Playoffs Round 1 update -West

have you seen the the Round 1 results so far friends?

If not here is the link via the NHl’s official site: https://www.nhl.com/playoffs/2024/bracket

Let us take a look and give an opinion.

Dallas v Vegas. At the start of this i had hoped for the Stars to be the ones to be leading, but apparently not. They are pretty much in a bad hole down 0-2. if they had at least won one game; then I’d say the task isn’t difficult. However they are in a pretty bad position. Do they have what it takes to come back? Look, i will be surprised but I am also optimistic they will do it. It is that old saying of, one game at a time, but they had better get their ass into gear in game 3. Pretty much once they go 03 the chances are basically 0. But; you can never say never in a playoff situation, because sometimes the odd things happen. When a team goes up 30- or even 2-0 they can slack off and think it is all over and done; and that is when a team like the Stars could very much bite back. So hopefully this is the mentality they take.

Colorado v Winnipeg. Funnily enough I didn’t expect the Avs to only hold a narrow lead in this one. Not saying the Jets don’t deserve to be a contender; but with the way Colorado have performed in the season no team has really a challenge to them. The Jets though could make this series quite entertaining. I still think the Aves will edge them in the end but definitely look for the Jets to push them hard. And hey do not be at all surprised if we do see an upset here; it would go against the odds but it might happen.

Vancouver v Nashville. I am not too bothered with this particular series because they are teams I’m not too interested in following. But I think i my previous talk about the Playoffs I mentioned I wanted the Preds to win. They too are trailing 1-2 so they are not out of it but the Nuks ave a little more edge to them I guess. Do I think the Preds come back in this one? I hope so, they are a decent team overall their form isn’t as crash hot as some teams heading into the Playoffs. But they seem like a pretty determined group, perhaps consider this one a dog fight.

Edmonton v LA. I think it is hard to go against the Oilers; they are leading as expect but the Kings recently fought back so this could be another interesting series to watch. Whichever teams wins will be competitive later on. lets not forget though the Kings have won a Stanley Cup before few years ago so they ahve that more playoff experience in winning then the Oilers do. Long time since they won the cup. With the players they have, it is hard to see the Oilers stuffing this one up; but how they handle the pressure is a good test for them.

Stanley Cup to date!

All right friends, the pointy-end of the NHL Season recently kicked off and Round 1 is almost completed. How have the teams managed? Well a coupe of them are already out. Some other games are being forced to a Game 7. If this is how its going to be in just Round 1. Then imaging how intense and crazy the next few rounds will be!

Just the results form today’s games are as follows:

Rangers defeat Penguins 5-3. Panthers send the Caps packing 4-3 in OT Stars edge out Flames 4-2. Earlier in the week it was: Bruins beating Canes 5-2 Lightning nudge out Leafs 4-3 Blues trample Wild 5-1 Oilers over take Kings 4-2

Just looking at some of those results, I have to say I am surprised by a few. The one that does stand out is Florida over Washington. Not something you’d think would happen especially to the Caps.

Hawks annihilate Oilers

Just when you think the Oilers could get themselves out of the bottom pack they have unfortunately hit a bit of a snag. Things didn’t improve for them when they faced the Blackhawks yesterday; and although no team wants to have a negative mind set, when their opposition happens to one like the Blackhawks; it can be a little…intimidating. 

For sure this game wasn’t expected to be close and a blowout was most probably on the cards. Still it would have been nice for Edmonton to try and make the most of the opportunity.

Jonathan Toews & Marcus Kruger got the visitors on the board early 2-0. The first goal came about with a beautiful cross-ice pass opening up the space and spreading the Oilers out giving Toews an almost open passage to the net. The second coming from great defence with the Hawks picking off a soft pass from the Oilers D in an attempt to clear the zone with Kruger. A double to Toews later in the period bounded the lead out 3-0 and it was already going to be a long night the the Oilers.

But when the first two shots go in the net, that will suck the life out of a team that has been struggling and trying to get through this. – Dallas Ekins

It was through some luck that the Hawks edged the scoreline to 4-0 in their favour when a shot from Kris Verteeg eventually went off Ben Scrivens’ skate and prompt ended up in the net when Dman Andrew Ference tried to clear it out. Sometimes those moments go against a team when everything else does. Perhaps it was the one goal the Hawks didn’t deserve and could be one less the Oilers avoided. Marion Hossa was no doubt thrilled to get something from this game (1g 3a) after having gone through a drought since marking his 1000th point recently. Duncan Keith and Patrick Kane were the final goal scorers to add their names to the sheet albeit it when the game was far from done. The only positive for the home side? Dodging the ugly shutout even though that won’t bring them much joy and simply just a statistic for David Perron, at least they didn’t give the perfect shutout game to the Hawks. 

There is plenty of work for the Oilers if they want to get out of this slump. Performances like this is un-acceptable, no matter their opponent especially when they should be taking advantage of any home games they get. It is a lot harder to win on the board than at home. They shared the embarrassing turnout with the Toronto Maple Leafs whom had also suffered a 9-2 loss at the hands of the Nashville Predators recently. Rumblings will no doubt once again rise in Edmonton; questioning the heart of the team and those behind the scenes. Will they ever get out of being cellar-dwellers and when will they become a team worthy of challenging the best? Not yet it seems…

Former players vs former teams (Nucks, Ducks)

Ask, any player in any sport, and one challenge they always look forward to is playing against their former team and team mates. On most occasions the player, or indeed the team have something to prove to each other though it isn’t always made public and they will want to get the W.

Rumours, had be going on during last season about Ryan Kesler and him wanting out of the Canucks and a few teams were looking at him eventually the Ducks were the ones who got him. However teams like Vancouver or any other team when they are in a position to give up on a big name they aren’t going to just let it off easily and always expect something close to if not equivalent in return. The trade between the Canucks & Ducks supposedly for both teams worked out the way they wanted and Kesler was moved, while one the Ducks and a younger one were handed to Vancouver.

However that was back in June last year so lets fast-forward to now the players have settled and so are the teams, and the words are over time for the games to begin and first blood so to speak went the way of the Canucks. Check out the report via sportsnet.ca

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http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/vancouver-canucks-anaheim-ducks-november-9/#__federated=1

Lack, Canucks defeat Ducks in SO victory

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Ryan Kesler wanted to put on a better show against his former teammates. Instead, one of the guys he was traded for stole the spotlight.

Nick Bonino assisted on the tying goal by Alexandre Burrows in the second period and got the only goal in the shootout in his return to Anaheim, helping the Vancouver Canucks beat the Ducks 2-1 on Sunday night.

“They come at you hard,” Bonino said. “To beat them you have to play in their end, you can’t let them come at you. We were solid tonight. We had a lot of shots and a lot of chances.”

It was the first meeting between the teams since the June 27 trade that brought Kesler to the Ducks and sent Bonino and defenceman Luca Sbisa to Vancouver. Kesler spent his first 11 NHL seasons with the Canucks, helping them get to the Stanley Cup finals in 2011 with 41 goals and winning the Frank Selke Trophy that season as the NHL’s best defensive forward.

“It was exciting,” Kesler said. “I hadn’t seen most of those guys since last year. It was intense. It was fun. I’m an intense guy and I’m a competitor. I was trying my hardest out there.”

Kesler had two shots on net, misfired on four others and won 14 of 21 faceoffs — including one against Bonino that led directly to Anaheim’s goal. Bonino also had two shots on net and won 10 of 21 faceoffs while blocking three shots.

It was the Ducks’ second loss in three nights at home against a club they won all five meetings against last season. The Arizona Coyotes beat them 3-2 in a shootout on Friday.

“It’s frustrating,” coach Bruce Boudreau said. “We got outplayed the last two periods, so some would say we were lucky to get one point. But on the other hand, we persevered and got the one point. When you get that close, you definitely want two. So it doesn’t feel anywhere as good as if we had won the shootout.”

The Ducks, who led the league in goals last season en route to their second straight Pacific Division title, have just 11 in regulation over their last eight games. Defenceman Sami Vatanen had Anaheim’s only goal against Eddie Lack, who finished with 28 saves and got lucky twice in the tiebreaker as Jakob Silfverberg hit the crossbar and Kesler rang one off the left post.

“Eddie’s a good goaltender,” coach Willie Desjardins said. “He was so good in preseason, and it was too bad for him the way he started out. I knew we would need him tonight and he played great. It was great for him to get the win.”

Frederik Andersen stopped 34 shots for the Ducks. The loss snapped their six-game winning streak against Vancouver, which included a five-game sweep last season that ended with a 3-0 victory in goalie John Gibson’s NHL debut. Gibson is sidelined at least six weeks because of a groin injury.

Corey Perry, who leads Anaheim with 11 goals, missed his third straight game because of the flu. Francois Beauchemin also was out with the flu, and fellow defenceman Cam Fowler was scratched for the first time this season due to a lower body injury that occurred on Friday against Arizona.

Just 3 seconds after Dan Hamhuis was sent off for hooking William Karlsson, Vatanen opened the scoring at 2:37 of the second period with a 35-foot wrist shot that beat Lack to the stick side after Kesler won a faceoff from Bonino deep in the zone.

The goal came on Anaheim’s only power play against a penalty-killing unit that had yielded just two goals in 26 short-handed situations over the Canucks’ previous eight games.

“The game was in our hands coming out of the first period, but we ended up giving them a lot of momentum in the second and third periods,” Ducks centre Andrew Cogliano said. “They outplayed us. It didn’t have to do with anyone missing. They just outworked us.”

Burrows tied it at 11:49 of the second on a deflection after Hamhuis one-timed a carom off the boards at the left point. Each of Burrows’ last 12 goals have come on the road since his last one at home on April 6, 2013 against Calgary. That stretch includes the two he scored at San Jose during the playoffs two seasons ago.

Notes: Canucks D Kevin Bieksa and Ducks LW Patrick Maroon dropped the gloves a mere 3 seconds after the opening faceoff. … Kesler will get a chance to see and hear firsthand how much the Vancouver fans miss him when the five-game season series resumes on Nov. 20. … Canucks LF Brandon DeFazio was so excited about making his NHL debut, he jumped out onto the ice for the pregame warmups ahead of Lack. It is customary for the starting goalie to lead the team out of the dressing room. … Sbisa was scratched because of an injury that occurred in Saturday’s game. … Bonino leads Vancouver with seven goals, including back-to-back game-winners this week against Colorado and San Jose. His total is the highest among players who haven’t scored on a power play.

Sneaky Rangers top Wild (Oct 27th)

No lead is safe. Call it cliche if you wish but its true. One team can score early and regularly and still lose. That is exactly what the Wild found out when they visited the New York Rangers. It wasn’t looking great for the home team behind 3-0 to begin with, and their first order was to keep the Wild from adding to that lead. 3-0 is pretty manageable if the defense and goaltending holds up.

Once they were able to tighten up in their own end then did things turn upwards and they got in on the scoring act even though that didn’t happen until the last period. Even then, as the final period got underway nothing was certain, the lead was still favouring the Wild, after all and unless a miracle happened nothing was going to change.

Well, the miracle did in fact happen and the Rangers went from trailing in the game to become outright leaders and winners and serriedly so. let’s consider the fact pretty much from the start of the game they were put on the back foot. Penalties were a major issue for them, any team a team takes penalties they are going to put themselves on the back foot and the Rangers did just that with 4 al by themselves. Ouch. Thankfully despite being a man down on such a consistent basis the Wild never got a thing, nobody scored for the entire 1st period.

Then it was all the Wild, in the 2nd period they went on a scoring spree to make it 3-0 (as we’d mentioned) and by all rights should have gone on to win. But here came the Rangers, with a great start to the final period they got on the board and quickly narrowed the game 3-2, momentarily the Wild stopped their comeback to get the 2-goal difference up again, but the never say die attitude form the Rangers completely took over and they scored 3 un-answers points of their own, nothing like serving it right back to the opposition to narrow the gap, tie it up and eventually squeeze the life out of the Wild with the go-ahead winner with 4minute or so left. It doesn’t seem like much when re-telling it here but you should watch it again. Game of the year contention we think.

Oilers’ Monday win

This week couldn’t have started any better for the under-achieving Edmonton Oilers. Going winless to start the season, and signs looking doubtful of ever climbing the NHL ladder. Still its early on the season and writing off any team no matter who they are is up to the individual.

While it has taken a bit of time for the Oilers to find their feet they showed plenty of promise in their early games. Their scoring looked impressive when their D and goaltending was on it looked like they were on the right track. On a few occasions already we’ve seen them jump yo early leads against better quality opposition instead of falling behind and that is great to see even when they’ve gotten run down later on in the game. In fact in our own opinion the Oilers probably deserved to win some of those earlier games if a little luck had gone their way.

Beating any team no matter who it is always has a great feeling, beating a top quality team is even better and Monday night the Oilers did just that. Coming up against the highly fancied Tampa Bay Lightning there was nothing to lose for the Oilers just play their game and let the rest take care of itself and boy did it. Despite the Oilers have an ok record, with only 6 games played any time a team can take advantage now might as well make the most of it.

The impressive aspect of the game was both teams were scoreless after 1 period and that in itself is pretty rare/ 1 shot smacked off the goal posts (oh, don’t you hate it when that happens?!) from the Oilers, and the Lightning had their 1 waved off entirely because of interference, some of those type of calls can go either way especially if it appears the players are milking for one. Eventually though it was the Lightning whom opened the game’s scoring during the 2nd period described as a bit of a fluky one when a shot from in-behind the net ends up going in off the defending player. Those goals get be so infuriating if it happens to you. It didn’t seem to bother the Oilers too much as they were soon able to tie up the game and in a surprise twist a penalty shot was awarded and converted to make a 2-1 advantage for the Edmonton boys as the 2nd period wound down. Surprised? Yep. Penalty shots firstly aren’t awarded too often unless deemed to be warranted and secondly converting on one is not as easy as it seems.

Tampa, in chasing mode would make sure the Oilers would need to earn it if they wanted to win pushing in the tying goal yet the Oilers continued to press on and of course they finally held onto a lead after getting in front 3-2 with the last few minutes of the 3rd period ensure them a first win of the year. Nice one Oilers hopefully you can do one on the Caps tonight! Update there is 0-0

Sharks bite back! (10/8)

Revenge is always sweet. Even if you can only extract it several months later it still brings some comfort. The San Jose Sharks certainly delivered payback on the NHL’s opening night Wednesday. Facing off against the Los Angeles Kings, defending Stanley Cup Champions; and the team whom came from behind to destroy the Shark’s playoffs hopes last year of course they were seeking revenge.

Well, what better way to return fire, not only on opening night, but in their home building and their Banner-raising night? Once the pre-game ceremonies were done it was time to get down to business, and the Sharks were more than ready. The Kings might not admit it but they must have forgotten their game day brains because they looked lost, and very flat from the outset, under 6minutes in they were already on the back foot down 1-0 thanks to Tommy Wingels, he had a double in the 2nd period as well, joining two other of San Jose’s goal scorers, Patrick Marleau and Matt Nieto making it 4-0.

Much can be made of the pre-game ceremonies and all but aside from that the Kings had chances to play, score goals and show their potential. Instead they were guilty of taking penalties and Quick….well he was anything but, and of course when a team is trying to put points on and are getting stopped at every chance from the every stubborn Antti Niemi it ain’t much fun to be playing!

Being a Stanley Cup Champion is sweet, the best feeling every player wants to experience. But, it always comes at a cost because soon everyone attention is on you. The team is the target and when the chance comes to beat you all the others teams are rubbing their hands, licking their lips ready to to get stuck in. The Sharks may, never ever erase that horror Western Conference first round last year, but this victory certainly eases the pain, albeit just slightly. And after all the Kings ruined the Sharks party last year, so all is fair in love and war, Sharks can ruin the Kings party in return!

Pens fly over Ducks (10/9)

Two strong hold and former Stanley Cup Champions went head to head on the NHL’s second opening night, the Ducks and Penguins with Pittsburgh playing host. And as the host they dutifully let Anaheim come in through the front door, of Console Energy Centre, however they ensured the hosts were went packing out the back door instead.

These two teams pack quite a punch when it comes to offence, the infamous two-headed monster aka Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin and the Ducks dazzling duo Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf are to far behind. Don’tforget they brought in Ryan Kesler too and he’s quite a talent if those three click..oh boy!

Unsurprisingly Crosby and Malkin were involved in the first three of the Penguins goals with 2 assists & 1 goal between them. Pens, newcomer Patrick Hornquest made the most of is his first game with his new team \ opening up the scoring while old head Pascal Dupuis had quite the night out, aside from spring his first he later went on to collect 3 assists to give him 4 points on the evening.

One sort point for the home side was their inability to maintain the early lead they had built and defensively they were all over the place. If not for their productive offence this game could have been ugly reading for Pittsburgh. Leads are always difficult to defend and any team behind on the scoreboard is dangerous especially early on, and that is what exactly happened when it all looked plain sailing, the Pens were doing great up 3-0, but before long, Kesler,to playing for a new team four the net and momentum went to the Ducks, Perry rallied tow goals of his own back-to-back in the 2nd period thus knotting the game. Luckily the Pens never panicked and returned fire jamming three other goals home to keep them at arms length, Perry claimed his first hatrick of the year that kept the scoreline a little closer to end it 6-4 Pittsburgh.

While it was a good win certainly the Pens will not want to repeat such a game again. Much as been made of their mangled goaltending and tonight’s effort didn’t make good reading, as for the D-end after losing two very good defensemen (to the Caps offseason and other departures) the young core will need to show they can be up to the task. It’s fine if their offence goes well but if the other two sections don’t buck up any chance of even going far in the playoffs will be slim.

AIHL’s Top 4 decided!

The final game of this weekend has decided the last team to make the Australian Ice Hockey League’s Top 4. Ice have two games to over take the Mustangs, and get some favourable results, while Brave and Ice Dog’s last game can make the most of their finale to see who owns 3rd and 4th. They may stay as they are or change positions which brings lots of intrigue into the remaining matches. Even for the teams out of the race they can add a little twist into the mix yet.

To recap though the Top 4 are: Melbourne Mustangs, Melbourne Ice, Canberra Brave and Sydney Ice Dogs.

Congrats to all four of them, well deserved to be in the hunt for the Goodall Cup in 2014. The finals weekend is going to see some epic clashes between these four and which two remains standing is up for grabs.

 

Preview also available on the roar!

Just a quick message to let ya’ll know we sent our preview about the Mustangs v Brave doubleheader (beginning today) to the roar as well and it’s up. Link is here:

Mustangs v Brave: AIHL preview