Lord Stanley's Cup: Round 3
I incorrectly pick the matchups for Round 3
by Taylor Hruby
And you thought you’d finish this week out without some hockey talk! Not today, folks! We’re hot off the heels of a Game 7 OT winner and I’m still all jacked up, so let’s get to it.
The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Red Wings in 7 games (I predicted Lightning in 5), then they beat the Montreal Canadiens in 6 (I predicted the Habs would win in 7). The Lightning are going up against the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference Final. The Rangers beat the Penguins in 5 (I predicted they would win in 6), and last night they beat the Washington Capitals in Game 7 (I said they would win in 5). It was a remarkable game, highlighted by two monster goaltenders in what might have been one of the best goalie matchups in playoff history. It all came down to a big ol’ Braden Holtby rebound in overtime that found its way to Derek Stepan’s stick and the rest, as they say, is history. In Tampa’s series, I messed up. I’ll admit to that. I watched the Tampa Bay Lightning play a home game against the Buffalo Sabres on March 3rd. When we were walking into the game, I told my father in law that we could easily be seeing the Stanley Cup champion play tonight. The Buffalo Sabres were just that good! Wait, no, they were not. They’re about to pick second, even though they finished last in the league, in the upcoming draft because the NHL employs a lottery system for picks and sports gods hate Buffalo. I was talking about the Lightning! I should have stayed that course and I know that now.
The Lightning are a really good team, with an out of this world goal scorer, some young depth and a good(-ish?) goalie. Ben Bishop, the aforementioned goodish goalie remains my question mark. He’s good, but is he GOOD, you know? And it turns out, he’s going up arguably the best goalie in the world. Henrik Lundqvist is GOOD. How good has he been this playoffs? How about his goals against so far in the playoffs: 1, 3, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1. Yeaaahhhhhhh. How about that! Dude is a savage. And he is absolutely gorgeous, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Can Stamkos solve King Lundqvist? Does it matter? Stamkos, since being touted by me, has been quiet. Tyler Johnson is carrying the team, offensively, with 8 goals, but can anyone solve Lundqvist right now? That remains to be seen. I don’t think much about stats when I write these things, I go with my gut. My gut messed up my Lightning pick, so … I have to honor the gut. Stamkos breaks out just enough, the Rangers get bounced from the playoffs and the Lightning move on to face the winner of the Western Conference Final. I would never, ever, ever bet real money against Henrik Lundvist though. Go back up and look at those goals against one more time. But we’re playing with house money here!
Lightning over the Rangers in 7.
YOUR CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS beat the Nashville Predators in 6 games (which is exactly what I said) and the Minnesota Wild in 4 games (which was absolutely hilarious). The Hawks are playing the Anaheim Ducks. The Ducks beat the Winnipeg Jets in 4 (I said Ducks in 6), they also beat the Calgary Flames in 5 games (which is exactly what I said). This is going to be a tough series to call. The Ducks are exactly what I feared in the St Louis Blues (but they choked, like usual). They're a big team, a physical team, a talented team. They've got some bangers and they've got some skill. They have a question mark or two, mainly their goaltending situation. They also played two horribly over rated teams. The Jets clawed their way into the playoffs and got crushed. The Flames overachieved all year long and finally came crashing back to Earth. Now, I'm hoping the Ducks will follow suit. I talked a lot last post about the Ducks being incredibly lucky all year long, hopefully the Ducks come crashing back down, too. They had a bit of an injury scare with Corey Perry's bendy leg, but apparently he's okay because hockey players are insane.
The Hawks look great. Finally. Kane is back and killing it, Teuvo is making that 3rd line dangerous, Crawford bounced back. I'm relatively sure I talked about all that at some point. I swear, I'm not always just tossing darts blindfolded over here and I really think the Hawks are firing on all cylinders. My biggest concern right now is that the Hawks haven't played in 9 games once the series starts. Thanks a lot, Minnesota. I still need a more consistent effort out of Bryan Bickell, Marian Hossa hasn't scored an actual goal in something like 25 games, Brandon Saad is playing on the most dangerous line in the playoffs and hasn't done much with it. Toews and Kane are big game monsters and Keith, Seabrook, Hjalmarsson and Oduya are all playing really well. But not all is well with the defense. Michal Rozsival broke his ankle on an absolutely disgusting play and Kimmo Timonen is 78 years old. In comes David Rundblad, he of 0 career playoff games. He slots in with Timonen and that duo scares me already and the series doesn't start until Sunday.
I think this series comes down to how the Ducks knock the Hawks around. Big teams scare the shit out of me. The Hawks are not a large team. They're a finesse team. I think the Hawks keep it up, but I have seen enough playoff hockey this year to know that the Ducks could take it to them. I'm going to stick with my gut again though and hit you with the truth bomb:
Fuck Corey Perry, fuck Getzlaf's bald head, fuck the Ducks for playing in those crappy unis instead of those beautiful Mighty Ducks sweaters.
