First Elimination of the Playoffs

No Henrik Zetterberg?  No Johan Franzen?  No problem.  The Detroit Red Wings showed that they didn't need all of their firepower, as much as they needed their playoff savvy to make quick work of the Phoenix Coyotes.

For a little while on Wednesday night, it looked like the Coyotes were going to hang with the Red Wings for a little while longer, but after the midway point of the 3rd period, the Red Wings flexed their experienced muscle and scored two back-breaking goals, added an empty-netter and the Coyotes were eliminated after a 6-3 loss.

By no means were the Coyotes expected to win this series, especially when you look at the selection sheet numbers.  The Coyotes only counted 25% of their possible selections, so there were a few teams betting on the upset, but the Red Wings were clear favourites, so a sweep didn't look so bad.  The most popular player for the Coyotes was Ed Jovanovski, who found 14 picks out of 76 teams, in the last defenseman box in the West.  A box that had a lot of variety in the picks, mostly because of the lack of skill.  The unofficial scoring leader for the Coyotes was Radim Vrbata, who finished with 6 points, Shane Doan and Keith Yandle each had 5 points.

An ankle injury is what added Johan Franzen to the list of injuries on Wednesday night, keeping him out of the series clinching game for the Red Wings. The injury does not sound too serious and the coaching staff are expecting him back in the line-up for when they start the second round of the playoffs. The Red Wings do get a few nights off, so they should be okay.

Well, how about that? It's taken nearly a week, but we have finally seen our first multiple overtime games this year in the playoffs.

At Madison Square Gardens, the Capitals broke the hearts of many, when Jason Chimera scored the winning goal just after the midpoint of the second overtime period, vaulting Washington into a 3-1 series lead, heading back to Washington for the long weekend.

The Rangers had blown a 2nd intermission 3-0 lead in the game to lose 4-3 in double overtime, which could end up being a dagger in their hearts for when they play Game Five on Saturday afternoon.  They will need to dig deep to get that one back.

Point-getters for the pool in this game were Michal Neuvirth, who made 31 saves for the win, and Chimera, who scored the winner.  They each netted a couple of points each.  For the Rangers, it was Brandon Dubinsky who scored a goal and an assist, but couldn't help keep the Capitals from coming back.

An undisclosed injury, which is widely speculated to be a hand injury, kept Box 16 forward Brooks Laich out of the game on Wednesday night. Laich is considered to be out day-to-day, but with a 3-1 series lead on the way home, the Capitals will be in no rush to get him back, I'm sure.

The Penguins and Lightning also found their way into double-overtime on Wednesday night and the result was eerily similar to the situation the Capitals put the Rangers.

With a 3-2 win in two extra frames, the Penguins have now put the Tampa Bay Lightning on the brink of playoff extinction, with the series heading back to Pittsburgh for Game Five, also on Saturday afternoon.

You could really tell that the Penguins wanted the win more than the Lightning, since the shot totals were 53-31 for Pittsburgh.

Looking at the boxscore, the effort was really spread around the Pittsburgh side, leaving only James Neal, who scored the winning goal, and Marc-Andre Fleury, who stopped 29 pucks, as the only multiple-point getters in this game for the visiting side.  For the Lightning, Martin St. Louis had a goal and an assist, but nothing in the clutch department for overtime.

Yes, this series will shift back to Pittsburgh for Saturday, but that's where the Lightning had one their only game in this series to date, so there might be some hope left in that fact.  We'll see.

Where would the Buffalo Sabres be without Ryan Miller?  Well, for one thing, they would have likely been swept out of this series, since their two wins, including Wednesday night's effort, were of the 1-0 variety and we now have an even series going back to Philadelphia.

Further to where the Sabres would be without Miller... they probably wouldn't have made the playoffs, would they?

Miller and his defense rode a 1st period goal from Jason Pominville through two and a half periods to help even the series at two wins a piece and the Sabres should feel awfully confident that they should be able to do good things as a unit, including possibly eliminating the Flyers early on in these playoffs.

Miller stopped 32 shots for his second shutout of these playoffs and he now has the Box 24 lead in points with 8.  If he can make it through the first round, he could have a pretty sweet total, likely giving the three teams that picked him in the pool a huge boost.

Game Five goes on Friday night in Philadelphia, part of a quiet night on the NHL playoffs schedule.

This Anaheim Ducks and Nashville Predators series is really turning into quite the slugfest.  Granted, if you have been watching, you probably  knew that through the first couple games of the series.

Well, they are going blow for blow and win for win, as the Ducks took Game Four in Nashville, 6-3, on the strength of a big night from the Rocket Richard Trophy winner, Corey Perry, who had the game-winning goal and two assists for a 4-point night, restoring home-ice advantage for the Ducks.

To compliment Perry's night, the Ducks also had good nights from Cam Fowler and Ryan Getzlaf, each having a goal and an assist, to help their team's cause.  There were no multiple-point guys from Nashville last night.

This series will resume on Friday night in Anaheim, but I don't think there is any need to start thinking about momentum, because it hasn't seemed to work for anyone outside of the 60 minutes of each game played already.  Both teams seem to reset the meter, so I would be looking for the Predators to come out strong on Friday night, trying to win again on the road and take the series at home... in theory.

Game-Winning Goals
Scoring the winners on Wednesday night were Jason Chimera of the Capitals, James Neal of the Penguins, Jason Pominville of the Sabres, Corey Perry of the Ducks and Dan Cleary of the Red Wings, all five of them are in the pool this year, so they'll be dishing out bonus points to those who picked them.  The most popular of the five is Cleary, who was picked 34 times in Box 7, the X-factor box of the Western Conference.

Looks like we have a new leader in the GWGs column, as Porkies Revenge picked up their 7th bonus point of these playoffs, not to say it's helping him a great deal, since he's still only in 25th in the standings.

Tonight's Games

The Canadiens will play host to the Bruins on Thursday night in Game Four of that series. The Bruins managed to steal a road win from the Habs on Monday night, so they can restore home-ice advantage with another road win tonight. It appears as though the home buildings may be putting too much pressure on their own teams, causing them to fall flat. The Canadiens will try and break that jinx tonight.

This game faces off at 5pm MT on CBC.

In the first of two later games, the Canucks will try to use home-ice to their advantage, like they have already in their series against the Blackhawks, trying to eliminate them again on Thursday night.  The Hawks gave the Canucks more than they could handle on Tuesday night, with a huge win in Chicago, but Rogers Arena should be rocking for those Canucks and it will be a tough building to play in on Thursday.  The Blackhawks already avoided the sweep, could they possibly climb back into this series?

This game faces off at 8pm MT on CBC, just after the Bruins and Canadiens.

Finally, the 8:30pm MT puck drop (on TSN) will feature the Sharks and Kings going in Game Four of their series.  The two teams split the opening pair in San Jose and now the Kings will be looking to split their home games, after dropping Game Three to their state rivals earlier in the week.  Overtime has been the name of the game in this series, with two of the first three games going to an extra frame and there is no reason why it couldn't do the same thing again on Thursday night.  This has the makings of a pretty good game.