Yesterday, the Rangers forced what is now the third Game 7 of this year's playoffs by defeating the Caps 1-0. Washington may have a new coach, but last night's game had a very similar vibe to the series these two teams played in the second round last season. Aside from the second period, neither team managed to produce much offense and the Rangers were playing a very conservative style in the third period when they had a 1-0 lead. IT didn't make for the most exciting hockey, but I'm sure the Rangers won't have many complaints about that since they got the job done and kept their post-season hopes alive.

All that stands in their way of advancing is winning one game on the road and unfortunately for them, they have been pretty bad when playing at Verizon Center this post-season. They've been outchanced in two out of three games and haven't been bailed out by goaltending because they've only given Lundqvist two total goals during that time. It's really been a case for Murphy's Law for the Rangers when they've played away from Madison Square Garden, but fans can at least be comforted by the fact that Game 7's are a coin flip and any result is possible.

Anybody who thought the Islanders couldn't top the heartbreak of Game Three was proven wrong last night after they were eliminated from the playoffs last night by the Pittsburgh Penguins on the heels of an overtime goal by Brooks Orpik. The whole game was pretty similar to how Game Three went where the Islanders vastly outplayed the Penguins in just about every area but goaltending and ended up taking the loss because of that. The only difference with this game was that the Penguins didn't need the help of their power play to catapult them in front. Instead, they were able to take advantage of a few costly mistakes by the Islander defense and got a couple of generous bounces on two of their goals.

At the end of the day, the blame for this loss is probably going to be put on the shoulders of goaltender Evgeni Nabokov and he can be noted as the scapegoat this series, there were a few other factors that contributed to the Islanders demise. The biggest one being at the other end of the crease in Tomas Vokoun. The Pittsburgh netminder may have let three goals get by him, but he helped carry his team out of numerous rough spots last night and his finest moment came in the second period where he stopped six Islander power play scoring chances. The Penguins gave Vokoun four goals in support but I think this series would have been heading for seven games without him because the Islanders dominated Pittsburgh for a good portion of last night's game and outchanced them 25-12 .

Vokoun's play kept Pittsburgh in the game and made each mistake that much more costly for the Islanders, because whenever you let a team like the Pens hang around, there is a good chance that they'll find the back of the net. That's just the way they've worked this series and that, along with Nabokov's shoddy goaltending, ended up winning them the game and the series. I feel that the Islanders deserved better because they outplayed Pittsburgh in four out of six games but they sort of played with fire with the penalties in Game Three and couldn't finish last night and these types of things can doom you in playoff games. It's unfortunately, but that's the playoffs work sometimes.

The Islanders shouldn't hang their heads too low because they mostly played some very entertaining hockey and really gave the Penguins a run for their money in a series that many expected to be a laugher after Game One. I think they would have had a better shot if Nabokov played anything close to the level of an NHL goalie, even if the Penguins finishing ability made him look a little worse than he usually is, because they really were the better team and gave it all they had last night. 

The Wild/Blackhawks series was easily the most lopsided matchup in the Western Conference and the final result ended up being that way with the Blackhawks defeating the Wild in five games and outscoring them 17-7 in the process. The Wild put up a good fight in Games 1 & 3 but in the end, they didn't have the depth to compete with the Blackhawks and were just overpowered for the majority of this series. It seemed that the Hawks had an answer for just about every method the Wild tried against them and were easily able to control just about every game at even strength. That was the case last night. 

This isn't to say that the Wild were completely awful because there were parts of Game Five where they played well and they got off to a good start, but they couldn't solve goaltender Corey Crawford and that ended up coming back to haunt them. Much like we saw in the Islanders/Penguins game, if you let a team with Chicago's fire-power hang around long enough, they are eventually going to hurt you and the Hawks did that in a big way last night by taking over the game in the second period with three goals. That's how most of this series has gone, though. The Wild have done enough to stay somewhat competitive in games but they've either been unable to finish or lose focus after one mistake and let the entire game spiral out of control. I guess that's why they're just an eighth seed, though.

Going into this series, I had a feeling that goaltending was going to be a deciding factor and by that, I meant that the team who got slightly better goaltending would be the one who advanced. The Penguins had a decisive edge in this department based on their regular season numbers but after Marc-Andre Fleury experienced yet another playoff meltdown, their goaltending in this series was about on par with the Islanders and that isn't a good thing. To make matters worse, the Pens had been grossly outplayed in two out of three games so the margin for error became increasingly slim as the series went on and Fleury's terrible play was magnified. It got to the point where Pittsburgh needed their goaltender to help them persevere through stretches of bad play and possibly steal a game or two for them if needed. Fleury wasn't capable of doing that this series but fortunately for the Penguins, have a very capable "back-up" goaltender in Tomas Vokoun who they can go to when Fleury has a rough patch. Bylsma wisely elected to start him in Game Five and it paid off tremendously.

The Penguins have been getting outplayed for the better part of this series and they looked very sluggish to begin Game Five. The Islanders game planned for them well and completely shut down Pittsburgh's forecheck for the first 20 minutes. They also forced a lot of neutral zone turnovers to create rushes the other way and it really helped them establish a territorial advantage to take the crowd out of the game early. While this was a good road start, the one downside of the first period for the Islanders is that they didn't score and this is where the play of Vokoun played such a huge factor. It's unfair to say that Fleury wouldn't have been able to do the same thing but the Penguins being able to get the saves they need & escape the first period with no score was a big deal.

After that first period, Pittsburgh could regroup a little bit and they opened the floodgates in the next two periods. They outchanced the Islanders 15-8 in the final 40 minutes of the game after recording only two in the entire first period and were able to coast their way to a 4-0 win. The Penguins gave Vokoun plenty of goal support and played a good defensive game towards the end but he was the main reason they survived that first period and it gave his team a chance to regroup. Again, I don't think it's fair to say that Fleury wouldn't have been able to do the same, but Pittsburgh has desperately needed good goaltending for the last four games and they got that from Vokoun.

Not going to lie here, I thought the Rangers should have been able to handle the Caps at even strength fairly easily based on these two team's play in the regular season. This hasn't been happening, though as the Rangers have been outchanced 39-36 by the Caps at evens heading into tonight's game. They aren't getting dominated but they were outplayed in two out of three games and were able to scrape out an ugly win on Monday. Those kind of wins always go a long way in the playoffs, though and it gave the Rangers a chance to climb back in the series. The Rangers are also a better team than what they showed in the first three games, so this series could very well go the full distance if the Rangers could return to their level of play during the regular season. Last night, we saw just that.

The Rangers looked more like the team that many expected to see this playoffs as they had complete control of things for about 75% of the game. Their offense came back to life in recording a total of 23 scoring chances and keeping Washington's better forwards quiet for the majority of the game. They were able to do this well in Game 3, as well but didn't create much offense at even strength. This ended up being the difference maker last night as they did not allow the Caps to have much sustained zone time at all.

In addition to that, the Rangers got something they've received little of this series, which is good bounces. Their first goal came after Taylor Pyatt knocked down a bad clearing attempt from Braden Holtby and it allowed Brad Richards to eventually score on an empty net. They got another one in the third period when Carl Hagelin was able to draw Holtby out of position and quickly get the puck to Derek Stepan, who fired the puck into an empty cage for the Rangers fourth goal of the game, which ultimately ended up being the game-winner. These kinds of chances & breaks weren't happening to the Rangers in the first three games, so being able to get these bounces likely played a role in the team's confidence. The Rangers obviously can't rely on bounces to advance but they have to like their chances now that the score is tied and their team just played easily their best game of the series.

The Wild pulled a bit of a shocker on Sunday afternoon by not only defeating the Chicago Blackhawks in overtime, but also outplaying them for the majority of the game on top of that. Chicago matches up favorably to the Wild in just about every area, so many were expecting this series to be a quick one but the Wild showed in that game that they could hang tough with one of the best teams in the NHL. Chicago's response to this was to play a much more conservative game and focus completely on shutting down the Wild's offense. 

They accomplished this well on Tuesday night by holding Minnesota to only 11 total scoring chances and six at even strength, which is as much as some teams record in an entire period. The Wild had the distinct edge in zone time and puck-possession, but it didn't matter that much because Chicago scored on their first shot of the game and focused on defense the rest of the way. They weren't playing as much of an end-to-end game as they were in the first three game and were more content with settling for safer clears rather than trying to lead odd-man rushes with their breakouts. It's all they needed to do, though since they were able to score early and the Wild had virtually no offense going for them.

All Chicago has to do now is win one more game at home and they are good to go for the next round and judging from how Games 1 & 2 went, this shouldn't be too hard of a task.

"Goaltending Gongshow" would be an appropriate headline for what went down at the Nassau Coliseum last night as the Islanders were able to tie the series. The goaltending on both sides has been bad, but last night's game may have been the ultimate display of goaltending ineptitude where Evgeni Nabokov was bad and Marc-Andre Fleury was ten times worse. The "quality start" metric is what is usually used to measure goaltender performance where all a goalie has to do is post a .912 save percentage in a game to give his team a chance to win. Neither goalie was able to do this last night with Nabokov allowing four goals on 31 shots and Fleury letting in an astounding six goals on 24 shots. "Shot quality" is always the common argument against this stat but anyone who watched the game last night shouldn't even bring this up because three of the goals Fleury let in were disgusting and he had to face only 11 Islander scoring chances as a whole.

The team in front of Fleury actually looked slightly better than they did in the last two games as they were able to limit the Islanders scoring chances and control the better part of this game. That would have been good enough for a win, but all stats kind of go out the window when 25% of the shots you give up end up in the back of your net. Three of the goals Fleury let in weren't even registered as scoring chances (Strait, Okposo & the second Streit goal), so that alone should tell you what the main problem was for the Penguins. 

Fortunately for the Penguins, this is only a tied series and they are starting to look better than they did in the last two games, albeit that isn't saying much. They also have another goaltender who they can turn to in Tomas Vokoun and it wouldn't shock me if we see him in net on Thursday. Pittsburgh is at the point where they need to start the goalie who gives them the best chance to win and I'm not sure if that goalie is Fleury right now. I can't help but feel that the only reason he wasn't pulled from last night's game is because Nabokov was almost just as bad and kept the Penguins in the game.

If you've been following this blog for any amount of time then you probably know that I've been tallying and posting the Hurricanes scoring chance numbers on a game-by-game basis and now it's time to reveal the team's overall performance. However, before we get into that, let's provide some context to the team's numbers. Last week, I discussed how the Hurricanes have been a very good puck-possession team for most of the season but their scoring chance numbers had been steadily declining for the final 18 games or so. It's a weird phenomenon because scoring chances and puck-possession are usually strongly related to each other but it wasn't for the Hurricanes this season. Taking an individual look at each player's scoring chance differential will help us identify who contributed to that. I'll also post their Fenwick percentage to show how they controlled scoring chances compared to puck-possession.

In addition to that, I'm also going to post each player's individual scoring chance rate to show which players were creating the most chances. It'll be a way to identify who was creating the most offense on each line and show who could be in for a breakout season next year. Without further ado, let's take a look at the numbers.

Rangers head coach John Tortorella has stated a few times that he thinks this series is closer than some believe and that his team has played well in a few areas, specifically with generating offense. That may have been true for Game One, but the Rangers had a lot of problems the next game and the truth is that they weren't very good last night either. They were able to keep the series alive with a 4-3 win but it was a very ugly win at that, because the Caps were the team that had controlled most of the five-on-five play and this is the second game in a row where this has happened.

That being said, being able to get the win last night could serve as a turning point for New York because they are capable of playing better and now have a chance to change the landscape of this series with another win. The Caps also brought a lot of problems on themselves by getting into penalty trouble in the first two periods and basically giving the Rangers chances to take over the game. Washington has done a great job of shutting down New York's power play in the first two games, but giving them six opportunities in the first two periods is just asking for trouble and the Rangers were able to make them pay, twice in fact.

It's a rare instance that the Rangers win the special teams battle, but that becomes somewhat easier to accomplish when they get 10 minutes of power play time. Taking this & the Caps series lead into consideration, it's very good that the Rangers didn't squander this win, as ugly as it was, because any chance of them pulling off a comeback would have gone down the drain if they did. After last night, I can see this series going either way. If the Rangers come out in regular season form, then I think this can go to seven games but it might be over quickly if their play at even strength is similar to how it was in the last two games.

Both of the afternoon games yesterday followed a similar pattern. We had two 1 vs. 8 matchups with the lower seed vastly outplaying the higher ranked team and both games going to overtime. The difference between the two games is unlike the Islanders, the Wild actually got rewarded for their efforts and were able to finish off the Blackhawks in overtime to stay alive in the series. After looking outmatched in Game Two, the one silver lining I could come up with for the Wild is that the next two games would be at home and could possibly come out stronger then and this is exactly what happened as Minnesota played their best game of the series and got a well-deserved OT win. 

Not going to sugarcoat this, the Wild have been a bad team at even strength so I was a little surprise to see them outshoot the Hawks 31-24 at evens today and was even more surprised that they limited Chicago's high-powered offense to only 11 total scoring chances today. Minnesota doesn't have the best depth or a lot of offense, but they had a good game-plan for limiting Chicago's offense today. They were able to shut them down in the neutral zone, played physical against their top forwards and kept most of their shots to the outside. I'm not sure how much of it had to do with the Blackhawks not playing up to their ability (they looked flat for about 50 minutes) but the Wild were the better team yesterday and now have some hope in this series.