Player Notes in the Playoffs (Apr 29)

With the schedule the way it goes, the last day of the first round of the playoffs is today, two day later from the first Game 7 we've seen. The second round will now likely start tomorrow or Friday, as we await word, but it likely has a lot to do with who plays the Montreal Canadiens in the next round.

The Tampa Bay Lightning hold somewhat of an advantage, if there ever was one in this series, as they head home for the deciding game and they won Game 6 in Detroit to force this one game to move on.

I don't think there will be any surprises in net for the final game, as it should be Ben Bishop playing host to Petr Mrazek.

If the hopes of the Playoff Pool are to mean anything in this series, Tampa Bay would be the favourite to win, as there wasn't a whole lot of stock placed on Detroit going into the playoffs.  To the Red Wings credit, they have hung in there quite well, even if they lost their grips on the series in Game 6.

The Red Wings blueline took a kicking on Tuesday night, with the news of Niklas Kronwall's suspension and on Wednesday morning, the news doesn't get much better, as Marek Zidlicky was not on the ice for the morning skate and the coaching staff confirmed shortly after that the veteran Czech defender will not be in the lineup for Game 7.  Two huge holes that will be filled by Jakub Kindl and Andrei Marchenko, neither with the playoff experience of the two they're replacing, but the Wings are hoping for a lot more gusto.

Zidlicky was taken twice in the pool in Box 21, so there are a couple teams that are going to miss out on some ice-time, but if neither Zidlicky or Kronwall are going to play, these two teams may be losing their defenseman for the balance of the playoffs as well.

An updated list of injuries can be found here.