Afternoon Player Notes in the Playoffs (Apr 15)

Game 2 between the Red Wings and Lightning is the earlier game of the four tonight, where the Lightning are holding the one-game advantage, trying to finish off with complete home-ice tonight.

With everyone healthy out of Game 1, there's nothing new to watch for tonight in this one, except what should be a very good game.  In net, it will be Jimmy Howard against Ben Bishop again.

According to the sheet selections, this is one of the most divided series in the opening round, with the Red Wings being the favourites, 72-56 in selections.  A team, with a max of three picks through 50 teams, means they can only top out at 150 and neither team made it to halfway, suggesting that there are quite a few teams that opted to spread out their picks even thinner.

Top picks in this series... both Niklas Kronwall & Jonathan Ericsson, the last two East defensemen, were taken 17 times each.  Not very high hopes for either team in these playoffs.

The Islanders and Panthers are right back at it on back-to-back nights, with the visitors taking Game 1 last night in a barn burner.  Marek Zidlicky is not likely to dress with the Islanders winning last night and neither Anders Lee or Jaroslav Halak will dress in this series.  With the return of Erik Gudbranson to the lineup for the Panthers last night, they went into the game with a full sheet compliment and I would expect that not to change.  Thomas Greiss and Roberto Luongo will be your match-up again tonight.

The Panthers are far and away the favourites in this series, 113-29 in selections, but are already down a game in the series.  It would be a hard place to be between, if they lost tonight and went back to Brooklyn down 2-0.

Aleksander Barkov of the Panthers is the top pick in this series, taken 23 times, and was held scoreless in Game 1.  Florida could really use his scoring punch tonight, if they want the split.

Just because this is going to be a great series, doesn't mean there has to be a lot of scoring.  Wednesday's 1-0 win for St. Louis is indicative about how this series could go.

Duncan Keith returns for the Blackhawks tonight, which is good for the 22 teams that have selected him this year.  The Blues are healthy, but Jake Allen will again be the back-up, as they will go with Brian Elliott against Corey Crawford tonight.

The Blackhawks, down 1-0, are the favourites in the pool, outpicking the Blues, 122-61, so an upset in this series would actually go to the number three team in the division.  That would go a long way to separating teams in the pool standings.

To no one's surprise, Patrick Kane is the most popular player in this series, taken 24 times.

The last of the opening round match-ups gets started tonight, as it will be Game 1 between the Predators and Ducks on the pond.  Nashville sat a bunch of their stars in their last game of the year over the weekend, while the Ducks also had some resting and healing done this week.  I would expect that everyone will be ready to go tonight, making for one hell of a start to the series.

In net, it will be Pekka Rinne against John Gibson, a pro-pool match-up.

Anaheim is the clear favourite in this series, 113-17, but I don't think the selections will dictate how short this series will be, since Nashville is a much better team than anyone is going to give them credit for.

Corey Perry is the top pick in this series, leading the way with 19 picks in Box 2.