Western Conference Final: Los Angles Kings vs. Phoenix Coyotes
The Conference Finals have been nothing short of extraordinary. The Los Angles Kings have been the biggest surprise of this postseason. The eight seed has not only beaten the President Trophy Winners and the second seed St. Louis Blues but they beat them into submission in convincing fashion. This is what separates them from any other 8th seed that has made it to the Conference Final. Their young forwards are playing as if they have been in the league for an extra three years instead. Dwight King and Jordan Nolan fore-check hard and give the LA Kings a tremendous amount of depth. Their strong fore-check doesn’t only come from those fourth liners, but also their skilled players such as Jeff Carter, Dustin Brown and Anze Kopitar. The backstop of the Kings force has been solid and quick, very fitting that we are talking about Jonathan Quick. When your goalie is playing so well it is much easier for a defense to have confidence in playing which in turn makes it beyond difficult to get a goal past the LA Kings.
The Phoenix Coyotes have also surprised the NHL world by using the same scheme as the LA Kings. A strong defense, great goal-tending and big fore-checking by the forwards. Mike Smith has been beyond impressive, he currently has stopped 87 shots in the first two games against the Kings. With the LA Kings having a commanding 2-0 lead in the series, the Coyotes have to get back to want made them successful in the postseason. The Phoenix snipers need to have more shots on Jonathan Quick, Radim Vrbata, Shane Doan, and Ray Whitney can fire it from all over the ice and with some traffic it can get difficult for Quick. The goals they have scored on Quick have been on turn-overs from a strong fore-check or great defense-men jumping up on the plays like Keith Yandle and Oliver Ekman-Larsson.
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Eastern Conference Final: NY Rangers vs. New Jersey Devils
This series is currently tied at one and could be just a back and forth brawl. The New York Rangers are getting excellent goal-tending from Henrik Lundquist and blocked 26 shots in their Game 1 win of the series but this team is the number one seed for a reason and have not shown the amount of offensive firepower that they have. Although their scorers have had timely goals I feel that they could bring more urgency from guys like Brad Richards and especially Marion Gabroik. The defense of Ryan, Giradi, Staal and Del Zotto have been playing MVP style hockey in my opinion. Of course that kind of defense is not as noticed throughout the league but it’s very much recognized by coaching. Speaking of coaching by this time don’t you think that John Tortella would be used to losing by now. The team has gone to two Game 7’s in the previous series which means they have lost a total of six games, seven if you include last night but every time that happens his attitude is the pits. I would not doubt that there could be a problem with this in the future and if the Devils pull out this series there might be lots of finger-pointing in the front office.
The New Jersey Devils have been riding on a high from a Game 7 win in OT against the Florida Panthers in the first round which boosted their confidance to play even better which showed up when they destroyed the Flyers that didn’t show up in that series. Now they have strong hitting, a strong defense and great offensive power from Ilya, Clarkson, Henrique, Elias and Parise. Three of these guys were 30 goal scorers during the regular season and unlike the Rangers top scorers they have come to play much harder. Although I would call as an exception to that rule of Ilya, who plays like a Jekyll and Hyde from one period to another. Martin Brodeur is riding on a high and is playing very well but he is still 40 and it shows with some of the mis-plays he has made in net. But let’s not forget, he is a future hall of famer and for what he lacks in talent (due to age) he makes up for in smarts. If the Devils can stop crying and falling looking for penalties which I noticed them do a couple of times last game they will easily win this series. To be fair the same goes for the Rangers which also did the same that last two games. I think the refs have noticed and will be letting a lot of the little things go for the rest of this series and let them play it out.