[Sport] NHL Playoffs 2012: End of round 1

The last couple of games of the first round of the NHL playoffs were completed last night, and what a first round it's been. No clean sweeps (which is great to see), two series that went to the full seven games, loads of tense overtime finishes, and some upsets as well.

Possibly the biggest shock was the Vancouver Canucks going down 4-1 against the LA Kings. No one, myself included if I'm honest, really gave the Kings a chance. But they comprehensively outplayed the Canucks, and deserve to go through. I'm actually very disappointed in the Canucks. They had a goaltender crisis (deja vu from last year there), with Luongo pretty much failing abysmally and being replaced from the 3rd game on, despite the usual "I haven't decided who's playing in goal" shenanigans that their head coach likes to employ. It seems that they're a classic 'choke under pressure' team, which is a real shame. I wonder if there will be any more rioting?

We also lost the defending champions, the Boston Bruins. Admittedly they did make more of a fight of it, losing to the Washington Capitals 4 games to 3. To be honest the series could have gone either way, and was closely fought all the way to the end. There was some spectacular goaltending from both ends of the rink as well; Tim Thomas is always fantastic to watch, and I was really impressed with the rookie in goal for the Capitals. If this round was anything to go by, he'll have a long career.

At the other end of the goaltending spectrum we had abysmal displays from both teams in the cross-state Pittsburgh Penguins versus Philadelphia Flyers series. A 3rd shock result saw the fancied Penguins go out 4 games to 2. Much like the Canucks, they just didn't seem to turn up or be bothered about the whole thing. Sure, the scored 10 goals in one game, but to be honest that doesn't make up for the rest of the series. In the games that I watched they gave away too many penalties to the Flyers' powerplay team, who were on fire, and their goaltender was letting in soft shots left, right and centre. Not that the Flyers' goaltender was any better. A bit of a ridiculous set of games really, but the better team went through. Must try harder Pittsburgh.

I searched for "Marc-Andre Fleury 2012" on Google images, and found this.

Pretty much sums up the goaltending in that series. (Credit: http://bowlinginthedark.blogspot.co.uk/)

In my preview post I commented that we had the cup winning teams from the last four seasons in the playoffs this year. Well, now we have none. The Detroit Redwings and Chicago Blackhawks also lost, 4-1 to the Nashville Predators and 4-2 to the Phoenix Coyotes respectively. Sadly I didn't get to see any of the matches here, so can't really comment, but from the highlights Nashville look dangerous to any of the teams still in contention.

I picked on the St Louis Blues and Florida Panthers in that post as well, but both showed that they deserved their place in the playoffs. The Blues knocked out the San Jose Sharks 4-1, and the Panthers took a thrilling series against the New Jersey Devils right down to the wire, losing in 2nd overtime of game 7. You can't get much closer than that really, and from what I saw it was a hard fought series. Neither side seemed to have the upper hand for long, and both came from several goals behind to win games. It's a shame that one of them has to go, as in my opinion the Panthers deserve their place more than some of the teams that survived.

The final series was the Ottawa Senators against the New York Rangers. Another very close contest, with great goaltending, excellent skill on display, and some wonderful goals. But the Rangers edged it in game 7 to progress.

There are some intriguing match-ups in the 2nd round. I'm hoping to be able to catch a few more of the games now that there aren't quite so many, but the times make them really difficult to watch over here in the UK unless it's at the weekend.