Eastern Conference

(6) Carolina Hurricanes vs. (1) Boston Bruins
Carolina won series 4-3
I’m not particularly fond of either team that was in this series, but I like Tim Thomas thanks to fantasy hockey (both this year and last year) and again, I don’t like the Canes. So despite the fact that Boston is a Northeast Division rival of my Sabres, I was hoping they would advance to the Eastern Conference Finals…

Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to watch any of the first three games in this series…but I certainly wasn’t pleased with how it went. The Bruins were in a bit of a pickle since Game 4 was to be held at the RBC Center in Carolina. If the Canes took that, the #1 Seed in the East might be in trouble…and indeed that became the case when Carolina won convincingly 4-1. Coming back from a 3-1 series deficit isn’t impossible by any means (Washington just did so in the first round, in fact), but it was certainly a tall order. The Bruins needed to play a sound road game to tie this series up again and then build from there…

The key name to remember from this series though was Scott Walker, of the Carolina Hurricanes. In Game 5, he threw a sucker punch at Boston defenseman Aaron Ward. The act earned him an immediate 17 penalty minutes (5 for fighting, 2 for instigating, and a 10-minute game misconduct)…but surprisingly, no suspension. According to NHL disciplinarian Colin Campbell, it wasn’t a sucker punch…so Walker only received a $2,500 fine and no suspension (a quintessential slap on the wrist). God himself probably has a hard time following the logic behind NHL ruling policy… And in Game 7 at the TD Banknorth Garden in Boston, the guy Bruins fans likely considered the number one villain, Scott Walker, batted a rebound out of the air past Tim Thomas late in the first overtime to give the Canes a 3-2 victory and send them into the Eastern Conference Finals. Undoubtedly, Walker became the number one hero down in Raleigh that night…

(4) Pittsburgh Penguins vs. (2) Washington Capitals
Pittsburgh won series 4-3
Ovechkin vs. Crosby! Enough said, as far as the media was concerned… That’s how this series was advertised well before it even began, and that’s how it continued to be advertised until its completion. I lost some respect for Crosby this past season while my liking of Ovechkin rose steadily, mostly because of his epic numbers for one of my fantasy teams. Plus, I was grateful to the Caps for eliminating the Rangers, so I was hoping Washington would win this one… And if the Eastern Conference Finals turned out to be as I wanted them to be (i.e. Boston vs. Washington), I hoped the Washington Capitals would represent the East in the Stanley Cup Finals… Go, Ovechkin! Go, go, Ovechkin!

Crosby vs. Ovechkin! Sid vs. Ovie! Unsurprisingly, this one lived up to all that hype. The two young superstars each recorded at least a point in each of the first three games and each had a total of six points up to that point (5 G, 1 A for Ovie; 4 G, 2 A for Sid), highlighted by an impressive Game 2 in which each of them netted a hat trick! I watched bits and pieces of this series and I saw the momentum shift hands in each game. As much as I wanted to see the Caps knock out the Pens, I had a feeling Pittsburgh wasn’t done yet when they trailed 2-1…and that we were in for a long series…

I managed to watch much of Game 6, which, like all memorable playoff games, went into overtime. It unfortunately didn’t take long to decide that one, as Dave Steckel tipped a shot by Marc-Andre Fleury just under six and a half minutes into the extra period to give Washington a much needed win and to force a Game 7… I then saw parts of what turned out to be an embarrassing Game 7 for Washington. They handled the puck terribly in their own zone and regularly turned it over to the Penguins. Pittsburgh rather easily moved on to the Eastern Conference Finals with a decisive 6-2 win. I’m by no means a Capitals fans, but I was pulling for them in this series, and even I was embarrassed by the way they played in Game 7. Their season was on the line, and they were playing at home! There was no excuse for coming out as flatly as they did given those circumstances. Washington deserved to get knocked out…

Western Conference

(8) Anaheim Ducks vs. (2) Detroit Red Wings
Detroit won series 4-3
Here’s why I was glad the Ducks advanced: this series pitted the two previous Stanley Cup winners against one another! At one end of the rink, there was the perennial powerhouse from Motown, and at the other end, a SoCal squad that was at the top of their game. I definitely wasn’t expecting another sweep for Detroit. In fact, I knew right from the start that Anaheim had a solid chance of winning this series, and I hoped they would… Either way, I was anticipating this to be a good long six- or seven-game series of epic proportions…and it most certainly was.

I managed to catch part of Game 2 of this series. I watched all of an eventful first period that saw a total of four goals in about an eight-minute span. I then only saw part of the second period before heading off to the movie theater. When I returned home, I was surprised and happy to see the game was still on and heading into a third overtime! It wasn’t long into that before Buffalo native Todd Marchant ended it with a Ducks’ victory… I unfortunately didn’t see any of Game 3, but I heard it was a questionably officiated game from a Detroit perspective, which is always a tough pill to swallow, especially in the playoffs. I would know. I’m a Sabres fan, after all (cue the “No Goal” reference)… I caught most of the third period of Game 4 though. Prior to heading downstairs to the TV, I checked the score quickly on Yahoo, and much to my chagrin, Detroit held a 4-2 lead. In the short amount of time it took me to walk downstairs, the Red Wings struck again to make it 5-2! Scott Niedermayer scored a power play goal late in the period off a pretty passing play to cut the lead to two…but Henrik Zetterberg scored on an empty net with about two and a half minutes to go to seal the deal, a 6-3 win for Motown to even the series at two. As I expected, this one was going to take at least six, possibly seven, games…

I caught the end of a hard-fought 2-1 win for the Ducks in Game 6, which ended with a mini melee in the dying seconds and ultimately forced Game 7 in this series as well. That’s right…three out of the four Conference Semifinal series went to a Game 7! Unfortunately…none of them ended how I would have liked. As mentioned above, the Canes downed the Bruins in overtime, the Penguins smacked around the Capitals, and in this series, the Red Wings advanced with a 4-3 win over Anaheim. I didn’t get to see Game 7, but it looked like a great one. The Ducks trailed by two goals twice but battled back to tie it 3-3 midway through the third. The game-winning goal for the Red Wings came with three minutes left…and it must have been a tough pill to swallow for the Ducks, I imagine. Dan Clearly was credited with the goal, but Anaheim netminder Jonas Hiller actually knocked it in himself with his right pad as he didn’t know where the puck was. Had he just fallen down, he likely would have covered it instead…but oh well… The defending champion Detroit Red Wings thus advanced to the Western Conference Finals.

(4) Chicago Blackhawks vs. (3) Vancouver Canucks
Chicago won series 4-2
Initially, Vancouver was my favorite in the West while Chicago was my second favorite team…but as this series progressed, I didn’t really know who to root for here. On the one hand, again, Chicago has Buffalo connections in Kane and Campbell…but Vancouver has Taylor Pyatt and one-time Sabre Steve Bernier… I couldn’t really choose here… However, I did hope whoever advanced would go on to defeat either Anaheim or Detroit and make it to the Stanley Cup Finals. So to summarize, I was hoping for either a Washington/Chicago or Washington/Vancouver Stanley Cup match-up…

This series can be summarized with two simple words: bad blood. It stemmed from an encounter between these two teams back in the end of March, when Chicago’s Dustin Byfuglien gave Vancouver netminder Roberto Luongo a shot to the head as he skated by. A series of fights ensued that resulted in six ten-minute game misconducts being doled out, bringing the total number of penalty minutes for the game up to 98… The Canucks clearly hadn’t forgotten that game. I watched a decent chunk of Game 3 (which Vancouver went on to win), and the Canucks were understandably overprotective of their goalie throughout the game. If any Blackhawk came within a couple feet of Luongo, no matter how innocently, a little skirmish would soon follow… Chicago then went on to win Game 4 in overtime, however, to tie this series up again…

With another win in Game 5, the Hawks put themselves in position to advance to the Western Conference Finals… I watched most of what turned out to be a very dramatic (and decisive) Game 6… I won’t soon forget that game. Vancouver took a 5-4 lead in the third period, but soon after that, Buffalo native Patrick Kane got the equalizer for Chicago. I remember watching that play develop. One of the Hawks (I forget who) had the puck along the boards to the right of Canuck goalie Roberto Luongo and attempted to get the puck low to Kane, who was behind the net. However, there were two Canucks between the two Hawks, and I remember thinking “bad idea.” But by some stroke of luck, the puck bounced by both Vancouver players, and Kane gathered it in and banked it into the net off Luongo! A short while later, the Hawks took the lead off another fortunate bounce when, on the power play, an attempted pass to Patrick Sharp ricocheted in off a Vancouver defenseman’s skate. And in the final three or four minutes of the game, Kane claimed the puck in the neutral zone, galloped into Vancouver territory, and beat Luongo with a wicked backhand to give Chicago a commanding 7-5 lead and ultimately the win. That goal also completed Kane’s first career hat trick! It also marked the first playoff hat trick by a Blackhawk in 15 years! Thanks to a strong performance from Patrick Kane, the once woeful Chicago Blackhawks were heading to the Western Conference Finals.