Two Days Worth of Action

The Tampa Bay Lightning got the better of the Montreal Canadiens in the regular season, even at the Bell Centre, so it really shouldn't come as a huge surprise, that the Bolts were winners again, this time opening up their series on Friday night with a 2-1 double overtime win.

Montreal were doing their best to statistically dominate Tampa in the opening game, but the Lightning just held on and in somewhat of a controversial fashion, they capitalized on a play that may not have been able to continue.  Nevertheless, a missed call or not, teams still have to play it out.

Nikita Kucherov scored his first goal of the playoffs at no better time, picking up the overtime winner to be a notable player in this game, while Ben Bishop had to make 43 saves for the victory.

A crazy one in Chicago on Friday night, as the Wild and Blackhawks also opened up their series at the United Center.

The home side stormed out to a 3-0 1st intermission lead and a lead that would normally be somewhat safe, certainly wasn't, as the Wild only took a shade over nine minutes in the 2nd period to tie the game back up.  Hearts were broken, however, as the Hawks were able to score, just before the end of the middle frame and then they were able to properly lock the game down, weathering the 3rd period storm and moving to a 1-0 series lead with the 4-3 win.

The offense was spread pretty thin for the Blackhawks, so there were very few notable players for the winning side.  Duncan Keith had a couple of assists, while Corey Crawford made 30 saves for his second win of these playoffs.

Zach Parise and Thomas Vanek each had a couple of points each in the losing cause, which certainly made a good number of Minnesota believers happy, even with the loss.

Only one game was played on Saturday and it was an early one, leaving one of the first quiet nights of the season on Saturday, leading towards the Summer.

The Rangers, already losing Game 1 in their own barn on Thursday night, had to make up some ground against the Capitals and that they did, putting together a 3-2 win over their Metropolitan Division rivals and tying up the series at 1-1.  The tides turned a few times in this game, as the Rangers dominated the 1st period, survived through most of the Caps pressure in the 2nd and then picked up an insurance marker, which came in handy late.

Derick Brassard was the only offensive notable player for the Rangers, scoring the eventual winning goal in the 3rd period, while Henrik Lundqvist made 30 stops, some of the acrobatic nature, earning the win in Game 2.

The second round has been a good jumping off point for Jesse P., who now has 19 points in the round and has jumped up into 2nd place in the standings, now in the money spots.

Sairosh still sits atop of the standings through a few days of the second round, as his team has picked up 15 points thus far and still holds a 4-point lead, heading into a busy Sunday worth of action.

Tony D., who is somewhat behind in players active in the pool now, his team has now dropped to 3rd place, already losing 7 points to Jesse in the round and now 1 point behind.

David C. is only 3 points out of 3rd place, while John S., Sean L. and Fontanna are all 4 points back and Grant S. is 5 points back.  The race is still running pretty hot these days and with various amounts of players through the teams, it should stay fairly interesting, through to the Conference Finals.

Game-Winning Goals
Tony C. isn't the only one with 9 bonus points anymore, as Sean L. and Sairosh climbed up to the peak with him, thanks to Nikita Kucherov's overtime winner.  Three teams now on top with nine points, while there are still a couple of teams with 8 bonus points, Fontanna and Nic L..

With three games coming up on Sunday, we'll probably see a little bit more movement in this race... or so I would hope.