Stanley Cup playoffs
 

Who's looking forward to this years playoffs? I sure am. I think this is going to be one of the best playoffs in some time. The caliber of the majority of the teams in the playoffs (especially the western conference) is absolutely incredible!

Go Sharks!

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Pish Posh!

Go Sabres!

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Devils!


(now that the Leafs our out :( home teams come first :D)

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Go Simbotics umm Go Patriotics
ooo hockey go flames go since Leafs are out

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Go Redwings!
Please bring Stanley back to Hockeytown!

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As always... GO SHARKS!

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Hockey's still around?

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Sharks have an interesting match up, its going to be really tough. That's a decent Nashville team.. and 2OT the first game? It's going to be one wicked series.

Pittsburgh and Ottawa as well.

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Not to mention the fact that Cheechoo left the game after that knee on knee collision with Hartnell. That was Hartnell's second game misconduct in ~5 games if I recall correctly, and should probably lead to a game or two suspension.

It was disappointing seeing Rissmiller hand the puck over at the blue line leading to the tying goal (4-4) when he could have easily skated to the red line and dumped it down, but it was nice to see him atone for that by capping the GWG in 2OT.

It's a rough series, like each Western Conference matchup. Anyone can win them.

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Man.. that 4OT game in Vancouver was great to watch. It reminded me of the 5OT game between Pittsburgh and Philly ~10 years back. I was rooting for it to go to 5OTs so I could run out to Safeway and get some snacks during the intermission. I guess I'll just go to sleep instead :p

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Go Rangers, if my trip to championships didnt get cancelled i was going to go to the rangers vs thrashers game 2.

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Game #1, Atlanta Thrashers vs New York Rangers, Thursday night at 7PM right next door to the Championship's at Philips Arena. Go Thrashers!

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Bill I saw video of that Hartnell hit and as much as it pains me to see Cheechoo go down (since he was on my fantasy team...and wasnt that productive during the season :rolleyes: ) I dont think Hartnell did it intentionally, but he got the game misconduct anyways. Haven't heard anything about suspensions yet. Radulov's goals were pretty ridiculous for Nashville though. The Western Conference playoffs are definitely more ramped up than I have seen in a long time. I'm waiting to see if anyone breaks that old 110 min extra record back in the 30's? I think with Montreal and another team

ps. Does anyone cheer for Anaheim down there? I watched the third period of the game against the Wild and all I can see is that Penner was pretty lucky!

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I'm a Hurricane's fan so you can guess how I feel... but hey we're still the champs for a few more weeks at least. :yikes:

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Intentional or not, when you high stick someone you're responsible for your stick. If the NHL wanted to be just in their disciplinary action they would suspend players for as long as the player they injured remains out of the lineup at a minimum. Cheech had made his move to his left around Hartnell and Hartnell instinctively wanted to get a piece of him so as not to be behind the play and stuck his knee out. It’s just a dangerous play that shouldn’t happen in the league, and if it was the other way around and a Shark did it I’d think there should be action taken, too. Losing Cheechoo is huge despite his lack of another 56 goal season (37 sure isn’t bad, though) since he’s one of Thornton’s three one-time shot options on our power-play (Carle in the high slot and Rivet on the point being the others) not to mention it takes his chemistry with Thornton from the past year and a half and nullifies it if he remains out of the lineup. Thankfully Joe Pavelski and Mark Smith are healthy enough to step into the lineup and play regular shifts if need be.

By the way, everyone's talking about the knee-on-knee, but no one is talking about the elbow to his head that knocked out a tooth...

As for the Ducks… There are always fans of away teams in every city, but the vast majority of people up here dislike all the other Pacific Division teams, especially Anaheim (because they’ve been good in recent years) and Dallas (for signing Ed Belfour less than an hour after he became unrestricted after the Sharks gave up 3 good players to get him... those of us longtime Sharks fans will never forgive Belfour for that, either).

Radulov is a great player. You can see similarities between him and a very young Martin Havlat when he broke into the league or like Ales Hemsky on Hemsky’s good days. Just a slick averaged sized guy who has confidence with the puck and feels he can do anything with it. As a hockey fan it’s great to see, but as a Sharks fan it hurts. In every series there are players from Team A that will give Team B fits and vice versa, I just hope that Steve Sullivan stays out of Nashville’s lineup otherwise it’ll be even more difficult for the Sharks, since he has had incredible success against them in his career.

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GO RED WINGS!!!

We need to bring the Cup back to Hockeytown

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Sharks all the way!

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Geez.. first Cheech now Bernier. Nashville's a bunch of thugs!

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A 1 game suspension for Radulov is wholly inadequate. There was no difference between that hit and Bertuzzi sucker punching Steve Moore. If the NHL refuses to enforce its rules that disincentivize late, knowingly dangerous, and blatantly illegal hits like this then the Sharks should guarantee that whoever wins this round will not be able to even dream of beating the team they play in the second round. They should leak this or outright say it to the media. It’s Slapshot time, and Colin Campbell and the league are to blame.

:mad:

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Sharks continue to hold their own against the Predators.

Rangers sweep the Thrashers in the east.

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^ Just came back from Game #4 :D

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Go Red Wings! Just hope they don't blow this series like last year.

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Go Sabres!

3-0 score so far!

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wings are blowin it...sup wit that
haha

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Gah, I agree with you totally Bill and the one aspect that Bettman, Campbell or whoever else (especially our lovable friend Don Cherry) is going to fall back on is the fact that its "play off time" but the respective series' have been pretty ugly thus far, especially the Isles and May, 20 game suspension. Maybe they finally listened to you Bill :D Western Finals, Ducks vs Sharks is going to be nuts! (Never thought Calgary would come back 2 games like that either)

On another note... GO RAPTORS

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Wasn't that suspension just for drug policy violation? The message sent could be even worse this way... It's 1 game for attacking someone and 20 games for doing something to yourself...

Goooo Flames!

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Oh yeah, my bad, it was for drug policy violations, though its weird that it just came in the midst of the playoffs.

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Yeah, Sean Hill (Islanders) got the 20 games for a drug policy violation, but there was also the Brad May (Ducks) punch which netted just 3 games.

Gotta love that Scott Nichol spear tonight as well as Vokoun doing his best Patrick Roy impersonation (and I don't mean the winning part). The Predators can't even fight fair. 2-2 heading into the third, here's hoping it gets closed out tonight.

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Up late last night - good thing the Wings came through.

I wouldn't have wanted them to come back and play another one, after the stupid schedule (what the heck was the league thinking? back to back games 3 time zones apart?), and 2 extra periods on top of it.

I hope that we get Dallas next, this Western conf. time zone thing is killing my sleep pattern.

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I hope Vancouver wins tonight.

and Go Raptors Go

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Go Rangers! Thrashers got swept.I think the islanders had the two longest suspensions of the season. Hill and Simon.

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Go Wings.... They are gona win!!!!

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I hope not :p

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My next round predictions:
San Jose in 6
Vancouver in 7
Sabres in 5
Devils in 6

We'll see how that works out..

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Buffalo in five
Ottawa in seven
San Jose in six
Vancouver in six

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Sabres in 5 over Rangers
Ducks in 6 over Canucks
Devils in 6 over Senators
Wings in 7 over Sharks

Go Wings!

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Buffalo in 4.:)

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Jesh, Sabres 3-0 vs Rangers. All goals scored within minutes in second period.

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Never doubt King Henrik

Never

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MEH.

Sabres win 5-2!

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It feel so strange not being able to wear my Avs jersey in April.... :(

That being said, it means that I get to wear my Sharks jersey more (not quite the same though). Although I'm sure it will feel good when San Jose wins the cup! ;)

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ROFL
nothings better than a ranger loss. nothing.

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(to the melody of Lets Go Band)

do, do do do do do, do do do do do, do do do do, do do do

Potvin Sucks

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Next round
Ottawa in 7
Ducks in 6

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Sabres in 7 over the Senators
Wings in 7 over the Ducks

Then we will have really be able to enjoy Buffalo Wings!!

These should be the most competitive Conference finals in the past few years.

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Sens in 7, Wings in 7.

It's nice to see that the Wings have adjusted well to key injuries that people thought would substantially hurt their performance.

Hey, hey, Hockeytown!

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Ottawa in 6
Detroit in 7

Ottawa in 6

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Wings are going to win.... maybe.... they are kind of scary, and win with like two minutes left, which kind of puts all Detroit fans like me on edge until the end of the game.

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The Sharks entered home ice through a rubber shark head. I think the wings were intimidated by that. :rolleyes:

I wonder from which end of the duck the Ducks will appear?

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That is hilarious i never would have thought i'd see that here. potvin will always suck

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Now I've had to hang up both my Sharks and Avs jerseys...this is getting bad.
Only one thing left to do...ROOT AGAINST THE WINGS! :D

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The Wings know playoff hockey, but I love the Ducks and the California area. After that heartbreaker a few years back, Ducks/Sens final. That's just going to be absolutely ridiculous to watch.

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*cough* what??? what is this insane call??? I... I . I dont understand it... wait... wait wait... let me change my avatar... *cough**wheeze*

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How can you root against the wings, they are sooooo awesome. The wings will win the cup if we play ottawa, but if we play buffalo, i dont know, it will be super super tough, they are just blazingly fast.

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Stevie - you and they are too young to have experienced it; but it's like they wish hocky would return to the seventies. When the Flyers were known as the Broad Street Bullies, and Team Canada had to spear the Soviets into submission.

Sorry guys! The Red Line is gone and the refs. now call them for taking one hand off the stick. The Ducks dirty play will just dig their own grave. They will be gone in five.

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The sens are dominating the Sabers. The sabers looked out of sync every time Ottawa scored, and was on offense again.

if Ottawa is going back home to the Canadian Capital City. could this be possible.....THE BUFFALO SABERS COULD BE SWEPT BY THE OTTAWA SENATORS.

the way ottawa is playing, and if they get this sweep, and from what i saw on friday, ottawa could be fresh going into the standley cup finals while detroit is coming off a game 7. The ducks really played agressive after detroit scored taht goal with 5 minutes left in the 3rd.

new predictions
Ottawa in 4 (3: O 4: O)
Detroit in 7(2: A 3: A 4: D 5: D 6: A 7: D)

Ottawa in 6(1: O 2: D 3: D 4: O 5: O 6: O)

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sabres in 7. haha, could only hope.

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Keep the faith Alex. I was in Toronto for game three of the Noris Divison Finals. The Leafs had dominated in Detroit; some fans had brooms to woof about how they'd sweep the Wings. Less than a week later I was in Detroit to watch the Wings win in six.

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Sorry Alex, my eastern conference pick of the Sabres are toast. It'll take some luck to salvage a game in this demolition (although I think they probably will pick up a win in Ottawa somehow, and possibly a win in Game 5 as well, but it won't last any longer than game 6, when the Sens will put them away).
Regardless, what happens in the East doesn't matter, so long as the Ducks crush the [D]ed Wings.... ;)

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Just out of curiosity, why does every one dislike the red wings for? I've noticed that only the people in michigan and only a couple people outside of here like them. (not to start anything i was just wondering)

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Because, They are like the pistons. Everyone hates them too.
I guess people who win all the time are just bland.

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That's just like any sports team, a vast majority of thier fans will be local supporters. It's no worse for the Wings (or Pistons) than any other team. The only real exception to the rule are the Yankees, who everyone either loves or hates, no matter where you live (and consequently the Red Sox as well).
I dislike the wings because I'm a Colorado Avalanche fan, the same reason you won't see me rooting for the Canucks or Stars. Colorado and Detroit have a bit of bad blood (see 1996 Western Conference Finals and 1997 "Bloody Wednesday game"), and are now one of the hottest and fiercest rivalries in the NHL. You'd be hard pressed to find an Avs fan willing to cheer for the Wings.

And as for "people who win all the time are just bland" comment, what happened between '55 and '97? ;)

GO DUCKS!

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That was a pretty sweet game though, if you like UFC matches. haha

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That rivalry goes only one way; from the POV of those Qubeck transplant wannabees.
This is Hockey Town; we have no legitimate rivals.

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Jack, you always know how to put a smile on my face. haha:D

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Somehow I don't think [former Red Wing] Darren McCarty, or Kris Draper agree with that statement. ;)




edit:
Nor do the fans

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My favorite Wings game was the game were we scored 7 on Roy.that was awesome.

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Stanley Cup Finals

I say Sens in 6

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Ducks in 5

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They beat the wings. *Cough*

So i say Ducks in 5 too.

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Sens in 4/5

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My grieving time is almost over for my Sabres and now I have to root for the team that is hopefully going to destroy the Sens so they can continue there laughable playoff struggles. Ducks in 6

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no matter if they're winning or not.......im a total Florida Panthers fan all the way...BOOYAH! hehe

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This really is a though one to call. Both teams are playing fantastic hockey right now. I haven't seen as much of the sens as I have the ducks (me being a west coaster and all), but I'm going to have to say Ducks in 7.

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Ducks are now up 2 games to none. Quack quack!

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Do I win a prize? :rolleyes:
QUACK!!

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The sens sure let me down.. Kinda like the sharks usually do.