strong teams have advanced from the first round, but the two sweeps that happened in the East would negate that.
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As for my Round 2 predictions: 2 for 4.
Called the Canucks in Game 6, and got the Bruins winning theirs, but was massively off on the Lightning vs. Capitals series.
Do you think teams draw inspiration from watching other teams? How about this for some stats.
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Prior to last year, it had been 35 years since a team being down 3-0 in a series came back to force a Game 7. It had only happened 5 times in history. Then, the Bruins blew a 3-0 lead last year and let Philly come all the way back to force a Game 7 (the Flyers actually went on to win it).
Here’s the now famous pic of Carrie Underwood showing some emotion after Mike Fisher’s loss versus Vancouver. It was a good run in Nashville and it was impressive watching all the standing ovations that the Predators’ fans gave on each TV timeout.
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No more having to listen to hockey announcers make creepy comments about Carrie Underwood.
As for another pretty funny pic from a Vancouver fan:
For those who aren’t fully familiar with the Boston Bruins, Patrice Bergeron was their equivalent of Ryan Kesler. He is their best defensive forward, their key faceoff guy, he kills penalties, he generates the majority of the offense, and most importantly, he was the guy who would change the momentum of a game that was going against them.
Sustained mild concussion in Game 4 vs. the Flyers
To say that Bergeron is a big loss for Boston is a touch of an understatement.
Although he is not the biggest loss that the Bruins could have suffered – that honor would go to Zdeno Chara and then to Tim Thomas – he is definitely the biggest loss up front.
Last year that label would have went to David Krejci, who ironically was lost in Game 3 of the 2nd Round against the Flyers. He was their best forward at the time and was responsible for generating the majority of the teams’ offense. The only difference this year is that Boston didn’t lose their best forward until Game 4, which allowed them to complete that sweep and make it through to the next round.
It has been some tough luck for Boston having lost both their #1 and #2 centermen to serious concussions. It’s hard to believe that this team is having issues filling the center position after being considered to be one of the deepest teams in the league up the middle before the season started.
A quick look at the evolution of the Bruins’ line combo’s:
If the playoffs were to end today, you would have to think that the two leading candidates for the MVP of the postseason would come down to Detroit’s Pavel Datsyuk and Vancouver’s Ryan Kesler.
Both have had unbelievable defensive play and both have single handedly won games offensively for their teams.
Too much of a load to carry?
Unfortunately, another thing that these players have in common is that they have super star teammates who aren’t carrying their weight.
In the 1989-90 season, a grinder by the name of John Druce had 11 points in 45 games for the Washington Capitals and was a minus -3. He then seemingly came out of no where to score 14 goals and 17 points in 15 postseason games to lead his team to the Conference finals.
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Ever since, we’ve had the John Druce Award, given to the player who comes out of no where to turn in a huge post season.
So far, we have two candidates in the running, and both are tearing it up.
Kesler still carrying the load for Vancouver. The Sedins finally get some points and Henrik even nets the game winner, but it’s been Kesler who has been their best player.
It’s interesting to see who is chosen to vote on each Award. The GM’s get the Vezina, the Broadcasters get the Jack Adams, and the rest go to the hockey writers. Here are my picks.
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HART TROPHY – Most Valuable Player Candidates: Perry, D.Sedin, St.Louis Voted By: Professional Hockey Writers’ Association Who I think will Win: Corey Perry – 48 goals. Who I’d like to Win: D.Sedin – Would be cool to have the brothers do it back to back. It was like twisting the writers’ arms last year to give it to a western team. If they come back to the west again, I doubt they’d do the same team.
Forty one goals in the regular season and he had zero in nine games in the post season. He finally pots a goal and then caps it off with the OT winner.
Did Alex Ovechkin just guarantee two wins, or is his ESL writing cheques that his ass can’t cash?
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“We’re going there, and we’re going to win two games,”
“It’s going to be hard, but right now in this situation, we have to win.’’
Mark Messier has long deprived players of the ability to speak optimistically about winning future games ever since he successfully guaranteed a victory in the Cup finals with a hat trick performance.
According to Kukla’s Korner, the Capitals slightly changed the statement in the post game quote sheet that they provide to the media:
As Pierre McGuire says – There’s no out of bounds in hockey. Boston defenseman Adam McQuaid misses his check and eats it into the end boards.
UPDATE: And I forgot – Adam McQuaid has a concussion history. He is the player that was called up by Boston and suffered the concussion in the hotel room! Apparently he tripped over his bag in the dark when he was going to take a piss. For my earlier post on this, here is the link: Player Suffers a Concussion in the Hotel
Canucks flag spotted at the Royal Wedding. Lots of talk about this in Vancouver, but I haven’t been able to verify it. You can judge the video for yourself.
Montreal fans were correct: Zdeno Chara is a degenerate Coke addict. Air Canada executives will be meeting to address the issue and provide their opinion later this week.
It’s pretty funny how close the 2011 Conference Semi-Finals are compared to the 2010 version. Two of the four series are the exact same as last year.
2010 Playoff Picture
As for the West, Chicago sucked balls during most of the regular season, so the annual Chicago vs. Vancouver showdown had to happen in Round 1 instead of Round 2. As for the East, Pittsburgh were missing Crosby and Price didn’t pull Montreal through like Halak did for them last year.
Second round predictions always seem so much tougher than the first round. The teams morph into something different after a round of experience and it seems like the regular season is a distant memory.
This is the point where I either gloat about the stunning accuracy of my first round predictions, or where I pretend that I didn’t make any and hope that you all forget. This was the year of the top seed, so you had to be picky with your upset choices – only two lower seeds moved on, and they were both in the 4/5 series.
Photo courtesy Vancouver Sun
The Result:
Seven of eight. They only series that screwed me was the Sabres blowing OT in Game 6 and then getting stomped in Game 7. The biggest upset pick was getting Nashville over Anaheim in six. For the original post: My First Round Predictions.
As for the comparisons between predictions and actual results and some quick thoughts on each series:
Tense times it is here in beautiful Vancouver with the home team blowing a three game series lead only to once again be facing elimination at the hands of the Chicago Blackhawks.
Photo Courtesy Vancouver Sun
For Canucks fans out there, it can be tough to feel anything but gloom when history has been so unkind. Because of losing three straight, lots of references are being made to the Bruins’ collapse last year against the Philadelphia Flyers.
I can tell you one thing though – Vancouver is not Boston.
Yes, just like Vancouver, the Bruins blew a three game series lead to a lower seeded team only to have to return to it’s home town for a Game 7. As many Chicago players and their fans will tell you, the Philadelphia Flyers eventually went on to win the series to match the biggest comeback in league history. While you can’t blame Chicago for using this as inspiration, there are some major differences that have to be considered:
I didn’t think that Vancouver coach Alan Vigneault had the balls to do it.
Benching the team’s $10M dollar goalie who’s current contract extends out further than the life expectancy of the new roof on BC Place. In what turned out to be an almost unbelievable turn of events, rookie replacement goalie Cory Schneider got hurt on this penalty shot and Roberto Luongo had to come in to the third period of a tied game.
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