Two Out of Three Eliminated

It was a pretty huge night for eliminations last night, but it could have been bigger. Both Nashville and Anaheim started calling for tee times down South this morning, as the Red Wings and Stars (respectively) eliminated them from the playoff picture for another year. Only the Calgary Flames could save themselves for a Game 7 appearance with their 2-0 win over the Sharks on Sunday night.

The elimination of Nashville only meant the loss of 21 selections from the pool. There wasn't a great deal of faith that they would upset the President's Trophy winners from the Central Division. Those who gambled on the Predators obviously took a pretty big hit.

On the other side of the coin, there were a number of teams that took a hit with the loss of Anaheim. There was a great deal of faith that the Ducks would at least make it to the second round, which would have been the first time in six tries for the Cup Champion to make it past the first round of the playoffs. 143 player selections were lost last night to the elimination of the Ducks.

With all those eliminations, there are still two pool teams that have all 24 of their players still enlisted on their squad. Both Angela and Warren have done a good job of picking the right players, up until tonight and tomorrow, in where they could still lose some. Angela went with Calgary in the last West series, where Warren has gone with San Jose. In the two remaining East series, Angela went with Philadelphia and Montreal to win, where Warren chose Washington and Montreal. There is a possibility that one of these two could go through the first round unscathed, but the quickest way that neither of them do, would be a Montreal loss tonight to Boston.

So, let's talk Game Winning Goals then, shall we? The Predators were shutout on Sunday, so the first goal was obviously the winner. Credit for the first goal went to Nicklas Lidstrom (Box 8). Lidstrom added a bonus point to 23 teams in the pool. The same shutout rule applied to the Calgary/San Jose game... and the winner went to Owen Nolan (Box 6). Nolan, a pretty clutch pick-up thus far, was chosen three times in the pool. Finally, it was Stu Barnes (non-pool) who stole away a bonus point from the pool, as he scored the winner against Anaheim to eliminate the Ducks, late on Sunday night.

One of the more amazing things about the Dallas Stars run at the moment is that they are missing two key defensemen and they beat a team with an amazing amount of defensive talent. Both Sergei Zubov (Box 8) and Phillipe Boucher (Box 9) have been missing from the line-up due to injury. Zubov has been out with a foot injury and also had surgery on a sports hernia and he isn't quite expected to play at all in the playoffs, barring a minor miracle. Boucher has been out with a lower body injury (suspected hip injury), but he has a good chance of joining the team in the second round.



On CBC tonight, the Original Six match-up will go to Game 7, as the Canadiens host the Bruins in the key match-up in the East. The Bruins, who were behind the 8-Ball this weekend, has battled back to get to Game 7, but the Bell Centre will be a tough place to win tonight. By a pool count, the Canadiens were favoured in selections, 155-15. So an upset by the Bruins, could be somewhat catastrophic to a lot of pool teams, especially the 24 who selected Carey Price (Box 24) as their Eastern Conference goalie. In the other crease, Tim Thomas (Box 24) was taken once, so he could figure into being a huge upset and key player down the stretch, if the upset was to be pulled.

In the other game tonight, the Washington Capitals will look again to remove themselves from behind the 8-Ball against the Philadelphia Flyers. They go into Game 6 down 3-2 in the series and are heading to the Wachovia Center, where they have yet to be successful in this series. The Capitals are favoured in the pool 92-40 in selections. 25 teams could lose their number one guy in the East in Alexander Ovechkin (Box 13), which makes his rival, Sidney Crosby (Box 13), a better pick, as he's already through to the second round and was taken 23 times.

All in all, both games tonight will be pretty good to watch... it might be a good idea to have that TV remote handy, so you can flip between both games.