Detroit Red Wings vs. Pittsburgh Penguins

Scores and Analysis as of 5/26

Jason Bedard

 

            The Stanley Cup Finals is how any hockey fan could have guessed it.  It’s the Detroit Red Wings versus the Pittsburgh Penguins in a battle for the Cup.  Although so far the series is not as close as everyone expected. 

            The series is two games in already, and right now it looks like Detroit could win it in four games.  Detroit is dominating the play right now and they have kept the Penguins to zero goals through 120 minutes of play, which is amazing.  Detroit is aggressive, tough and has been flawless, making it impossible for the Penguins to keep possession.  In Game 2 many times Pittsburgh couldn’t even get the puck out of their zone before they had to dump the puck and lose possession.  Two reasons why they are losing possession is the players on the ice aren’t getting open and because of the very aggressive fore-check brought on by the Wings.  Detroit is not only putting the puck in the net; they haven’t given up a goal in the series yet.  It might be the fact that Detroit is playing at home or they are pumped up for the Dallas series but whatever it is they are playing great hockey.

            I would hate to be Michel Therrien, the head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins right now.  He has some serious work to do and only two days to do it.  Most of the Penguins problem is they aren’t playing their game.  As I was watching Game 2 last night, the Pens played very conservative, not pressuring at all and seemed to not play as well as they have this postseason. Going into this series the Pens only had two losses the entire postseason while the Wings had five losses.  I don’t know what is going on; Pittsburgh was dominating everyone they played.  It might be they are used to playing a certain level of teams and now they are playing the best team in the NHL and can’t keep up.  It could also be the fact that they are playing on the road and that is affecting them.  The Penguins cannot let Detroit take the next game of this series or else they are in serious trouble and it’s very unlikely they could come back.  Helpful hint for Pittsburgh to win a hockey game you need to score goals.  Speaking of that the Captain and leading scorer of the Penguins, Sidney Crosby has gotten only two periods of playing time this entire series.  It might be a good idea to put him out there more often.

            The way this series is going the 2008 NHL season could be over by Sunday.  That will not happen I’m giving the Penguins a little more credit than that.  The Penguins have the next two games at home and they should win at least one of those games.  Then they go back on the road and they will have to win some road games if they want to win the Cup.  In the end I pick my Detroit Red Wings to win the 2008 Stanley Cup.

NHL Conference Finals

Scores and analysis as of 5/18

Jason Bedard

 

            The Conference Finals have been nothing but everyone expected so far.  In the West Dallas is battling back and is only losing by one game to Detroit.  In the East Philadelphia tried to hold off the Penguins with a win on Friday night but couldn’t keep it up.

            The Red Wings have a reputation of ruining an amazing season by getting beaten before the Stanley Cup Finals.  I would be worried if I was a Wing’s fan because that is exactly what is happening this year.  Detroit started off winning three games against the Stars and then let them back into it just like they did with Nashville which almost cost them their playoff spot.  If the Wings lose the next game I think the Stars have a very good chance to knock them out of the playoffs.  Dallas has the easy job in this series they have put all the pressure on Detroit by winning the last two games.  They have faced elimination ever since Game 4 so I don’t think they are to concerned about that, all the Stars have to do is beat the number one team in the league two more times and then they deserve a spot in the Stanley Cup Finals.  Another aspect of the game that could cause problems is home ice which does not seem to matter in this series and I don’t see it becoming one.  If you are a fan of Detroit watching them in the playoffs can be very painful.  The quarterfinals took them seven games and now the Western Finals is in its sixth game when they only have had to win one game since Game 3.  So far the Wings have been able to pull it off but let’s see if they can do it again. 

            Philadelphia’s season ended today with a 6-0 loss to the Penguins.   I’m just glad the Flyers didn’t get swept in the Eastern Finals.  You have to give the Flyers credit they beat Alex Ovechkin and the Capitals in Round 1.  Then they beat the number one team in the East, Montreal Canadiens, in Round 2.  In this series they were setup to fail.  First, they lost Kimmo Timmonen who has been dominating the blue line the entire postseason.  Then the Flyers fell behind in the series 3-0 and I didn’t even mention the fact they are playing a team who has only lost one game the entire postseason.  Philly did put up a fight by winning Game 4 but they couldn’t hold off the Penguins any longer and got crushed this afternoon 6-0.  Philly going into the playoffs was an underdog and has proven themselves a great team.  I hope they build off this season and are back in the playoffs next year, but I still don’t know if I can forgive them for almost killing Patrice Bergeron early in the season.

            My prediction is half correct so far.  The Penguins dominated the Flyers in five games and are already into the Stanley Cup Finals.  The Wings should be able to knock off the Stars but as I said before they are known to blow it in the postseason.  Dallas Stars vs. Detroit Red Wings at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas tonight at 8.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Detroit Red Wings vs. Dallas Stars

Scores and analysis as of 5/10

Jason Bedard

 

            The Western Conference Finals began last Thursday resulting in a 4-1 victory by Detroit.  The game was a lot closer the score shows.  Dallas was in the game except they made careless mistakes that resulted in a big loss.  They face-off again on Saturday and hopefully the Stars can redeem themselves.

           

            As the puck dropped in Detroit Thursday night the top seeded Wings immediately went to work as usual.  There is a reason why they are the best in the league and if you give them anything they will capitalize on every chance they get.  That is exactly what the Dallas Stars did in Game 1.  The Stars had a total of seven penalties which cost them big time and pretty much lost them the game.  Three out of the four goals Detroit scored were a power-play goal that says something.  It shows that the Stars need to stay out of the box and not give the Detroit anything if they want to keep these games close.  It was Detroit all game right from the beginning.  Within the first five minutes of the game Brian Rafalski put the puck behind goaltender Marty Turco.  Then later on that period on the power-play again Johan Franzen scored and out the Wings up 2-0 going into the first intermission.

            It was pretty much the same story in the second period of play as well.  Thomas Holdstrom scored early in the period on another power-play.  Not many people realized this but Captain Nickolas Lindstrom had two great assists in this game one on the first goal and one on the third goal.  Lindstrom is a great captain not only does he score goals but he is also capable of making his team better by the many assists he got did in Game 1 and forget the fact that he is the leader of the best team in the NHL.  The rest of the scoring came late in the period one from Valtteri Filppula and the other from Brendan Morrow from Dallas.  Something for Detroit to notice was the goals weren’t scored from their super-stars Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterburg, other players are starting to step up and contribute which is really good to see if you are a Wings fan.  The third period was uneventful the only exciting events were a few penalties.

            Watching the game I noticed that Dallas was skating with Detroit they were just shooting themselves in the foot by getting all those penalties.  No doubt in my mind Dallas could win a few games in this series if they play smart and keep themselves out of the box.  Also it was good to see that the Stars never gave up, the last goal that was scored in that game was by Brendan Morrow with less than three minutes to go in the second period.  This goal also shows that they can score against the Wings maybe with a little momentum shift and the home crowd behind them something will happen.  Towards the end of the game there was a lot of rough and chippy play.  Meaning I don’t think this series will end very pretty.  My prediction is the Wings will win this series in the end but it will be closer than the first game showed.

           

Pittsburgh Penguins vs. Philadelphia Flyers

Scores and analysis as of 5/10

Jason Bedard

 

            The Eastern Conference Finals began on Friday resulting in a 5-2 Pittsburgh win.  No big surprise there, the Penguins out-skated the Flyers and with the Flyers injuries is making this even more of a challenge to defeat the Penguins.  These two teams face-off again on Sunday night in Mellon Arena and the Flyers need to find a way to win without the injured players.

            The highly favored Penguins did not disappoint their fans on Friday night especially one player. Evgeni Malkin, oh my god what an amazing player he is!  He is now the leader in points for the postseason and is dominating.  The 6’3, 210 pound giant defensemen moves around on the ice like he was 5’7, he is really one of a kind.  Now I think he might win the Heart Trophy with all the production he is having in the postseason as the other two candidates, Alex Ovechkin and Jaroime Iginla, are forced to watch from their homes.

            This game unlike in the West was a close game until Malkin woke up.  The Penguins drew first blood with a great setup from Malkin to Malone to Peter Sykora for the goal.  This was a great goal, the setup couldn’t of been better and all the Sykora had to do was finish it.  Then to everyone’s surprise the Flyers came back with two goals.  Both goals came off of the red hot stick of Mike Richards.  The goals were beautifully setup because not much is going to get much past Marc- Andre Fleury and his crew of defense Malone, Gonchar, Malkin and company.  The Flyers 2-1 lead was short lived and was gone within two minutes with a superb goal by Captain Sidney Crosby.  What can not be said about this kid he is only 21 years old,  he is captain of the best team in the Eastern Conference and is breaking NHL records.  Crosby’s goal was followed by two quick goals from the outstanding Evgeni Malkin. 

            Obviously the Flyers have some work to do, and I think they have a pretty good idea of what they need to do.  They need to shutdown Malkin but the problem with that is if they are successful in doing that Philly then has to worry about players like Crosby and Sykora who are lethal.  Their situation is ten times worse due to the fact they lost there All-Star defenseman Kimmo Timmonen.  He shutdown Alex Ovechkin in the quarterfinals and stopped everyone on Montreal in the semifinals.  The Flyers and defense especially have to find a way to play defense and win games without him.  In the words of my hockey coach, Coach Strain, “If you don’t keep the opponent to under two goals a game you aren’t going to win many games in the postseason.” as he addressed the defense and I as we were warming up for our first postseason game.  He’s right the Flyers let up four goals while the Penguins held them to two and Pittsburgh comes out on top.  I hope it’s a close series but my prediction is Pittsburgh will beat the Flyers in the end.   

nhl eastern conference- week 4

Scores and analysis as of 5/5

Jason Bedard

 

            What a week in the hockey world. This is why everyone loves the playoffs because anything can happen.  The best team can be eliminated in the first round while the eight seeded team makes it to the championship.  In the ’08 playoffs it’s the same exciting series and games that it’s been since hockey began.

Did anyone except the Philadelphia Flyers to be in the Eastern Conference Finals?  I didn’t, many NHL experts didn’t and I don’t think the Montreal Canadians did either.  What was also amazing about that series was that it wasn’t even close. It took Philly only five games to knock off the top seeded Canadians.  Game five and the final game of that series was a weird game.  Montreal’s goaltender, rookie Carey Price let in not only one but two really soft goals that kept Montreal behind the whole game.  Montreal did battle back only to let up the game winning goal with 3:03 left to go in the game.  In this series one player stood out in all five games and that player was Martin Biron.  He was out of his mind making saves and keeping his team in the games which is the main reason why the won this series.  Not only does a save prevent a goal but it also gives a team momentum and motivates them to score as well.  When your goalie is in the zone the whole team feeds of that and that is when a team is really at its best.  Now the Flyers face-off against the Penguins in the Eastern Conference finals.

            The other series in the Eastern Conference is the Pittsburgh Penguins versus the New York Rangers.  This series only took five games as well to decide which team was moving on.  The Penguins only have one loss in the postseason and even that did not stop them from advancing.  This series was a lot closer than it looks with the Penguins winning four games to one.  Every game was one or two goals difference and in game five it went to overtime where the puck was kicked by a Ranger’s and defense right to Marian Hossa for the game winner.  You have to give the Rangers credit for keeping the games close; as it looks right now I don’t see anyone stopping the Penguins. 

            In the Eastern Conference finals it’s the sixth seeded Philadelphia Flyers vs. the second seeded Pittsburgh Penguins.  I think the Flyers will finally put the Penguins to the test and it will be an exciting series to watch. To keep this series close the Flyers have to play at their best every game at all times and can’t give the Penguins anything or they will make them pay.  The team that advances to the championship series is going to be Pittsburgh they are to good for any team to beat but I have predicted the Flyers to lose every series this postseason so this should be a very interesting series.

 

nhl week 3- eastern conference

Jason Bedard

Scores and Analysis as of 4/27

 

The quarterfinals of the 2008 NHL playoffs have ended with eight teams advancing to the semifinals.  In the Eastern Conference the four teams are the Philadelphia Flyers, New York Rangers, Pittsburgh Penguins and the Montreal Canadiens.  Over in the Western Conference the four teams advancing are the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, San Jose Sharks and the Detroit Red Wings.

In the Eastern Conference there were some surprising results.  The big surprise was the Philadelphia Flyers beating the Washington Capitals.  The series not only went to a Game 7 but the game went into overtime where Joffrey Lupul scored the winning goal to advance the Flyers.  A Game 7 into overtime just goes to show this series could have gone either way, the Flyers had the better chance in the end.  It wasn’t only the offense of the Flyers that helped this team advance it was actually a lot defense that helped this team move on.  When you are on the ice against the likely winner of MVP of the league with over 65 goals in one season and an all and all force is a scary situation.  The poise and composer of veteran Kimmo Timmonen shutting down Alex Ovechkin for the majority of the playoffs was a big contribution to the success of the Flyers.  In the NHL there are seven games in a series so not one team can have a good game on that day, the team that wins the series is the best team overall and the better team in this series was the Philadelphia Flyers.  Next Philly plays the Canadiens in round 2 of the playoffs.  The Canadiens are ten times better than the Caps and in order for Philly to have a chance they need to play team defense and can’t let the Canadiens get to far ahead in the series. 

The New York Rangers . . . god bless them.  The Rangers are facing off against the red hot Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins.  The two teams are already two games into the series and the Penguins have dominated and are up 2-0 in the series.  If the Rangers want any prayer of moving on they cannot let the Penguins win the next game.  The Montreal Canadiens knocked off the Bruins in a surprising Game 7.  No one expected Boston to beat the Canadiens but taking them to Game 7 is an accomplishment.  The Bruins made amazing progress this year making their first playoff appearance since ’03 with most of the credit going their new coach Claude Julian.  The Bruins have made a big improvement  this season and will continue to improve for years to come.

There are four teams left in the Eastern Conference but only two can move on.  In the Flyers vs. Montreal series, right now I think the Flyers will move on.  Philly will advance to the finals because they have the determination, teamwork and the defense to win against the Habs.  Montreal will be eliminated because they are snobbish almost cocky in a way and it shows in their play.  To me it looks like they already think they are going to win, which means they think they are so much better than any other team in the lwague they don’t even have to try..  The exact thing happened in the Boston series, they won three games backed down thought they had it wrapped up and then the B’s took them to a Game 7.  The other team advancing to the next round of the playoffs is without a doubt the Penguins.  They have won all seven of their playoff games and have outplayed and dominated their opponents.  Pittsburgh is an amzing team and is my pick to win the Cup.  Therefore in the Eastern Conference Championship it will be the Philadelphia Flyers vs. Pittsburgh Penguins.

 

 

nhl week 3- western conference

Scores and analysis as of 4/27

Jason Bedard

 

 

As the quarterfinals of the 2008 Stanley Cup playoffs come to an end, the semifinals begin.  While these eight teams; the Philadelphia Flyers, New York Rangers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Montreal Canadiens, Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, San Jose Sharks and the Detroit Red Wings have made it to Round 2, only four will be left standing with the opportunity to win the Cup.

In the Western Conference there were no upsets but some surprising results throughout the series.  The Detroit Red Wings took six games to knock off the eighth seeded Predators.  The Red Wings were dominating the series and let the Preds climb back into it which caused them less time to rest and prepare for the next round.  No one gave the Predators the slightest chance in this series and for a team like them to make the series close is a big accomplishment especially for such a young franchise.  The Predators should use this season and build on it for seasons to come.  The Red Wings vs. Avalanche is a disappointing series for me because the Red Wings are leading 3-0.  I expected the Avs to put up a better fight than they have.  The only game that has been close this entire series was Game 3 which they lost but only 4-3.  I don’t see Colorado coming back and winning this series but they should win a few games so it’s not an embarrassment.  I mean even Nashville beat Detroit twice in a row.  The Red Wings have control and momentum of this series and can’t let the Avs back into it like they did in the previous series with the Predators. 

The big surprise in the West is the Dallas vs. Sharks series.  The Sharks should be embarrassed and need to wake up!  They are the second seeded team and are losing in the series 3-0 to the fifth seeded Stars.  San Jose needs to realize one more loss and their season is over.  From hear on out they need to play like that.  I never thought the Sharks had it in the playoffs they barely won against Calgary and now have dug a huge hole for themselves in the second round.  Not only are the Stars up 3-0 against the second seeded team but in the first round they knocked off last year’s Stanley Cup champs.  Dallas was not expected to make it this far into the playoffs and is making quite a name for themselves.

Only four teams total advance to the next round and only two from this Conference.  In the Red Wings vs. Avalanche series the Wings will move on and will eliminate Colorado.  The Wings were the best team in the NHL this year and even though they had a shaky first round I see them moving on into the Western Conference Championship.  Colorado is a great team but they are down 2-0 to an outstanding team with over five superstars who are not easily beatable.  The Sharks vs. Stars right now it is obvious which team should and deserves to move on.  The Stars have beaten last year’s Stanley Cup champs, are embarrassing the second seed and the games have not been very close.  The Detroit Red Wings vs. Dallas Stars in the Western Conference Championship would be a great series to watch.