NHL Playoffs Round 1 Discussion
 

Ok, point totals are nearing completion. As always, double check and PM me if you see any discrepancy.

Scores can be found here:

http://www.nhl.com/scores/index.html

Here's a summary table of the picks for the first round:

Winners are in bold

Double check your picks and if there's any discrepancy PM me and I'll make the change. [edit] table looks better now, huzzah!

I'm so freaking excited that I just can't hide it. Thanks for hosting the game, Ace.

Go Sharks.

Edmonton, I swear if you break my heart one more time, I am never cheering for you again.

You hoisted me back on that bandwagon of yours with the 2nd last game of the season.

Please, for all things holy, let them win a couple.

If you guys could be so kind as to proofread your picks in the table above that would help out a lot. I'm puttin this all together in the middle of my final exams so any help is greatly appreciated.

Dude, seriously, this is awesome. Much thanks for the hard work!

I missed the picks but since this is the discussion thread.......

GOOOOOO LIGHTNING !!!!!

Nobody is giving them a chance but hey, they are the defending champs. Honestly, I can quote lots of good stats but the Lightning are playoff winners and Ottowa is used to losing.

The first game is key. Lightning have nothing to lose and will freewheel it. Ottowa will feel the pressure of the number 1 seed. Goaltending and special teams will rule.

Lightning in 6.

my pleasure willravel. after tomorrow it will get a lot easier, because I won't have school to worry about

My analysis of the first game between the Sens and Lightning.

I said it in the previous post, and I'll say it again here. The Tampa Bay Lightning are all skill, and little to no work ethic. Don't believe me? Watch the highlights during the Sens third goal, where they scored shorthanded. Ignoring the fact that the Tampa D allowed Schaefer to squeeze by along the boards (which can happen to the best of teams), notice how the trailing defenceman for Tampa (I think it was Boyle) rushes back, but at the last minute, he stops skating. Had he taken an extra couple of strides, he would have been in the perfect position to intercept the pass across made by Schaefer to Fisher. Instead, he decides to start coasting along, and ends up nowhere near in a defensive position.

That's just one example, but that's really the way they played the whole night. They only looked like they were in the game for the first two periods because the Sens weren't playing the game they are capable of. Once the third period came around, and the Sens finally woke up, the Lightning were unable to touch them. Even when they were shorthanded, the 5 Lightning players couldn't stand up against 4 Senators.

If the Lightning really want to win against the Sens, I'm telling you, they need to take a page out of the Bruins handbook. Despite being a non-Playoff team, Boston has given the Sens all sorts of problems throughout the season, and they did this by playing an aggressive box on the PK, racing for lose pucks, and waiting for the Sens to turn over the puck (I'm looking at you Spezza). Of course, the Bruins also had Thomas, who could keep the team alive for a couple of rounds. Seriously, did Grahame think his net was some sort of fort? He was hiding so deep in it, I was waiting for him to hang up a "No Girlz Allowed" sign, and hold "Super Top Secret Meetings" with all his friends.

Of course, it is just one game, and maybe it was just a bad one for the Lightning. I'm interested in seeing if Tortorella can convince his team to play a better game (or if he'll just yell at them some more, because that always works). If all else fails, he can resort to throwing out more benign psychological salvos, talking about all this immense "pressure" the Senators must be under.

Game 2 on Sunday.

Nashville beats Sharks 4-3, but I'm not worried. The Sharks have done an excellent job this season of having really crappy starts. The next game will be insanely close, and the the 2 games folloing that will be clear Shark victories. The really interesting game will be the game at Gaylord Center on the 30th.

Wow, the first game of Detroit/Edmonton series was surprising

On a side note, there's a playoff pool in my family. Wanna know what's stupid about it? Everybody's forced to take a team that they don't want and I wasn't there at the draw and I ended up having Calgary, Buffalo and Philadelphia. Why the fuck would I want 2 team that's gonna play each other in the first round?

I'm liking the un-interrupted OT coverage very much. The outcome of the Oilers game, not as much.

This is freaking great. Thanks for the work mate, absolutely awesome!

I coulda cried at the end of the Edmonton game. So close, and then Roloson leaves the 5-hole open wide enough to roll a beach ball through. FANTASTIC game, one error was all it took.

Would you rather have Montreal and San Jose are two of your three picks? Atleast you know that one of your picks is going to the second round. And I have to ride the Dallas star bandwagon. And our stupid frickin step brother gets both Detroit and New Jersey, he has never watched a hockey game in his life.

I'll trade San Jose for Philly :D

At least they're not playing Dallas for the 5th time in 7 years. :)

I'm surprised that everyone has picked San Jose over Nashville. Sure, we've only got 16 people playing, but still - I would have thought at least one person would pick Nashville to go to the second round.

Thanks for putting all of this together, Ace_O_Spades. :)

-Tamerlain

Yeah I was surprised by that as well Tamerlain

It's always amusing to see the trends in people's picks, thats why I included the percentages at the bottom of each column.

I'll provide more summary stats once I get some real data after the round ends.

Today's games are:

Dallas @ Colorado, Series (0-0)

New York @ New Jersey, Series (0-0)

Montreal @ Carolina, Series (0-0)

Philadelphia @ Buffalo, Series (0-0)

Good game 1 in Raleigh today. It's hard to say what happened to the Carolina Hurricanes, other than the fact they ran into a hot goaltender. They looked like they were playing a very good game. They chased the puck, made some good passes, and had more than twice the amount of shots on goal than the Canadiens. They just couldn't put the puck past Huet.

Of course, Carolina could just be realizing something that Ottawa has known for far too long. A fantastic regular season record means dick all in the Playoffs.

Montreal, New Jersey, Buffalo and Colorado were winners today. Montreal surprised me, as did Buffalo. I thought that Buffalo would've dominated the series a little more. But I think that they'll be limping into the second round.

Quad,

Good analysis. Although I did think the Lightning did what they wanted to try to do. They put on a lot of pressure and took a lot of shots early. They just didn't convert enough.

As I mentioned, it comes down to goal tending and special teams. Graham will not lead us any farther than Ottowa in the playoffs, and maybe not even that far :) The Sens killed off penalties with an agressive style. The Lightning have not been agressive at all with the man advantage all year, IMO.

In the Lightning run last year they played a 'never give up' style. I think they are playing the same way, but they are making mistakes and it costs them. Kubina, Sydor especially.

I just got done watching the Sabres Flyers game. 2OT. Esche absolutely stood on his head. The Sportscenter shot on Umberger was awesome. The Sabres are a very good offensive team.


All the cliches are true. There is nothing like playoff hockey.

Carolina is just finding out what Detroit learned in the last 2 playoffs. Hot goaltending will carry you far, and whats worse, Montreal has seemed to be able to rack up some goals in the later half of the season. Thats a deadly combination, especially when Gerber seems to be struggling a little lately as well.

As far as everyone picking SJ over Nashville, if you've watched Vokoun over the last 3 seasons, you know he is the only reason they have had any success. He often makes 40+ saves a night just so they can win 2-1 or 3-2. So without him, its time for them to show that they can actually play some team defense in front of Mason (who is a huge question mark himself), and maybe show that their offense can bail out their goalie on one of his off nights. With San Jose, they have 2 solid lines of offense, and 2 goalies who can get the job done. Their defense is a little questionable, however, and often lets teams back into games they should never have been in, but the offense from the top line usually can make up for it.

I agree with you Nikilidstrom on everything.

The San Jose/Nashville series is going to be more offensive because of Vokoun missing and a question mark defence on San Jose. If you match line for line, San Jose seems to have the best offense but as it was seen in the regular season, Nashville can get goals from almost any line and they find a way to win. Much like the Tampa Bay Lightning last time.

Carolina is a great team on paper but thats not going to necessarily translate into a good playoff run. Montreal surprised them by playing a modified Montreal game. They used a quick counter attack but were really cautious defensively. Carolina fell into playing that sort of game. They didn't play IMO as strong as offensive effort. Carolina played a defensive game that was not made for an offensive regular season.

Detroit to me, has been here before, they looked so relaxed on friday and not panicing. They all know what playoff hockey is like and their younger guys are relaxed by the older players. That team has some really good leaders and many hall of famers.

San Jose shuts out Nashville, 3-0. The first step in a long, long road.

frick... .detroit and calgary lost.... is was a bad day all around.

Ohhh baby, Montreal over Carolina in 2OT!!! What a game!!!

I'm feeling like a bad Montreal fan for not picking them in this. I thought it was a sure lock in the east... especially with how poorly they played against them in the regular season.

Oh well... GO MONTREAL!

Yeah, so far so good. I was not happy to see the Habs draw the Hurricane in the first round, they've had our number all season. I'd much rather have faced Ottawa sans Hasek.

But damn, the boys are doing well so far. Keep it up, guys!

I have to say I'm really surprised at the current outcome of the Carolina-Montreal game 2. I knew the Hurricanes would be able to solve Huet. What I wasn't expecting was Montreal finding the ability to score goals, considering they are hardly a scoring powerhouse.

The numbers are little deceptive on that issue, I think.

The first half of the season Montreal's goal production was weak; the latter half it really seemed to improve, playing in front of a goaltender they could rely on.

Having said that, they lack a game-breaker type player - an Ovechkin, Jagr, Cheechoo, type guy.

Wow, ANOTHER 2OT game in the Edmonton Detroit series. It appears my picks are turning out to be total shite... Oh well, always time to make up for it in the next rounds.

Detroit is killing me!! (and I'm not even in the contest)

Yeah, tell me about it. You can make the most informed decisions based on all the relevent facts...and still be completely wrong. I love this sport!

Same here. They have got to win tomorrow or it's over for them. Very hard to come back if they're down 3-1. Hopefully they'll get it together!

While I am not very happy about how Detroit keeps falling apart in their own end, I would be utterly ashamed if I was an Oilers fan considering the BS move Roloson pulled last night, as well as the other call on Holmstrom during that same play in which Jason Smith set a pick on him, yet Holmstrom gets called for a penalty. To have a professional athlete that eager to make the entire sport look like a joke by taking dives 10 feet from their crease is disgusting, and Roloson should be shamed out of the league.

I will say, however, that I am surprised at how well Pronger is doing, and equally surprised at how little attention Detroit is paying him on the PP. He has at least a point in every game, but they have yet to send someone out to the point to really challenge him, rather then just handing him an open lane for a shot to the net.

Uhhh Nikilidstrom, I watched the game, and I watched the replay, and nowhere did it seem to me that Roloson intentionally knocked the net up. Looked entirely accidental to me. Even if he hadn't, that shot wasn't going in. It would have hit off the side of the net.

Thats not the play I'm talking about. That was clearly not a goal, and it was the right call. I'm talking about the play near the end of the 1st where Roloson intentionally skated out of his crease, at least 10 feet, and ran himself into the shoulder of Holmstrom who was leaving the zone, and then threw himself on the ground, as if Holmstrom had checked him to the ice. Roloson received a diving penalty, as he should, but Homlmstrom received a goalie interference penalty on top of the other BS penalty he received earlier in that play for Jason Smith setting a moving pick on him. This is what set up what would eventually turn into a 5-3 after Chelios chucked the puck over the glass. Detroit killed the remainder of the period, but began the next period still 5-3, and Oilers scored the 3-1 goal.

I am in no way questioning how well the Oilers are playing against Detroit, only that play in particular, which is in my opinion, absolutely disgusting. Things like that are why more people don't watch Hockey.

Meh, that play wasn't a big deal, goalies have been diving for years to get the player the penalty even when they don't touch them, it's all part of the game at this point.

He makes himself look like a joke, not the entire sport, one bad apple doesn't spoil the bunch remember, as for being shamed out of the league, I think your love of Detroit is taking over on that one, if Ulfy wasn't shamed out of the league I doubt olly will be.

I knew somebody would say something about me being a Detroit fan. The way I feel about this play has nothing to do with Detroit, especially since that particular play had little to do with the eventual outcome of the game, and the fact that Edmonton has been my second favorite team since the days Doug Weight played there. And if you think any player diving, be it goalie or skater, doesn't hurt the league's credibility as a whole, you are sadly mistaken. Season after season players make the refs look like idiots with plays like these, and put the sport at risk of being relegated to the ranks of other novelty sports. You cannot be a legitimate sport when cheating is as much of a part of the game as passing, and your refs are incapable of upholding the rules of the game. For a player to disregard the integrity of the game to the level that Roloson did last night is shameful, and is as harmful to the growth of the sport as thugs like Bertuzzi and Marchment are. I can't count he number of times I've tried to introduce new people to the sport, only to have them ask me about phantom calls, or no calls, and have no other explanation for them except "the player intentionally dove", or "the refs have lost their minds", knowing they will never watch another hockey game.

And while Ulf is hardly a good comparison to this situation, I was just as pissed at Hasek when he dove constantly while playing pucks behind the net, including his days in Detroit. And at least Hasek was actually hit at some point during those dives, unlike Roloson, who actually threw himself at Holmstrom far in front of the crease.

And there go the Avs again. Kicking the crap out of the Stars. Not the way I was expecting this to go at all.

Yzerman possibly out tonight with back problems. If he doesn't play, hopefully Detroit can rally out a win without him, because his presence would surely be missed.

Much, much better game by Detroit tonight. Nice to see some key guys finally step it up. Also nice to finally get the puck past Roloson. Hopefully this weekend's game goes just as well! :)

It's a good time to be a Shark. Ain't life grand?

Oh...Look for me in the club section with my father and brother in game 5 if you get to see the game on the telly.

The Wings are killing me. Yep. That's it.

Well, my Lightning are out. They were beaten by a better team. Ottowa earned the #1 seed through 82 games. Their scoring was extremely balanced and the Lightning defense was overmatched and outplayed.

Sean Burke played well in Game 5. John Grahame proved he is a good backup goalie but is not the guy to lead a team deep into the playoffs.

Oh well. It was exciting. I would not be surprised to see the Sens go all the way.

Preliminary scores have been updated on the table in the 1st post, just scroll over to see how you're doing through three series.

Well...I'll be at Game 6 between the Ducks and Flames. Here's hoping the Ducks win so that I can see more playoff games down the road. More importantly, Detroit needs to win.

Down go the stars!

I'm hoping the Flames win tonight to make up for the pain of watching Nash have the ball and game stolen yesterday.
How about that Iginla? Talk about a clutch performer. He always seems to raise the level of his game when it really matters.
If the Wings get bounced, the Flames will be the highest seed left in the West, though still probably not the favorites.

Oh, that Detroit game killed me. :( To play so well and then just give it away in the 3rd. I'm bummed.

Hopefully it's not the last we'll see of Steve Yzerman.

cant wait till battle of AB. Hopefully Calgarians dont blow it for us


go oil!

Well, well, well. Dallas disappoints, and Detroit falters. Two of the biggest surprises in these Playoffs so far. I'm only happy about Detroit heading home because that gives Ottawa automatic home ice advantage for the rest of their (hopefully long) Playoff run.

You're so QUICK to assume that Ottawa doesn't get knocked out by Montreal!!!


Wait..... what? They are?

Carry on then, as you were.

fantastic detroit game. I love seeing detroit lose. Even if I picked them in the pool.

I bet a lot of people's pools are pretty fucked. especially if the ducks beat the flames.

Yup, looking down out TFP pool list, only Bigben picked Edmonton to win. Gratz on him. I'm happy as hell for Edmonton, but my pool is buggered :p

I'm more worried about Philadelphia. This has sort of been an "anti-year" in NHL hockey. Ottawa was no longer afraid of Toronto, Toronto was no longer afraid of Philly, and Philly was no longer afraid of Ottawa. Here's praying for a 7th game, 5 OT win by the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday, before they play Ottawa on Monday. :p

Well, fuck a duck and call me master...

I am the only one who chose Edmonton.

And look! 6 games.

If I never get another pick right, the game last night was worth it.
There is a god in heaven, and when the un-believers ask me for proof, I will point them to May 1, 2006.

Good call BigBen.
I know all of Canada is hoping for a Battle of Alberta.
Anaheim outplayed Calgary last night and they deserved the win. It would have been cruel for them to lose after having that goal taken away. This series was destined for 7 games. It'll be a good one.

My Anaheim in 7 pick is still in play. And that makes me happy. GO DUCKS

I was really surprised at Edmonton's performance. I picked Detroit to win the cup this year. It's always refreshing to see the big names choke. Gets some fresh meat into the later rounds.

So the points are updated at the end of each round, or what? Because as of right now, mine are not accurate.

double check now coppertop. just updated

Possible headline for tomorrow:

Buffalo Sabres Satisfied. Forget to Give Philadelphia Flyers Reach-Around.

Aww, and the Habs just lost on a wicked shot from the blueline.

I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that, with the exception of the number of games it took Carolina to win, I was bang on for the Eastern Conference. However, not so bang on for the Western Conference. Can you tell which conference I spend most of my time watching? :)

Edit: Noticed that almost everyone else picked at least the winning teams in the Eastern Conference, so now I don't feel so special anymore.

Further updated points. This round comes down to the Calgary & Anaheim series. It's going to the seventh game so the players involved for the win are:

Ace_O_Spades - ANA in 7
Quadraton - CGY in 6
Tamerlain - CGY in 7

A Calgary win puts Quadraton and Tamerlain into a tie for the win in round 1 with 9 points each.
An Anaheim win puts me alone with 9 points

Anyone else notice that in the east the 1, 2, 3, 4 seeded teams moved on and in the west (if Anaheim wins) the 5, 6, 7, 8 teams will advance ?

Curiouser and curioser......


BTW: Hockey playoffs in HDTV are the bomb

I would like to take this moment of silence in memory of my Habs. Hope your golf game improves over the next month, guys. Then when the Stanley Cup champions meet you on the course in July, you will be able to kick their asses.

I would like to see Hockey HDTV. I will try to find a buddy that has it. I don't think anyone does.

I would even buy the beer....

Detroit lost so I'm lost to pick my favourite in the Playoffs.... so I'm going with the only team I have left in my playoff pool.... San Jose. WOO!.... they'll hopefully play Colorado, I think thats a better chance and I really don't want to hear the whining from the city of Calgary when I have to work tomorrow.

Welcome to my NHL Playoffs since 1993 :(

It's okay.... Montreal has been improving as late. I'm surprised they lasted till game 6.

Montreal is out, and I'm a happy guy.

Ahhh! YES! Calgary is OUT!!! ELIMINATED!!! FINISHED!!!

Go Oilers!

Damn Calgary and their 27th-place-in-the-regular-season in goal scoring.

-Tamerlain

Damn you Calgary and your lacklustre performance. Oh well, I can deal with second place. I wouldn't want to give people the mistaken impression that I actually know what I'm talking about with hockey ;)

Hey, I finally got one right on!!! Now lets see how bad I can screw up the next round

Okay folks, summary statistics are in. The finishers, in order for round 1 are:

1. Ace_O_Spades 9
2. Quadraton 8
3. feelgood 7
3. Nikilidstrom 7
3. streak_56 7
3. Tamerlain 7
7. Antikarma 6
7. BigBen 6
7. BulletCatcher 6
7. Coppertop 6
7. Daoust 6
7. goddfather40 6
7. willravel 6
14. matteo101 5
14. maximumveritas 5
16. silent_jay 4

I took the liberty of crafting a histogram for you folks. It's always easier to see it visually.

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j1...1histogram.jpg

wow I sucked serious ass that first round, hopefully my second round is better, even if it isn't better I hope the Sabres knock off the Sens, that would make it all good.

Wow. Just wow. And I like to think of myself as a hockey guru.

Time to find another job.