Helloooooooo new blood in the Western Conference.

Your Stanley Cup Finalist will either be...
St. Louis
Phoenix
Nashville
Los Angeles.

By the way, nothing would be complete unless you have a suspendable hit. BRUTAL boarding on poor Rozi leaves him down and bleeding.

Yeah holy shit man, you watching this game? The United Center is dead fucking silent right now. Shots were 26-6 Hawks at some point in this game too... Nothing against the Coyotes at all (quite the contrary, I'm happy to see them advance) but holy shit, how this game went to shit for Chicago.

Sixteen seasons for Shane Doan to win a playoff series.

Happy for the Coyotes for sure, especially Dave Tippett. He's put together a few good seasons here in a really shitty situation.

Let's go Nashville!

I can't say that the Yotes every outplayed the Hawks in any of these games. They play well, but are so obviously average. It's a shame the Hawks lost But, i guess it's good for Phoenix. Good luck beating Nashville....Rinne ain't no Crawford!

Congrats on winning your first playoff series Phoenix!!!

And your gift in victory is.....A one way ticket to Quebec?

Pwease Pwanthers. Pweeatttty pweeeasse bweat the Doivils!

My mind is so confused

1) I hate the Devils but I'd really prefer not to play the Flyers.

2) The Panthers can win as long as the Caps do

3) But here in lies the problem. The Rangers have followed Boston's playoff road this far exactly. Both teams have won games 1, 3 and 6. So if the Caps win tomorrow, that means......The Sens wiil?!

Therefore, while it pains me to say it...........Go Devils?

I'm full on the Devils and Bruins bandwagon right now. I want them both to win so that should the Rangers win, the setup is Rangers-Devils, Bruins-Flyers. Let those two dumbass teams beat each other up for 7 games.

I'm right there with you, but I also wouldn't complain if it was somehow

Rangers/Caps
Devils/Flyers

But again, I want Boston to win. Just seems to be some weird mojo both teams share right now.

I mean ultimately? I'm ok with any team. The two teams I really wanted to avoid were the Bruins and Pens. If the Flyers ended up playing the Panthers? I could see Philly having a major major cooldown. To play such a hated rival and then get this happy go lucky bunch from Miami?

Certainly wouldn't get the juices flowing as much as a revenge series vs. Boston or trying to beat their other big rivals, the Rangers or Devs.

Doesn't matter, you have to beat the next best team anyway in the playoffs and apparently no team is easy to beat this year. I think the Rangers would do better playing the Flyers than anyone else, really.

I want the Devils out, period.

Yes, you have to beat the next team any way, but which path would you prefer:

A) Go through Philly and then Boston (No way Boston loses to Florida)

B) Go through Washington and then Philly (No way Philly loses to Florida)

C) Go through New Jersey and then either Philly or Boston?

Personally anything that has us playing only one of Philly, Boston and Washington is a good thing. If you told me before the playoffs started that our path through the playoffs would have us avoid 2 of Philly, Boston and Pittsburg, I'd start saving up for Stanley Cup Finals tickets.

Obviously this is all prefaced by the assumption that we get through Ottawa on Thursday.

You know what the best thing about Vancouver losing is? We now own home ice throughout the playoffs.

I might be crazy and watch it be a 4 game sweep...

But if Florida somehow played Philly next round, I could see the Panthers winning. It just has let down so written over that. You beat a hated rival. You gear up for either Boston, Jersey or New York and you wind up with....Floirda?

I think Philly is ripe for the picking no matter who they play. I really just feel that the team may feel a sense of accomplishment even though it's just 1 round.

And this doesn't go into the fact that they happened to play one of the more porous defenses in recent playoff history. It helped overshadow the fact that their own defense was pretty putrid as well.

The main reason I'd want to avoid them is the fact they are going to gun for us and may turn into another goon show.

I think you're reading too much into the last series in regards to Philly's defense. Both teams got caught up in the stupidity and got away from their games. Add to that MAF's weird collapse and Bryzgalov's expected futility and you had the scores we got from those first 4 games.

The Flyers are not going to suddenly take it easy because they're playing Florida. They're going to see it as an easy step to the Conference Finals as they should. The only reason the Devils are in the position they are is because of Broduer. Kovalchuk is performing as expected in the playoffs though there's talk he's injured. I just don't see the Flyers or Boston losing to Florida.

I also admit I am probably too pro Florida. It just seems this year we're destined for a weird final though. 4 years now of big market NHL teams including an original 6 team in all 4 of them.

I just am preparing myself for some series like Florida/Nashville or even possibly...Ottawa/St. Louis.

Dont ever change.

The Flyers played a sound defensive game against Pittsburgh in Game 6, and whaddya know, they only allowed one goal. It's AMAZING what happens when you give your goalie some support. Granted, Bryz DOES suck, but he didn't get any support at all from his blueliners in the first several games.

Also, Jose Threeormore is not much of an improvement over Bryzgalov. He has major confidence issues, or has in the past, so I think when faced with the Flyers' offense he will eventually crumble. I don't really know enough about Clemmensen to say much about him. Anyway, Florida might end up stealing one or two games because of Bryzgalov shitting the bed, but there isn't a chance in hell they upset Philly in the series.

Mirtle just retweeted this:

L_A_theRiver: Roberto #Luongo has written a list of four teams to which he would accept to be traded. Details to come.

He can want to be traded wherever he wants, but who's going to accept him....

I'm not sure how anyone can make any comment along the lines of "no way team X beats team Y". This year is one of the most wide open in recent memory.

- Huge Cup favorite Pens get blown out in the first round
- Presidents Trophy winner unceremoniously dumped in 5 games
- 1st seed Rangers in a life and death battle to escape first round
- So-called "worst post-lockout playoff team" with a chance to clinch tonight
- Caps barely get into the playoffs, take the defending champs to 7 games
- Best team of the last 20 years out in 5 games
- Mike F***ing Smith playing at an All-Star level

It's wide open, anything can happen. Did any of you read Down Goes Brown's article on Grantland? He wrote a pretty funny article summarizing the above.

http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle...he-nhl-playoffs

Link to the aforementioned DGB piece. It's really pretty great.

Craig Anderson is outplaying Henrik?

/puts on #30 Rangers jersey

/wanking motion

I love NBC's coverage of the Panthers. Haven't said a positive comment on the Panthers. F u Pierre.

Or we can just look at stats and see that Hank is leading him.

Same with the NBC guys from last night. Everything is how good Ottawa is, how good their drafting is, spending an entire period talking about their rookies making debuts(and not mentioning Kreider). Even when the Rangers scored it wasnt "Good play by New York!" it was "Man, Ottawa made a mistake"

Has the NHL released the schedule of games for Round 2?

This game is a lot more exciting than I was anticipating.

I get nervous whenever the puck goes like... 5 yards near Clemmer.

That's two missed slashes. Fucking refs.

Haha WOOOOO.

So, am I the only one who just can't pull for the Devils despite it possibly benefiting the Rangers?

YAY!!

No Canadian nor original Six remaining in the West

Nope. I am too. I want the Rangers to be as tested as much as possible.


FUCK YEAH!!!!!!

NHL has it out for the Devils!

MAAAAAARRRRRRRRTYYYYYYYYYY MAAAAAARRRRRRTTTTTYYYYY!

I'm not into this. Part of surviving the playoffs is getting lucky with your matchups. If the goal is to win the Cup, I'm perfectly happy to do it via the easy path.

Chicago had the toughest series in the West and won the Cup. If you can beat the tough ones, you can beat the toughest.

" Tested as much as Possible ??? " I'm with the Bearded One win the Cup as easily as Possible.

But why wouldnt you hope for an easier matchup?

You know, except for a Finals against an overachieving Flyers team. Are you suggesting they should've hoped for the Penguins or Caps?

God, that just means absolutely nothing.

Right. Upshall gets a penalty because Bernier was pushing players on top of the goalie.

He punched Bernier.

If it wasn't the Devils, yes. But, it is. Fuck them and fuck that fat pile of regurgitated dog semen in net. I am practically giddy with the prospect of the Devils getting bounced at home by, not only the Florida Panthers, but also by the former understudy.

Also, holy fuck does the Avengers look amazing.

Twice. In the head!

As anyone would for trying to crush the goalie after the whistle.