entertainment firegeezer on 24 Apr 2008 05:36 pm
NHL Playoffs - Series 2
THE SECOND ROUND OF THE ELIMINATION TOURAMENT FOR THE STANLEY CUP begins tonight after some gripping first-round series’.
Usually the first round brings one big surprising upset with it, but this year that didn’t exactly happen. There were two series where the winner was the clear underdog, but I don’t think they qualify for “upset” status. One of them was the Colorado - Minnesota contest. I would have bet that Minnesota would take it with a bit of work. But the Avs edged them out in 6 games. If memory serves me right, 5 of the games were decided with 3-2 scores.
Colorado center Ryan Smyth gets puck past
three Minnesota players to score in Game 6 (Reuters)
The other mild surprise was Dallas knocking off the defending champions, the Anaheim Ducks. Elsewhere, we had two terrific series with Montreal taking out Boston in seven games and the Philadelphia Flyers squeaking by the Cinderella team for this year, the Washington Capitals in seven games. Two of the games went into overtime and Philly won them both. They were the better team in that series.
I thought Detroit would take out Nashville more easily than it turned out, but still they won, along with Pittsburgh, San Jose and a great showing by the NY Rangers as they set New Jersey back in a hard-fought round.
Rangers center Chris Drury scores on
Martin Brodeur in Game 4 (Reuters)
With each round, the play gets more intense and the skills of all the players are shown at their highest. Detroit takes on Colorado. I’ll pick Detroit Red Wings for this one.
Rangers vs. Pittsburgh, gotta go with the Rangers this time around. They’re peaking in performance while the Penguins had to sit around and cool off after sweeping Ottawa in four.
I’m going to pick San Jose over Dallas by a half-point. It’ll be a close match, but I have the feeling that one of the teams will collapse. Just don’t know which one. Pittsburgh and Montreal will be sloppy and a toss-up. I won’t try to pick a winner in that one.
Schedule some tube time to watch as many of these as you can because there will be some good action.
Click to play the
Round 1 highlights video
