The Eastern Game 3s

Good morning poolies! It looks like we have ourselves a series. The Penguins took advantage of playing at home on Wednesday night and won Game 3 of their series with Washington, 3-2 in overtime. The series is now officially a home-ice series, with the home team winning each game of the series and Washington still leads, two games to one.

The hero in overtime for the Penguins was Kristopher Letang, who scored halfway through the first and only overtime period, plus he added an assist on Ruslan Fedotenko's goal in the second period to give himself a 3-point night. Letang, the Box 21 favourite with 20 selections, now has 7 points in these playoffs in the pool. Also earning multiple-point nights were Sidney Crosby (2 assists), Alex Ovechkin (goal & assist) and Marc-Andre Fleury (win).

After earning a split in Boston to open the series, the Hurricanes returned home to flex some muscle over the Bruins. It may not have been more muscle than what the Bruins had, but the Hurricanes worked for it and eventually earned themselves a 3-2 overtime win and a 2-1 series lead.

The overtime winner was scored by Jussi Jokinen, who doesn't have a spot in the playoff pool, so there isn't any bonus point to hand out with the winner. There were only two players that earned multiple-point games and that was Sergei Samsonov (goal & assist) and Cam Ward (win). Samsonov, the most popular of the pair, was taken 9 times in the pool, but hardly the most popular player in Box 16.

Ward, on the other hand, now leads the playoff pool in points with 16, thanks to 6 wins and 2 shutouts. Our top five points leaders look like this:
Cam Ward - Carolina - 16 points
Ryan Getzlaf - Anaheim - 14
Roberto Luongo - Vancouver - 14
Alex Ovechkin - Washington - 14
Sidney Crosby - Pittsburgh - 14

Theoretically, you could have all five players on your team for maximum performance.

Tonight's Games

Game 4... Canucks & Blackhawks... in Chicago. With the Canucks up 2-1 in the series, they could put the Blackhawks behind the 8-ball with a win tonight, heading back to Vancouver for Game 5 on Saturday. If Chicago can earn the split at home, then we will have at least six games in the series. This game goes at 6pm MT on CBC.


I think we are going to see one determined Red Wings team tonight in Anaheim for Game 4 in their series with the Ducks. The Wings were denied overtime on a quick whistle in Game 3 and you have to believe that they want to make sure that there is no cause for controversy in Game 4. The Ducks lead the series 2-1 and could have a commanding lead heading back to Detroit. This game goes at 8:30pm MT on TSN.