Biggest Surprises from 2nd Round of 2013 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs

The conference semifinals are over, and now it's time to move on to the NHL's version of the Final Four.

After a series of upsets in the first round, the teams with the home-ice advantage won all four of the matchups. So from that perspective, all four outcomes were expected.

However, there were a number of surprising developments in each of the series.

Kings of the Road No More

When the Los Angeles Kings won the Stanley Cup last year, they did it as the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference. They never had a sniff of home-ice advantage.

In their four series victories last postseason against the Vancouver Canucks, St. Louis Blues, Phoenix Coyotes and New Jersey Devils, they went a remarkable 10-1 on the road. They didn't lose away from home until dropping Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final in New Jersey.

This year, the Kings dropped the first two games on the road to the St. Louis Blues, but they were back to their winning ways with a key victory in Game 5 in St. Louis.

However, the Kings lost their road-warrior mentality against the San Jose Sharks. The Kings finally had home-ice advantage, and they won all four of their games at Staples Center while dropping three at the Shark Tank.

It's quite surprising that when the Kings finally lost their road magic, they managed to survive and advance anyway.

Torey Krug Serves Up Magic for the Bruins

The Boston Bruins came into their series with the New York Rangers having significant injury problems on the blue line.

Dennis Seidenberg, Andrew Ference and Wade Redden were all out with lower-body injuries. While none of them appeared to be serious, none of those players could start the series.

Head coach Claude Julien played rookies Torey Krug, Dougie Hamilton and Matt Bartkowski in their place. While Hamilton and Bartkowski had seen significant action with the Bruins during the year, Krug spent nearly all of his time down in the minors with Providence.

Krug, however, has been spectacular thus far in the postseason. He scored four goals in the five-game series win over New York, giving the Bruins offense a tremendous spark.

That's the most ever for a rookie defenseman in his first five playoff games.

While the injured Bruins defensemen may be healthy for the start of the series against Pittsburgh, Krug is not expected to come out of the lineup.

Tomas Vokoun Remains Steady in Net

The hard part for Tomas Vokoun came in the first round of the playoffs.

With teammate Marc-Andre Fleury slumping for the second consecutive postseason in a row, head coach Dan Bylsma tapped Vokoun to steady the ship against the surging New York Islanders. Vokoun obliged  and helped the Pens escape the first round in six games.

Bylsma was not about to make a switch in the second round; Vokoun was in net for all five games against the Ottawa Senators. Vokoun gave up just 11 goals in five games as the Penguins dominated the conference semifinal matchup.

Goaltending had been a weakness for the Penguins early in the playoffs, but not with Vokoun in net. He has a 1.85 goals-against average and a .941 save percentage as the Penguins prepare for the Eastern Conference Finals.

Jonathan Toews' Frustrations

Star of the Chicago Blackhawks, Jonathan Toews was the youngest team captain to be handed the Stanley Cup when the Blackhawks won it all in 2010.

And as winners of the 2013 Presidents' Trophy, the Blackhawks had a remarkable season. After beating the Minnesota Wild in five games, they were expected to trounce the seventh-seeded Detroit Red Wings.

It didn't happen that way. The Red Wings raced off to a 3-1 lead and had the Blackhawks on the ropes until the favorites mounted a monster comeback.

Toews, however, was frustrated the majority of the series. He didn't score a goal the entire postseason until he notched his first in Game 5 against Detroit. In Game 4, he took a hat trick of penalties when his frustrations boiled over.

While the Blackhawks won the series, Toews did not look like a player who was in the Hart Trophy discussion for the majority of the season.

Jimmy Howard Blunts Blackhawks

At the start of their series, the Blackhawks figured they had a mental edge over Red Wings goalie Jimmy Howard.

The Blackhawks had beaten the Red Wings in all four regular-season matchups and likely believed they could score on Howard in every clutch situation. That opinion did not change after the first game when the Blackhawks registered a 4-1 victory.

However, the Red Wings turned the tables with a 4-1 victory of their own in Game 2 on Chicago's home ice. When the series moved to Detroit, the Red Wings swept two games and Howard only allowed one goal in 120 minutes of action.

Howard held one of the most explosive teams in the league to two goals in three games. While the Blackhawks came back and managed to pull out the series, Howard demonstrated that he is one of the most underrated goalies in the league.

Kris Letang Leads the Attack

Kris Letang is one of the many talented players on the Penguins roster. Head coach Dan Bylsma counts on Letang to use his speed and skill to shut down opposing offenses and also jump-start the Penguins attack.

However, when you have Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, James Neal, Jarome Iginla, Chris Kunitz and Pascal Dupuis, you don't expect a defenseman to lead the team in scoring.

However, after the first two rounds of playoff action, Letang is tied with Malkin for the team lead in points with 16. Letang is one point ahead of Crosby, and when a defenseman can score more points than Sid the Kid, it's an indication of how important he is to the team.

Justin Williams Gets It Done for the Kings

The stars are supposed to come out in Game 7.

For the Los Angeles Kings, that meant Jeff Carter, Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown or Mike Richards was supposed to lead the way against the San Jose Sharks Tuesday night.

However, Justin Williams did not wait for the big names to start firing. He scored twice for the Kings in the second period, and those two goals were all the Kings would get in a 2-1 series-clinching victory.

While Jonathan Quick cemented the win, he would not have been able to do so if the unsung Williams didn't come through with a huge game when his team and Coach Sutter needed it most.

Williams has scored four goals and two assists in the postseason, including two game-winning goals.

Tortorella Gets Torched

The New York Rangers were supposed to give the Boston Bruins a full-fledged battle.

While the Bruins had home-ice advantage in their Round 2 series, the two teams were built in a similar defense-first manner. And the Rangers had a superior goaltender in Henrik Lundqvist.

However, the Rangers were never in the series, getting beaten in five games.

Head coach John Tortorella did his team no favors. First there was that highly questionable remark about how his speedy winger Carl Hagelin "stinks" on the power play. Hagelin likely did not take kindly to his coach's assessment.

Then Tortorella benched Brad Richards, the second-highest-paid player on the team, prior to the fourth game of the series.

Virtually every time Tortorella made a move, it seemingly was the wrong one. It was too much for his employers to abide; the Rangers fired their coach four days after their season ended.

Tortorella was out after four-plus years of coaching the Broadway Blueshirts.