Morning Player Notes in the Playoffs (Apr 26)

Nashville's best players had to be their best players on Monday night, if they wanted to stick around and see one more game in this series and between Pekka Rinne, Shea Weber, James Neal and Ryan Johansen, they were just that.  Their leadership group took the bull by the horns at home and slugged out a 3-1 victory over those Anaheim Ducks and they have sent the series back to California for the do or die game in this series.

Rinne made 26 saves for the win, while Neal had the game-winner and an assist, while everyone else chipped in and kept the Ducks from getting too close at any point in time.

This does become the last series to finish up, as the first round could have concluded on Monday night with an Anaheim win, but we'll get a night off here tonight, before these two go toe-to-toe for the finish on Wednesday night.

The champs have been defeated and we'll have a new champion in 2016!

The St. Louis Blues got the monkey off their backs, by giving the Chicago Blackhawks a taste of their home cooking, with an exciting 3-2 victory on Monday night.

The Blues got off to a rocking start, with a Jori Lehtera goal, a minute into the game, then followed it up with another from defenseman Colton Parayko, just past the halfway mark of the opening frame.  A 2-0 lead was nothing to be too proud of though, since the Blackhawks' resiliency is well-documented and before the end of the 1st period, Marian Hossa pulled a goal back.  Andrew Shaw made the game more interesting, drawing the Blackhawks level on an early 2nd period power play goal.

As many described it, this game was a heavyweight championship bout, as both teams were going punch for punch.  In the 3rd period, Troy Brouwer, a non-pool forward, potted the 3-2 goal and through some very hairy moments in the final frame, the Blues were able to hang on and give the Blackhawks the boot.

St. Louis now goes on to face Dallas in the 2nd round, which should prove to be another interesting series.

With the elimination of the Blackhawks, the pool lost another 122 selections on the pool sheet in the blink of an eye.  There were a lot of people who thought that the former champs would have at least made it through the Blues, but since the Blues still had 61 picks on their side, there was still a good number of those teams that took out some insurance, making sure they had something out of this series moving forward.

Patrick Kane was the most popular player on the Blackhawks, with 24 selections, closely followed by Duncan Keith, who had 22 picks.  Kane was one of two Blackhawks players to finish with 8 points before getting eliminated and the other was Artemi Panarin.

It's official.  No team will make it out of the opening round with 24 players on their active roster.  Eric's 24th place team, through Monday night, leads all teams with 21 players, only two players better than Stuart's 1st place team and now 21 points back.

Stuart's 1st place standing, 4 points up on 2nd place and four players better, does look a little hard to beat at the moment.  He's got both of his goalies, Martin Jones and Braden Holtby and his team only stands to lose one more player on Wednesday, no matter the result of Game 7 in Anaheim.  Yikes.