Sunday Morning Recap

Well, it's Sunday morning and the Playoff posts are a little few and far between. There really hasn't been a great deal of injury news from pool players, which are the only ones I've really been concerned about. For the sake of having something written down, I thought I would give a short morning update for all of you who are actually showing up for something to read.

The lead for Riley is down to 1 point going into Sunday's action. He was up to three points heading into the weekend and lost the lead on Friday night, but has since re-gained his lead again. John P. and Graeme are nipping at his heals in the money spots as well.

Looking for the bonus points of Game Winning Goals; on Friday, we saw Ryan Malone (Box 17) score a couple late goals against the Senators including the winner, Alexander Ovechkin (Box 13) scored the overtime winner against Philadelphia, Sean Avery (Box 18) won it for the Rangers against the Devils for 2-0 series lead and finally, Keith Carney (non-pool) got a non-counting winning goal against the Avalanche for the Wild. Three of four winners were counted in the pool.

On Saturday, there were only three games played in the evening. Kris Draper (non-pool) ended up scoring the winning goal off of a defender's skate, as the Red Wings took a 2-0 series lead against the Predators. In overtime, it was Alexei Kovalev (Box 13) who scored the winner for the Canadiens to also take a 2-0 series lead, but theirs is over the Bruins. Finally, the late game saw the Dallas Stars take both games in Anaheim as Mike Modano (Box 5) scored the winner on the power play, which has been the difference in this series.

The Flames managed a split in San Jose against the Sharks as they come home tonight to play Game 3 in the Saddledome. With the team completely healthy, the decision was made by the coaching staff that Anders Eriksson (Box 10) was the odd man out on the blueline, making way for David Hale (non-pool). But with the loss on Thursday night, will the change be made on the blueline or will panic not set in and the roster stay the same?

The Stars are somewhat in the same boat having a pretty healthy squad, besides the major loss of Sergei Zubov (Box 8), who remains out of the line-up after sports hernia surgery. Up front, however, they are all healthy and the odd-man out has been Antti Miettinen (Box 6), since the team wanted to be much more physical against the Ducks. If the Stars make it through this series, they will likely dress Miettinen against an opponent who plays a less-physical brand of hockey.

The Flyers missed one of their better offensive defensemen on Friday night. Randy Jones (Box 22) missed out on Game 1 against the Capitals with the flu, but after a couple days off and quite possibly some rest, Jones should be back in the Flyers line-up for Game 2 on Sunday afternoon.


Tonight, the late game on Hockey Night in Canada will be the Sharks in Calgary for Game 3 of their series. The Sharks played a much better, less risky game against the Flames and had the goaltending in Evgeni Nabokov (Box 12) they needed to get past Calgary to earn the split at home. They'll now go into the hostile Saddledome to try and split the two games here in Calgary before heading back to Silicon Valley for Game 5.

The early game on CBC will be the Canadiens in Boston to take on the Bruins for their Game 3. The Habs are up two on Boston and have played quite well against their Original Six rival, but after the Bruins took the game to overtime last night, they should still think they have a chance to win a game and get back in the series.

TSN will cover the other two games going on today. Washington will host Philadelphia at noon MT today for Game 2 of that series. While the Rangers head home to try and take 3-0 lead on the Devils at home at 5pm MT today.