David Legwand was the first draft pick in the history of the Nashville Predators back in 1998, and a mere 13 years later, he finally made it to the second round of the playoffs.  The series between Nashville and Vancouver could be one of the better series of this round, from a defensive style of hockey standpoint.  Vancouver had some problems in the first round getting their top line producing, and Nashville has been very balanced so far.  Toss in the remarkable play of Pekka Rinne, and this is going to be a very low scoring series.  Plus, that just means we get to see these guys do their things at Canucks homegames.

And then we have the Bruins and Flyers.  I do believe everyone will agree with me, and I have said this before, Philly needs a goalie.  Sure, you can make a good run with a hot goalie one year, but you need some stability.  There have been many goalies in the past few years that have made the impressive run, such as Kiprusoff, Halak, Ward, Emery, and so on.  I thought that this was going to be the year that Miller did that for Buffalo, but I was wrong.  In the Boston/Philly series, this one has all the ingredients to get ugly.  Philly was extremely undisciplined in the series opener, but Boston was still unable to tally on the power play.  In hockey, there are good penalties to take and bad ones, and Philly loaded up on the slashing and roughing penalties.  Boston will be one team that Philly will not be able to bully, and if Boston decides enough is enough, things could get interesting.

Back to the Western Conference, we have the Sharks and the Wings.  One thing is for sure, this series will be on NBC.  Granted, I won't be watching any of it because I can't fucking stand Pierre McGuire.  He is like the fucking Rain Man of hockey.  He can tell you where everyone played their junior hockey, how many points they scored, and where they were born.  Sure, I guess I could remember all that kind of stuff, but I'm to busy trying to do normal things.  Like get me some strange and have some fun with my life.  This series will be one that Bettman and the NBC will adamantly push to the American market.  That is why I'm curious is Vancouver will make it to the conference finals.  We will all get to see how quickly NBC will switch their focus to the Eastern Conference just so they don't have to showcase a Canadian team.  But I digress...the Sharks are a team ripe with opportunity, but they always seem to shit the bed and leave everyone hoping for next year.  Trust me...as a Boston fan, I can tell you that Thornton's OT winner against the Kings was probably the biggest goal of his playoffs career.  Fuck, do I ever hate Pierre McGuire.

How far Tampa goes in the playoffs is entirely dependent on Roloson.  Sure, we have all seen Rolie carry weaker teams all the way to the finals, but that was also a few years ago, and Rolie is a little longer in the tooth and greyer in the pubes now.  Tampa has a well rounded team, and I am actually a little impressed that Steve Downie has smartened up moderately.  I was pretty hard on him a few years ago, and he has actually calmed down a bit.  Washington may finally be moving in the right direction on their back end.  Neuvirth looks to be their goalie of the future, but he is going to have his hands full with a balanced Tampa offence this round.

Now, I don't know if Harvey Dakota is going to like this next part.  How much longer is the NHL going to try to sell the Coyotes to the Hulsinger group?  They keep trying to find new ways to raise the money and deal with the Goldwater Institute when they have a billionaire in another city, with a perfectly good arena, and a perfectly good market.  That is all I am going to say about that.

No hockey fight of the week, but instead, here is something new.

SIDE BOOB OF THE WEEK!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week.