First Round Thoughts

It's time for me to ramble on about what i thought about the first round of the NHL playofs. I'll start in the east where, no suprise, pittsburgh beat up on ottawa. There's nothing to really say about this other than it went exactly like it whould have, the penguins were hot the sens were not end of story. The devils-rangers series was another story entirely. You would think that the HOF goalie would be better, well guess what he was, his team was horrible around him I think this season really proved that Brodeur is one of the greatest ever. The first round series proved that NJ had no business being in the playoffs let alone having home ice advantage. The Montreal-Boston series was a suprise with everybody expecting the Habs to roll to an easy win. It appears the pressure got to Carey Price in games 5 and 6, don't expect to see that performance from him for the rest of the playoffs. The final east series was possibly the best series in the entire first round. For not being expected to do anything the Caps sure put up a hell of a fight. Overtime of game 4 was some of the best hockey I have ever seen, so kudos to both teams for a great show.
On to the west, in the wild-avalanche series the games were long and the goaltending miraculous at times. These two teams provided a great demonstration of western conference style hockey. Jose Theodore came out of where ever he had been hiding the past few years and was looking like his old MVP self. He proved me wrong when i said that backstrom was much better so congrats to him. The Dallas- Anaheim series was interesting to say the least. The ducks tried to play the physical intimidation style that won them the cup one year ago, the problem was that dallas was ready and anaheim took too many penalties resulting in a dallas series victory. The detroit-nashville series appeared to be cut and dried, apparently dan ellis had other ideas. Just when it looked like the wings had it wrapped up he led the predators back into the series, although a classic detroit collapse was very possible. Finally Calgary-San Jose was an entertaining series to say the least. I have very little to say on this one as anyone who watched it would understand, the only thing would be its great to see cujo once again in the playoffs.