One of the great things about the playoffs is the sense that anything can happen. It's an overstated narrative, but it's somewhat true when you think about it. Crazy things happen in a seven-game sample size (goalies standing on their heads, certain players going through a hot streak, etc.) and the heavily favored team doesn't always win. In this Pens/Isles series, the script has been flipped a bit. The Penguins are the top-seed and heavily favored coming in but they have actually been outplayed by the the Islanders in two out of three games. It might sound strange to the casual fan, but the Penguins have had a very tough time handing with the Islanders this series and are very fortunate to be leading two games to one.

The Penguins "stunning" depth looked outmatched by the Islanders top-nine today, as they were outchanced 21-12 and recorded only eight scoring chances at even strength. I don't care how talented your lineup is, this kind of offensive production isn't going to cut it in the playoffs even if they advance out of the first round. Yet, despite having such a low offensive output, the Pens were able to beat Nabokov five times and convert on a little under half of their scoring chances. Whether you want to chalk it up to a strong power play, luck, "killer instinct," "efficiency" or brutal goaltending from Evgeni Nabokov  is up to you, but the Pens seemed to have the golden touch whenever they shot the puck today for whatever reason.

I think the Penguins are a better team than what they have shown the last couple of games, but the Islanders deserved a better outcome than what they got today since they were the better team. However, as I said earlier, the better team doesn't always win in a seven-game series and getting a win today can help give the Pens a boost for the rest of the series. They are going to need to come out a lot stronger than they did today, though because the Islanders have really been giving them a hard time.

Despite being favored by most of the advanced stats community to win this series, the Rangers find themselves down 2-0 to the Washington Capitals and have looked very sloppy in both losses. They outplayed the Caps in Game One and didn't come away with the results they were hoping for, but the Rangers were just bad yesterday. The Caps weren't much better despite having a massive advantage in shots on goal and 5v5 territorial play, but the Rangers were just flat out brutal for most of this game. The Rangers strong even strength play during the regular season is the reason why I picked them to win this series, and they ended up getting outshot by 10 by a team who is struggled with puck-possession.

As bad as the Rangers played, they may have been a goalpost or two away from stealing a victory thanks to the play of Henrik Lundqvist and the Capitals not being able to create many scoring chances out of their zone time. Washington seemed to revert back to their form in last year's playoffs and focused more on shutting down Rick Nash's line after he ran wild on them in Game One. They succeeded with this task, as they were able to contain the Rangers for most of the game and hold their offense to only 13 total scoring chances. I thought the Caps could have done a better job of generating better chances and testing Lundqvist during regulation, but from a defensive standpoint, they did a great job and the fact that they had the puck a lot more is never a bad thing in a playoff game .

The Rangers still have two home games to make a series out of this and the gameplan they had for today's game worked for the most part, so I wouldn't be surprised if we see more low-event games the rest of the way. It might suit them well to get more traffic in front of Lundqvist since they took a lot of shots from the point and from bad angles that were easily steered aside by the Ranger netminder. It's not a bad strategy since the Rangers had the scoring areas covered well, but those shots only do so much if there's no one going for the rebounds. The Caps might be able to make this a quick series if they can win the scoring chance battle on the road but I'm expecting to see a different Ranger team in Game Three.

If I had to pick a series that was going to be the most lopsided, the Western Conference's 1 vs. 8 matchup between the Wild & Blackhawks would probably be at the top of my list. As I mentioned in my playoff preview, the Hawks are superior to the Wild in just about every category and should be able to handle them in at least five games. The Wild managed to push Chicago to overtime in Game One before losing in overtime thanks to a phenomenal effort in goal from Josh Harding, but Game Two went a bit differently. The Wild took a 5-2 loss and were grossly outplayed for about three-fourths of the game. I know Minnesota is playing with a couple key injuries (Jason Pominville's absence being a big one), but they looked like a team that was just plain outmatched in Game Two. They can't expect Harding to keep them in every game and they certainly can't continue to give up 40-50 shots every game if they want to have a chance in this series.

Minnesota was able to make things a little interesting in the second period on the back of a strong performance on the powerplay, but Chicago won just about every other battle and earned themselves a two-game advantage in the series.

Despite the results of Tuesday night's game and the Penguins being the top-seed in the Eastern Conference, I was expecting this series to be somewhat competitive. The first game may have been a dud, but last night delivered a little more of what I was expecting to see from this series. The Islanders have been one of the better teams in the Eastern Conference at controlling puck-possession at even strength and this was on full display last night as they really took it to the Penguins. They outshot them 36-23 during even strength play, had a huge advantage in five-on-five shot attempts and outplayed them in just about every area except for special teams.

The Isles had a territorial advantage in Game One, too but they weren't creating much offense out of any of their zone time. This changed completely last night.as the Isles were able to test Marc-Andre Fleury a lot more. They were still shooting from the outside a lot, but I noticed their transition game was much stronger and they did a much better job of getting to rebounds, which resulted in a few more chances and some lucky bounces to go with it. 

Luck is probably the main reason why the Isles were able to tie this series tonight even though they were the better even strength team. They were trailing 3-1 at the first intermission and were able to tie the game thanks to some fortuitous bounces and a couple of soft goals in their favor. Three out of the four goals they scored weren't scoring chances and the only one that did qualify came after Matt Martin banged in a puck that took a weird carom off the end boards. You could make the argument that the Islanders created their own luck and would have scored eventually with how much they were outplaying the Penguins, but it's still hard to deny that they got some breaks there. Sometimes this is all you need, though and it could help the Islanders extend this series.

Let's remember that the Islanders are not a bad team and are capable of giving the Penguins a fair run for their money in a seven-game series with the talented group of forwards they have. Pittsburgh has more top-end talent on their roster, but they still can't afford to play the Islanders lightly and get outshot as badly as they did last night. Both teams are going to need to tighten up a bit defensively, though. The Penguins are a lot better than what they showed in Game Two and Evgeni Nabokov stability in net is just as questionable as Fleury's, so I see this series as one that can go either way despite Pittsburgh's bad underlying numbers. 

Just because the Hurricanes are out of it doesn't mean my tracking days are over. I'll be doing various stat tracking for every playoff game this year and will be posting scoring chance reports here for the ones I'm able to do live. I'll have reports for the other games posted at a later date (possibly after each series is over), but scoring chances will come a day or so after I'm able to track a game live. It will be a way to follow the playoffs in-depth and take a closer look at each series for those who are interested in that.

Unfortunately, the first game I was able to track live was the most lopsided and non-competitive game of the first round. Despite being a 1 vs. 8 matchup, I was expecting the Islanders-Penguins series to be a little closer than some of the experts and causal fans were predicting and while I still hold onto that statement, Game 1 looked exactly like a top seed going against a bottom seed. The Penguins humiliated the Islanders last night in a 5-0 win and the Isles were basically out-competed and out-matched in just about every area.

That is, in every area except for puck-possession. The Islanders actually had much more shot attempts than the Penguins during five-on-five play but it ultimately didn't matter because of a few reasons. First of all, the Islanders got into early penalty trouble and Pittsburgh made them pay for it to get an early lead. Secondly, the Islanders goaltending wasn't very good and Evgeni Nabokov let in a couple goals he would probably want back and lastly, most of the Islanders shots were either blocked or came from a non-threatening area. As a result, the Penguins had a huge advantage in scoring chances despite not winning the puck-possession battle.

The 2013 season mercifully came to a close for the Hurricanes last night and they ended things in painful fashion by getting blown out 8-3 by the Pittsburgh Penguins. It's somewhat of an appropriate ending for what has been an excruciating year for the Canes but at the very least, it clinched them a spot in the top-five of the NHL Entry Draft which they will hopefully put to good use this June. As bad as the final score was of last night's game, it's kind of hard for me to get hung up on the results because Carolina iced a roster that was in shambles. They actually dressed 18 skaters tonight but two of them played a combined nine seconds, so the team was predictably worn out by the third period, where they surrendered five goals.

Not only that, but I feel like Muller approached this game like a pre-season contest because we saw line combinations that we will likely never see again for a long time. Kevin Westgarth took a few shifts with the first line and scored his first two goals of the season on top of that, Jared Staal played top-six minutes in only his second NHL game while Jeff Skinner continued to center the third line with grinders on his wings. Jamie McBain & Marc-Andre Bergeron also played top-four minutes on defense and spent some of their ice time against Pittsburgh's top-six. It's highly doubtful that the Hurricanes will come out with this kind of look ever again, so there's really no point in freaking out over them getting blown out in basically a meaningless game. The only thing that happened last night which we will undoubtedly see again is Justin Faulk playing over 29 minutes.

I really don't have much to say about this game, so I'll just leave you guys with the numbers and move on with the off-season.

The Hurricanes nearly pulled the ultimate troll job last night as they were minutes away from upsetting the New York Rangers and putting their playoff chances in serious jeopardy. Why would this be a huge troll job on the Hurricanes part? Put yourself in the shoes of a Rangers fan. On Tuesday, you had a chance to seal up a playoff spot but ended up losing to a bad Florida Panthers taem despite outplaying them for the majority of the contest. Tonight, you have another chance to clinch and all you have to do is beat a Hurricanes team that has won a total of four games in the last month and had only 17 skaters dressed for tonight's game. If you're a New York fan you were probably thinking "this should be easy enough" and assume that this game would be a cakewalk. That isn't how things went down, though.

The Rangers nearly saw history repeat itself tonight since they vastly outplayed the Hurricanes for 2/3 of the game but found themselves down 3-2 in the dying seconds of the third period. The Hurricanes recorded only six shots through the final two periods but found themselves ahead because half of them beat Ranger goaltender Henrik Lundqvist while Dan Ellis made 25+ saves over the same time. That's right, the same goaltender who the Rangers chased after two periods in these two team's last meeting was out-dueling the reigning Vezina trophy winner to potentially steal a game for the Hurricanes that they had no business being in with their playoff lives essentially on the line. Fortunately for the Rangers, the hockey gods weren't having any of this.

With about four minutes remaining in the third period, Carolina forward Tuomo Ruutu was whistled for a very soft tripping call to give the Rangers a late powerplay. The Hurricanes did a great job of preventing the Rangers from creating a lot of offense on this powerplay and it looked like this soft call wouldn't matter. That is, until Brad Richards let a long shot from the point go which bounced off the boards off Ellis' skate and into the net. All of the things that were going right for the Hurricanes over the previous 40 minutes completely reversed here, as the Rangers got an incredibly lucky goal off a penalty that should have never been called. This didn't end there, though as the Hurricanes started off the overtime period well, controlled play but could not get anything past Henrik Lundqvitst. After the Canes ran out of the gas, the Rangers got a turn to set up a play and scored on basically their first foray into the Carolina zone. This was another sort of "lucky" goal since Ryan Callahan was able to catch Ellis out of position and beat him shortside to clinch a playoff birth for the Rangers.

What was a special night for the Staal family with young Jared making his debut ended up being an even more special night for the Rangers, as they will be the ones whose season continues over these next couple of months while the Hurricanes had only game remaining on their schedule before they hit the links. The Rangers got the help of a gift penalty call and a lucky goal, but their quality of play was superior to Carolina's for most of this game and they deserved this win. Good teams can create their own bounces and the Rangers were long overdue for one after how their last couple of games have gone. The Hurricanes nearly got away with one here, but like I said earlier, the hockey gods didn't allow that to happen.

Two games in a row now the Hurricanes have took home two points despite not playing their best hockey and it might be coming at the worst time of the season. If this were a month ago and the Canes still had a shot at the playoffs, then I'm sure most would be ecstatic about the team picking up two wins in a row even if they didn't "deserve" them. Now that they are out of the playoffs and the only thing at stake is draft position, this win doesn't really hold a lot of value to most fans. Not that tasting victory after doing nothing but losing for an entire month doesn't feel good, but when your team gets outplayed for 65 minutes, blows a third period lead and wins in the shootout, it doesn't feel as good as most wins do. Like I said, it's the second game in a row that they've been outplayed in a winning result when all the Canes are playing for is pride. From my experience, winning is the only way to get your confidence back up, so these wins mean a lot to the team but it's obviously too little too late and Carolina will need to play better in future games than they've had in the last three.

I kind of wrote off the Tampa Bay game since it was the second night of a back-to-back and the Canes had a 3-0 lead in the first period, but they were simply outplayed by the Islanders last night and were able to get two points thanks to Dan Ellis and a couple of fluky goals. Basically everything that was going wrong for the Canes over the last month has dramatically shifted over the last two games. It would have been nice if this happened sooner but there's nothing we can do about it now, sadly.

If there was anything the Hurricanes were long overdue for, it was an ugly win. During this brutal 20-game stretch, the Canes have lost in just about every way imaginable and it didn't matter how good or bad they played. They were plenty of games where the Canes were just awful and deserved to lose (including last night's stinker against the Flyers), but there were also a lot of games where the Canes played well but either couldn't score or received terrible goaltending, which put them behind. Nothing was going right for this team during that period and it seemed like the Canes were stuck in a rut that would last for the rest of the season. Until last night, that is. 

Their 3-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning was a nice change from the status quo of the last month or and it was good to see the team get a win even though they arguably didn't "deserve" it. Carolina ended up getting outshot 37-28 (31-21 at even strength) and looked like the better team for a good portion of this contest. Part of the reason for this was because the Canes had a three-goal lead after the first intermission and were content with sitting back, but the Lightning definitely gave the Canes a lot of trouble tonight and Dan Ellis had to come up big plenty of times to preserve the victory for Carolina. It was basically what you would consider an "ugly win" by most standards since the Canes werea ble to get two points despite not playing their best hockey.

Carolina hasn't played their best hockey in about a month, so what made this game so different? Goaltending and a few lucky bounces. As I previously noted, Ellis gave the Hurricanes a terrific performance in goal tonight with 35 saves, their first line produced goals on three of the seven even strength shots they produced and they also got lucky a few times with some of Tampa Bay's chances going off the post or being cleared away at the last minute. In other words, basically everything that didn't go right for Carolina over the last month or so. 

Had the Canes gotten a few more ugly wins like this under their belt earlier in the season then we might be singing a different tune right now regarding their playoff chances, but there is nothing that can be done about that now and all this win impacts is where they select in the draft. Adding to that, two Carolina players also got injured tonight, so spirits aren't as high as they normally are in Raleigh after a victory. Only one week of regular season play left..let's hope the Hurricanes can continue to close things out on a positive note.

25 even strengths on goal. That is all the Carolina Hurricanes could muster up tonight against the Flyers in what felt like a grueling loss even though the final score ended up only 5-3. Both teams had been officially eliminated from playoff contention last night, so a win or loss doesn't mean a whole lot tonight right now but the team's compete level and play at even strength is still something I'm keeping an eye on and it was very poor tonight. Carolina hasn't had much luck against the Flyers ever since they moved to Raleigh (they've won 30 out of 117 games against Philly), but I'm not going to hang onto that as an excuse, especially when you look at the year the Flyers are having.

This is a Flyers team that has been very poor this year and has been destroyed by injuries. Half of their defense corps tonight had a combined 56 games of NHL experience, and the Hurricanes could barely put a dent in them during even strength play. Adding to that, they were guilty of multiple defensive breakdowns and allowed the Flyers top-nine to have a field day. We could have seen a repeat of the Buffalo-New York game last night were the Rangers put up eight goals if it wasn't for Justin Peters doing his best to keep the Hurricanes in it during the first period. He can only do so much, though and the Hurricanes certainly aren't going to win many games where they rely on him to bail them out of their troubles. They found this out the hard way a few times over the last month and tonight was no different.

I've been saying for awhile that the Hurricanes are a better team than what their record shows but tonight, they looked more like a team that has won only two games in the span of a month and belongs at the bottom of the Eastern Conference. Just a bad game by the entire team with very few exceptions.