As those of you who follow hockey as compulsively as I do (which basically means you go through minor withdrawal syndromes on nights like Thursday where there is no playoff hockey so you have to hunt through YouTube for old Stanley Cup games you already know the outcome to but can pretend you don’t) know, there are only four teams who have staved off elimination as we head into the Eastern and Western Conference Finals that will set the scene for the Stanley Cup Finals.
In the Eastern bracket, we have the loathed Rangers facing off against the Montreal Canadiens who have the distinction of being the only NHL team with a Twitter account that routinely posts in first French and then English. Going over to the Western side of the great divide, we’ve got an impending battle between the juggernauts that are the Los Angeles Kings and the Chicago Blackhawks. This all means that the only possible Stanley Cup Final match-ups are the following: the Blackhawks versus the Canadiens, the Blackhawks versus the Rangers, the Kings versus the Canadiens, and the Kings versus the Rangers. Although there are basically no guarantees in playoff hockey (and that’s what makes it so exciting), we can be one hundred percent certain that the captains of one of these four remaining teams will lift the Stanley Cup high in the air and pass it around to their exultant teammates.
Now that we have been reminded of which teams remain standing halfway through the playoffs, let’s examine the strengths that have allowed each of them to travel down such a rocky path as well as the potential pitfalls that could end in their falling off it. First off, because as any bright elementary school child can explain, the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, let’s start with the Eastern Conference, and, to get the miserable experience of talking about the Rangers winning a Stanley Cup out of my life before I barf all over my keyboard, we’ll begin by looking at the Broadway Blueshirts.
The New York Rangers:Let’s be honest. The Rangers weren’t supposed to make it to the Conference Finals, which at least gives Steve Yzerman a chance to celebrate that one of the draft picks he got in the captain to captain swap of Marty St. Louis and Ryan Callahan will change from a second round pick to a first round pick. On a side note, doesn’t Yzerman sound like he’s internally seething over the trade St. Louis’ long tantrum in Tampa essentially forced him into making? Yeah, I believe that one of Yzerman’s former teammates described the situation succinctly when he remarked, “I’ve seen him angry, but never that angry.” I also believe that we’ll never see St. Louis’ number raised to the rafters in Tampa since, after playing all his life in Detroit, Yzerman will probably have high standards about only retiring numbers of players who ended their careers in Tampa or, at the very least, aren’t captains who demand to leave their teams before a playoff run and hose down their team by only being willing to waive their no-trade clause to go to a specific destination…
Anyway, getting off the topic of the fallout of St. Louis’ acrimonious departure from Tampa, let’s get back to analyzing the situation of his new team, the Rangers. Odds were about even that the Rangers would be knocked out by their rivals the Philadelphia Flyers, who always seem to have their number in the way that a stalking ex does. Once they survived that seven game series against the Flyers, they had to face another, even more dreaded Pennsylvania team, namely the Pittsburg Penguins. Although they were exhausted from the insanely packed schedule the NHL organizers apparently drew up under the influence of several bottles of Captain Morgan rum, the Rangers managed to steal game one in Pittsburg. After that, they lost the next three and seemed about to disintegrate like paper in water on the bench at the end of game four against the Penguins. All the commentators were basically assuring us that the Pittsburg Penguins just had to drive one final nail into the unresisting Rangers’ coffin.
Unfortunately, as anyone who had to watch the debacle that has been Bylsma coaching in Pittsburg, is well aware, there is perhaps no coach in the modern NHL who is so skilled at getting his players to drop series in embarrassing fashions to lower-seeded teams after taking a significant lead. Compounding on this, the Rangers decided there was no time like the present to fight for their playoff lives. This was especially true because St. Louis’ mother passed away right around Mother’s Day between games four and five, which was obviously devastating to him and gave the team someone to rally around when he came back to play despite his recent loss.
The Rangers had motivation to fight for their lives and St. Louis, while the Penguins seemed to have lost any interest in playing hockey at a competitive level in games five and six. This resulted in the Rangers spanking the Penguins in both those games, which set the stage for a final rumble in Pittsburg between the Rangers and the Penguins. Despite Malkin and a handful of other Penguins actually deigning to show up for game seven, it was too little too late to save Shero’s (and, if I’m reading the writing on the wall right, Bylsma’s) job, as the Pittsburg Penguins toppled to the Rangers in a score of 2-1.
Now, the Rangers will be up against the Montreal Canadiens, a team confident after emerging victorious from a playoff series with the Boston Bruins, who were favored to win the Eastern Conference and seen as serious contenders for the Stanley Cup. Before we study the success of the Canadiens in more depth, though, let’s enumerate some of the strengths and weaknesses the Rangers have displayed to date.
What’s Been Working for the Boys in Blue: Their goaltender, Henrik Lundqvist, is in top form right now. He’s been stopping all kinds of shots from dangerous forwards like Crosby and Malkin, so he should be primed to face Pacioretty in the next round. He has the confidence and the talent to compete with goalies like Price, Crawford, and Quick. He can steal games for them, and if the Rangers lose, it won’t be because of his performance in net.
In the defense department, Ryan McDonagh, who coming back from a shoulder injury sustained from a Burrows’ cheapshot at times resembled a moose trying to skate after getting hit by a tranquilizer gun, has been playing much better. He’s forechecking and backchecking much more effectively and aggressively, as well as putting up some points. That’s good for the Rangers who will need their defense to be as strong as possible if they are to vanquish the Canadiens, the Kings, or the Blackhawks.
Their offense also has been clicking better. They have scored some power play goals and gotten St. Louis on the score sheet. That’s reassuring to them, since it’s impossible to win a hockey game, nonetheless a best of seven series, without getting some pucks in the opponent’s net.
In the intangibles, they also have a reason to win all the way for a grieving Marty St. Louis, and the Blueshirts haven’t won it all since Leetch took the Con Smythe back in 1994, so they just might be due for another banner in their arena…
What Might Send the Boys Home Early and Blue: Goaltending is the core of this team, but Lundqvist’s skill in net might not be able to whitewash all his team’s mistakes as they climb ever higher on the playoff mountain. Lundqvist will have to be essentially flawless if his team wants to drink out of the Stanley Cup this year, and even that might not be enough if his teammates can’t find a way to score consistently.
With their defense, while McDonagh has been playing much stronger, I’m not convinced that he’s one hundred percent recovered from his injury no matter what Alain Vigneault insists on the contrary, and I actually have a gut feeling that he might go in for surgery on that shoulder whenever the Rangers’ season comes to a close. It’s hard to win when the guy who has been your number one defenseman all year is operating at less than one hundred percent, and two seven game series might already have taken a significant toll on McDonagh’s reserves of energy. He might not have the grit this year to beat Subban and then Doughty or Duncan Keith. Two more best of seven rounds is a tough order on a battered body even if McDonagh’s appears to be capable of superhuman feats.
Also, what I pointed out about the powerplay clicking and St. Louis scoring in the previous section was sort of damning the offense with faint praise. Their powerplay needs to stop looking like a bad Pee Wee team’s because successful penalty kills give opponent’s a morale boost, and their forwards need to put the puck in the net more. If the Rangers can’t score, they will be going home regardless of how well Lundqvist does in goal.
Finally, while the Marty St. Louis motivation is touching, we have to remember how crushed the Rangers bench looked after game four. A successful playoff team can’t let itself get that lost and despairing. The St. Louis motivation better last them through the Finals or else we could see some disturbing lack of morale on the bench if the Rangers face elimination in a series.
Now that we’ve discussed the Rangers far too much for my taste as an ardent Devils fan, let’s explore the chances of a team that might do that eliminating in the Eastern Conference Finals: the Montreal Canadiens.
The Montreal Canadiens:As far as first round match-ups go, the Canadiens had it relatively easy against the Tampa Bay Lightning, whose regular goaltender was injured, leaving them with a sieve in net who probably shouldn’t have even been a starter for an AHL team. The Canadiens were able to sweep Tampa, and then recover while they watched the Detroit Red Wings battle the Boston Bruins to see who they would be facing in the next round. After seeing the Bruins defeat the Red Wings in five games, they knew they would be up against the Bruins, the team that many had pegged as the winner of the Eastern Conference.
The Canadiens took advantage of the energy their rest from sweeping Tampa afforded them to steal the first game in Boston from the Bruins, which allowed them to return to Montreal with home ice advantage that, unfortunately, they were unable to keep as the Bruins took a game in Montreal, and the series returned to Boston all tied at two. This time, the Bruins were able to maintain home ice advantage by beating the Canadiens, who managed to stay alive by winning the next game in Montreal. Since the Canadiens and Bruins are rivals almost as old as hockey, they had a powerful desire to come into Boston and steal the Bruins’ hopes of winning the Stanley Cup on home ice, which they did in a very convincing victory that should serve as a warning to the Rangers, Blackhawks, and Kings.
What’s Working for the Habs: The Price is right. After outdueling Rask, he could be poised to show the world that he’s living up to his billing of having the potential to be an elite goaltender, and if he needs inspiration at home, he can always look to the rafters and remember Dryden and Roy. It would be quite a handsome feather in his cap if he could be between the pipes for Canada winning gold and the Habs winning the Stanley Cup in the same season.
On the blueline, P.K. Subban is making statement after statement. He’s scoring, generating offensive opportunities, and thwarting opposing teams efforts to gain momentum. Whenever the Canadiens win, Subban is a major factor in why.
Offensively, the Canadiens may lack that elite center which is why many commentators and teams could underestimate them, but with players like Pacioretty, their firepower might be stronger and more evenly distributed across four lines than they are given credit for, so if you see an opposing goalie being lit up by the Habs, don’t die of a heart attack.
Why the Cup Might Not Come to Canada This Year: Price is performing excellently in the net, but beating Lundqvist and then Crawford or Quick, both goaltenders who have been in net for a Stanley Cup win, is no picnic. If he falters, he will probably find that his counterpart won’t, and it might be his team that goes to the golf course.
From the defense angle, as much as Subban justifiably garners headlines when the Habs win, when they lose, he is also a major reason why. When his style is nullified by an opposing team’s strategy or line match-ups, he cannot contribute effectively to his team’s Cup bid, and his team suffers a defeat. Subban will need to find a way around getting shut down by line match-ups if he wants to help his team on a long run for the Cup.
On the offensive end, depth scoring is wonderful, but sometimes you need that elite center to break through and score that impossible goal or orchestrate that incredible assist. If the Habs find themselves battling the Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup Finals, they might find that lack of an elite center being repeatedly exposed and exploited by Jonathan Toews.
Speaking of Jonathan Toews, let’s explore what’s carried him and his Blackhawks to the Western Conference Finals and what, if they play their cards right, might take them to another Stanley Cup victory.
The Chicago Blackhawks: In the first round, the Blackhawks were up against the St. Louis Blues, another favorite to win the Stanley Cup, and everyone who knew anything about hockey was eager to point out that this playoff series was good enough to be a Stanley Cup Final. The series didn’t disappoint with triple overtime in the first game and overtime in the second. After going down 2-0 against the Blues, the Blackhawks regrouped on home ice, returning the series to St. Louis tied at two games apiece. They stole home ice advantage by winning game five in St. Louis, and then came back to Chicago to eliminate the Blues in game six. The second round was supposed to be easier, but it still took the Blackhawks six games to defeat the Wild, as their offense stagnated against the tight defense of the Wild. However, an overtime goal from Patrick Kane kept the Wild home for good and sent the Blackhawks flying to the Western Conference Finals.
Why the Blackhawks are Flying High: The Blackhawks are well-coached and have a killer instinct. They find a way to win when they’re being outplayed, and they don’t let series go to seven games if they have a chance to seal the deal in six. That determination to win at all costs can quickly stifle an opposing team’s hopes.
In the net, Crawford has stolen some games for them in the playoffs, and he is, in my opinion, playing better than he did when the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup last year. Crawford has every reason to be confident in his play going into a series against Quick, and his team has every cause to have faith in his capabilities.
On the blueline, Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook are getting the job done as their team’s top defensive pairing. Even when Seabrook was serving a suspension for his hit on Backes, Brookbank was able to step in and handle Seabrook’s responsibilities quite competently. As long as Duncan Keith is knocked out of the playoffs by a severe injury, Chicago’s defense should be a quite impregnable fortress around Crawford.
Offensively, both the stars and the depth players are scoring for the Blackhawks when it’s needed. Jonathan Toews or Patrick Kane always seem to find a way to deliver when the playoff pressure is most intense, and if they can do that through the Stanley Cup Finals, the Cup might be staying in Chicago for another year.
Why the Cup Might be Headed out of Town: Although the Blackhawks are well-coached, some of their line combinations can get really wacky and sometimes their top guns aren’t deployed all together when that might be necessary. If the Blackhawks need something to spark their firepower, and Toews and Kane aren’t put on the same line until it’s too late, the team could be headed home early.
Crawford has taken great strides from last year, but he still has quite a road to travel before he is considered among the best goaltenders in the league. Next round, he will be facing one of the best goaltenders in the league in Quick, and if he loses that goalie duel, his team could be booking tee times at the country club for the summer.
Chicago’s defense can’t afford to earn any more suspensions. It could give their foes potential rallying cries in series, it will earn them bad reputations with the refs that could result in a lot of unfavorable calls against them, and it could remove key players like Seabrook from their line-up. The Blackhawks defense needs to keep their play fierce but legal.
Patrick Kane looks wonderful when he’s scoring overtime goals, but he has gone into his Olympic floating mode at other times when he’s frustrated by the lack of scoring opportunities that he’s getting because of an opposing team’s stifling defensive structure. If Patrick Kane forgets how to make scoring opportunities despite tight defensive coverage, the Stanley Cup might be moving to somewhere like Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Kings: As the third seed in the Pacific Division, the Kings found themselves facing the second seeded San Jose Sharks in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. After being crushed in a blitz by San Jose forwards, Los Angeles fell behind their Northern California rivals. Returning home to the Staples Center, the Kings took the third game to overtime but lost, giving the Sharks a commanding series lead of 3-0. Backs against the wall, the Kings staved off elimination in games four, five, and six before ending the Sharks’ season in game seven.
The exhilaration of being one of the few NHL teams in history to successfully mount a comeback after falling behind in a series by three games gave the Kings a massive energy boost heading into their series against another California team, the Anaheim Ducks. Taking advantage of this wave of momentum, the Kings rode its crest to win the first two games of the series in Anaheim, but found themselves stymied by the Ducks and a rookie goaltender named Gibson during the subsequent games in Los Angeles. They returned to Orange Country, where the Ducks took a 3-2 lead, but the Kings tied the series up again when it went back to the Staples Center. Thriving off the excitement of a game seven, the Kings made foie gras in Anaheim and will be preparing to go to war against the Blackhawks at 3:00 on Sunday afternoon.
Why the Kings Could be Crowned Again: The Kings are a team built for the playoffs. They shine when the refs put away their whistles, and they know how to maintain a lead to deny an opponent any prayer of a comeback. Call it boring hockey or ugly hockey, but don’t try to deny that it’s effective hockey. When the Kings score first, they are nearly impossible to dethrone.
This is a team that thrives rather than crumbles under the pressure of an elimination game. Since they started this year’s playoff run, they have won six elimination games. If a series gets to game seven, Quick will be in his God as a goalie mode, and the Kings will be in their element. Quick and Doughty may not be having their most impressive playoffs, but they are still getting the job done and being dangerous when it matters the most.
Owing to their comeback prowess, the Kings cannot be counted out until they have been officially eliminated by losing four games in a best of seven series, and, as anyone who has watched the Kings can assure you, that fourth victory will be the hardest fought. The Ducks and Sharks sure learned that the hard way if they didn’t already realize that grim fact.
Why the Kings Could Experience Regicide: The flip side of the Kings being able to maintain a lead once they score the first goal is that when the other team scores first, they can become a bit frantic and make sloppy mistakes trying to catch up. When the other team has the lead, the Kings taut defense opens up and leaves Quick vulnerable to scoring attempts from breakaways, odd-man-rushes, and turnovers. If the Kings don’t score first this playoffs, they can find the opposing side of the scoreboard lighting up pretty fast.
Likewise, while the Kings shine under the strain of an elimination game, it also should be noted that the Kings put themselves in a situation to end their season early in the game sixes of both series they have participated in thus far. Against Chicago, they will be meeting a team with the killer instinct to dispatch them in a game six if they let themselves fall behind in a series. Just because the Sharks and Ducks could not capitalize on this vulnerability does not mean it does not exist and cannot be exploited by the Blackhawks, who, as I observed earlier in this post, have a knack for doing away with teams in the sixth game of a series. The Kings may be the undisputed monarchs of game seven, but the Blackhawks are the reigning chieftains of game six.
As far as Quick goes, the Blackhawks published the book on how to defeat him. Last time they faced him in a series, they demonstrated that his aggression can backfire on him, and that he can be beaten on wraparound attempts. He also is a goalie who performs better when he has loads of chances to feel the puck. The fewer shots there are against him, the less prepared he is to make his spectacular saves. If the Blackhawks are able to use the knowledge they’ve acquired on Quick’s goaltending, the Kings might not be moving onto the Stanley Cup Finals.
The Bottom Line: It’s the playoffs, so buckle up for a wild ride. Any team who has made it this far could win it all. Stars could light up the scoreboard, or they could be invisible. As we approach the Stanley Cup Finals, we just must train ourselves to expect the utterly unpredictable.
glimpsesfromanivorytower 