The Chicago Blackhawks and Los Angeles Kings opened their Western Conference Finals rematch on Sunday afternoon and it didn't look like the Blackhawks really missed a beat from one year ago, when they beat the Kings in five games. Despite the amount of hockey, players from both teams, had played in the last 12 months, the pace was pretty quick, as they both looked for win number nine in these playoffs.
With the way these two teams operate, there is a solid belief that breaking through a 1-0 lead from the other side could be the more difficult of all situations. The Kings made the first mistake of the game, taking the only penalty of the opening frame and the Hawks capitalized on it with a blast from the point, tipped in by Brandon Saad. In the 2nd period, Chicago nearly had a 2-0 lead, but a controversial decision to pull back a Jonathan Toews goal, to which the Kings answered the bell, with a Tyler Toffoli goal, only seconds later, tie game.
The series of events wasn't a let down for the home team, however, with a Duncan Keith point shot making it through traffic to re-take the lead, midway through the 2nd period. The biggest push from the Kings came in the 2nd period, as they managed to get 17 pucks through to Corey Crawford, only picking up the one goal. In the 3rd period, the Blackhawks didn't look back, holding their opponents to only four shots on net, while Toews managed to get a goal in the end, making the final score, 3-1.
Marian Hossa, Brandon Saad, Duncan Keith and Corey Crawford are your multiple-point players in the hockey pool on Sunday and with all the Blackhawks players that were taken, I'm sure there were a good number of those in a number of combinations.
Game Two of the series will not go until Wednesday night, a 6pm MT start on TSN.
Between the first two games of the Conference Finals round, Stacey M. has the lead in the round's scoring, with 14 points, but her team sits a ways back in 19th place with 173 points. Six teams in the pool have yet to register a point in the first two games of this series and the highest ranked team of those is in 29th place, Don C.'s team.
Dale B. holds a 5-point lead, as his is the first team to hit the 200-point mark in these playoffs. Don D. pulled a couple of points upon Corey M., while Gus M. has his first team in a tie with Corey's squad. 195, 193 and 193 points, respectively.
In the 2012 playoff pool, the last time we had one, the top score for the entire pool was 197 points, as players dropped like flies from some serious upsets then. Who expected the New Jersey Devils in the Finals? In the 2011 pool, the winning team finished with 313 points, so I am going to wager that this season will finish right in the middle of those two. The format of the pool hasn't changed since it's first time out in 2007, which had a finish of 226 points in 1st place.
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