The Devils are Out

Would you believe that 67 selectctions were eliminated last night with the New Jersey Devils? 12 teams had Martin Brodeur (Box 24) on their side, as the most popular Devil. But even he couldn't hang on against the very determined offense of the Rangers.

A quick five-game series was somewhat of a surprise, especially knowing how Brodeur can perform in a playoff series. This was one of the series that was pretty hard to determine an outcome at the drop of the first faceoff, but no one was going to say that either team was going to fall off the map so quickly.

Other popular Devils lost due to the elimination were: Patrik Elias (Box 15) with 9 selections, John Madden (Box 17) with 7, Tomas Zajac (Box 19) with 7 and Bryce Salvador (Box 23) with 7.

Only 15 teams have all 24 players remaining for their squad now, but that number will drop again before some of these other series end as well.

Well, I have two nights of game winners to recap for you, since there was no update yesterday morning. Bonus points on Thursday night went to: Glen Metropolit (Box 18), as the Bruins live to fight another day against the Habs; Mike Knuble (Box 16) scored the overtime winner against the Capitals; Stu Barnes (non-pool) stole a point away from the pool and put the Ducks on the brink; Paul Statsny (Box 1) beat the Wild and gave the Avalanche the lead in the series; and finally, it was Jonathan Cheechoo's (Box 3) second goal that turned out to be the winner against Calgary.

On Friday night, two of the three goals were counters in the pool. In New Jersey, the Devils were eliminated by Chris Drury's (Box 15) second period goal. The Red Wings took a 3-2 lead on the Predators with a Johan Franzen (non-pool) marker in overtime. Finally, the Ducks staved off elimination with a 5-2 victory at home to Dallas and it was Teemu Selanne (Box 1) who took the winning shot.

The Minnesota Wild are going to be playing tonight behind the 8-ball against the Avalanche in tonight's late game. The Wild will be travelling to Denver to try and even-up the series to take it home for Game 7 tonight, but the Avalanche look to have their legs underneath them finally and should upset the Northwest Division champion.

A lack of offense will be the number one reason why the Wild haven't been able to pull this series out from under Colorado, since Niklas Backstrom (Box 12) has been playing quite well. This will be one point that the Wild will look at if they can't make it out of Denver alive tonight.

In the early game on TSN, the Capitals will try and use their home-ice to keep themselves alive versus the Flyers this afternoon. The Flyers made good use of being at home, taking both games in Philadelphia and taking a 3-1 lead. If the Capitals are to stay alive today, they will need a huge effort from their big scorers and make sure that they play well in their own zone to contain the now-confident Flyer forwards. Daniel Briere (Box 15) has been clutch for the Flyers against Washington, already scoring 5 goals, including a winner.