Game 1

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Stanley Cup Finals

(4) Pittsburgh Penguins vs. (2) Detroit Red Wings
The Red Wings have won the Cup four times in the past 11 years (excluding the 2004-2005 lockout, since there was no Cup awarded that year), including back-to-back championships in 1997 and 1998. So…I’m sick of them… The Penguins, meanwhile, haven’t hoisted the Cup since winning a back-to-back pair in 1991 and 1992…back during the Mario Lemieux days…

There’s also the Marian Hossa situation to consider… During last year’s Pittsburgh/Detroit Finals, Hossa was a Penguin. However, last summer, he turned down a sizable offer from Pittsburgh, jumped ship, and signed as an unrestricted free agent with the Detroit. So in this year’s rematch, he’s now on the other bench as a Red Wing… I’ve never been a fan of Hossa, even back during his days with Ottawa and then Atlanta. His move this past offseason didn’t help any. I hope the hockey gods punish his selfishness accordingly by again not allowing him to lift the Cup…

So, that said, I’m definitely rooting for Pittsburgh in these Finals (again). Considering the way they dismantled the once-hot Hurricanes, they certainly look like they have a better chance to win this year than they did last year…

Eastern Conference Finals

(6) Carolina Hurricanes vs. (4) Pittsburgh Penguins
Pittsburgh won series 4-0
With my first choice Capitals and second choice Bruins out, I was stuck picking the lesser of two evils here. I really don’t like the Canes, and after his “he probably has sore knuckles” response to Scott Walker’s sucker punch, I decided I hate Carolina coach Paul Maurice. So I was rooting for the Penguins in this one. I didn’t want to see the same team represent the Eastern Conference in the Stanley Cup Finals two years in a row…but I really wanted the Canes out as soon as possible…

With a decisive 6-2 victory in Game 3, the Pittsburgh Penguins had a stranglehold on this series with a 3-0 lead… I missed Game 1, but I managed to watch the other two games. The once nicknamed “Cardiac Canes” seemed to have run out of magic. They hadn’t managed any dramatic comebacks like they did in previous rounds to earn that goofy nickname. Game 2 was like watching two heavyweights exchange blows. When Pittsburgh scored, it didn’t take long for Carolina to come right back and answer, and vice versa. Late in the game though, Pittsburgh ran away with it, winning 7-4. That game was highlighted by a hat trick for Penguin Evgeni Malkin. His first two came from some good old fashioned net crashing, but his third one…wow… Malkin put away an otherworldly backhand from a bad angle right past Cam Ward’s arm. It was amazing. And in Game 3, the guy they call “Geno” netted two more goals in what was an all around dominant performance by the Penguins. Malkin recorded 6 goals and 3 assists in the mere three games played up to that point! And so Pittsburgh fans were getting those brooms out…

Fun fact: the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs and 1975 New York Islanders are the only two teams in NHL history to ever come back from 3-0 down to win a playoff series. Fortunately, the 2009 Carolina Hurricanes didn’t join that prestigious group as the Pittsburgh Penguins completed the sweep with a 4-1 victory in Game 4. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to watch any of this game, but I heard Penguin netminder Marc-Andre Fleury had a great game, as his numbers indicated. He stopped 30 of the 31 shots he faced that night… I’m sure some people were hoping the “Cardiac Canes” would mount another miraculous comeback and at least make a series out of it, but I wasn’t one of those people. I was hoping for this sweep. I was glad to see the Canes finally out of the playoffs, and now, I’m rooting for their executioners, the Pittsburgh Penguins, due to how the other series ended…

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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…

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Eastern Conference

(8) Montreal Canadiens vs. (1) Boston Bruins
Boston won series 4-0
As a Sabres fan, this match-up right away made me happy because it guaranteed that one of our Northeast rivals would be eliminated in the first round. I can’t say I was really rooting for either team but I am glad that it was Boston that advanced, mostly due to my man-crush on Tim Thomas that’s developed over the past two seasons due to fantasy hockey. And after seeing those Habs receive those undeserved votes into this year’s All Star game thanks to their fanbase’s centennial craze, I’m even happier that they were not only eliminated in the first round, but swept too! I only watched a few highlights myself, but apparently, this one wasn’t even close, as the result indicates. Boston only trailed twice in the entire series! I honestly feel like, had my Sabres snuck into the postseason, they would have put up a better fight than the Habs. We did have some surprising success against the Bruins this year…but ultimately, we would have lost. I just don’t think we would have been swept.

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