On Tuesday night in the NHL playoffs, the Boston Bruins beat the New York Rangers 2-1, to take a commanding 3-0 lead in their Eastern Conference semifinal series. The Rangers will be facing possible elimination on Thursday night in New York. This was the fourth consecutive win for the Bruins, starting with that great comeback from 3 goals down in the third period, in Game 7 against the Toronto Maple Leafs, in the first round of the playoffs. They scored 2 goals in the last 90 seconds of regulation, and another in overtime to win the game and series.
The main problem for the Rangers is scoring. They have scored a total of 5 goals in the first 3 games of this series. It’s difficult to win NHL games when you can’t score more than 2 goals in a game, even with Henrik Lundqvist as your goalie. Lundvist is a finalist for the Vezina Trophy, which goes to the best goalie in the NHL. He won the Vezina last year. The Rangers’ power play is about as toothless as they come. In the series, they are 0 for 10. That’s 0% for those not good with math. I get the feeling the Rangers will come alive to win Game 4, but I think they will lose Game 5 back in Boston, and that will end the series.
In the Western Conference semifinal played Tuessday night, the San Jose Sharks evened their series with the defending champion Los Angeles Kings at 2-2, also with a 2-1 win. The Sharks came out really strong in the first period, outshooting the Kings 15-3 in the first period, and led 1-0. They added another goal in the second period, then basically held on in the third period to win the game.
The Kings got a goal from one of their former Philadelphia Flyers’ stars, Mike Richards, midway through the third period. The other former Flyer, Jeff Carter, led the Kings in goals, with 26 in the strike-shortened 48 game season this year. The Kings outshot the Stars 14-2 in the third period, but it wasn’t enough. The series goes back to Los Angeles for Game 5 on Thursday night. Since the Stars have to win at least one game on the road, to win the series, and the home team has won all 4 games so far, I don’t think that will happen. With the Kings’ playoff experience, and Jonathan Quick in goal, I’ll take the Kings in 7 games.
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