Allsports Enjoying the NHL Conference Finals

Well allsports is doing his best to try and put some opinions out for sports on the web and the great hockey being played in the NHL conference final playoffs.

Detroit is playing Chicago in the West and Pittsburgh is playing Carolina in the East. So the question has to be asked as the Talking Heads would say, “Well how did we get here”?

The Penguins took care of the Ovechkin lead Washington Capitals in seven games. It did not start well for the Pens though. Malkin was the invisible man for the first two games of the series and Pittsburgh headed home down two games. Crosby carried the team until Malkin got his act together. Once that happened there was just too much for Washington to overcome. Ovechkin was great in the series but got a little carried away with his hits, leaving his feet on a couple of occasions. He has to learn he is a star player and playing like that endangers other players so they will start gunning for him and put him out or he will hurt himself with over exuberance.

The Canes took out the Boston Bruins in seven games as well. Originally I thought the Bruins would be to big and to deep. The Bruins whether injured or not did not punish the Canes and for that they are now watching. Paul Maurice did a great job of coaching. Claude Julien was to worried about matching Chara against Eric Staal and Staal with some major help from Cam Ward took care of the rest. Chara just did not have the foot speed to match well with Staal and the Bruins paid the price.

Detroit took care of Anaheim but it took seven games to do so. Jonas Hiller played very well in the net for the Ducks and was the main reason why the series was not over a bit sooner. Detroit played their usual game and controlled the puck, rarely making a mistake that could hurt them. Osgood has been solid in the net.

Vancouver appeared to have the young Black hawks on the ropes and were within about 3 minutes of going ahead in the series three games to one. Then one little brain cramp by Willie Mitchell turned the whole series around. He tried to force the puck up the boards where it was just too crowded instead of up the middle where it was open. I bounced out to martin Havlat, who surprised Luongo with a wrist shot to tie the game. Chicago then won it in overtime to tie the series 2-2. Vancouver had played a great defensive game to that point because they knew that they could not open it up against the talented and speedy Hawks. Vancouver would never recover and Chicago just kept gaining confidence.

Conference Finals

To date the Penguins have been all over the Hurricanes and are up in the series three games to zero. Both Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin have been unstoppable, which does not bode well for the Canes chances for survival. Crosby and Malkin smell the blood of the Detroit Red Wings and want another chance at the defending champs.

The Canes have survived through two tough seven game series and appear to be out of gas against the superior fire power of the Penguins. As I said in a post back on April 23, titled, Allsports gives a brief Update on the NHL Playoffs. You have to have at least one relatively short series to have a chance at the Stanley Cup. That is why Allsports did not like the Canes chances. I thought they might win tonight but with the Malkin/ Crosby show and Marc-Andre Fleury having his best game of the series there was no chance. The Canes had thirty shots but Fleury stoned them. The brooms were out and the sweep was on.

In the first game of this series the young Black hawks looked a little overwhelmed and in the, just glad to be here mode. In game two they were much better but still ended up falling to Detroit in overtime. Last night at home the Hawks came out strong and built a 3-0 lead only to then let Detroit back into it when they scored three goals in just under five minutes. It was a great game to watch and the Hawks ended up winning it in overtime to get back into the series. They are gaining experience by the minute, and with their speed and skill, should give Detroit all they can handle the rest of the way.

There was a controversial hit in the game by Nicklas Kronwall on Martin Havlat. Havlat got crushed and did not get up. No signal was made for a penalty at the time but after Havlat was injured Kronwall was given a five minute major and a game misconduct.  Allsports thought that yes by the rule book it was interference because Havlat did not touch the puck but what I disagree with is that if Havlat had of jumped right back up and kept playing, there would not have been a penalty. Here is the video of the hit, draw your own conclusions. The analysts for the game seemed to think it was a good hockey hit.

The Black hawks caught a bit of a break for game four as all star defenseman Nick Lidstrom missed the game with a lower body injury. Pavel Datsyuk also missed the game. I don’t know what ran through the hawks heads, maybe they thought things would be easy and Detroit would just lay down for them when two of their best were missing. They should have known better, Detroit’s veterans came to play and they overwhelmed the Hawks by a 6-1 score. That was the Hawks game to win and they blew it. Now they have to go back to Detroit down 3-1 in games.  Never say never but I don’t like their chances. So much for giving Detroit all they can handle.

“No Guts No Glory”

Walt Webb

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