To say that the first round of the playoffs have been unpredictable would be an understatement of epic proportions.
The top seed in the Eastern Conference, one of the best regular season teams in NHL history, lost in four straight. While there were a few people that thought the Columbus Blue Jackets might give the Tampa Bay Lightning a run, it was more like, they might be able to force overtime in a couple games. Not sweep them.
Same story in the Western Conference. The Calgary Flames obviously had their hands full with a young and talented Colorado Avalanche team but losing in five games? Unthinkable. It was possible to imagine a scenario where goaltending might cost Calgary a game or two but it wasn’t like that at all. Colorado dominated that series from start to finish.
The Islanders made light work of the perennial contender Pittsburgh Penguins, the Blues won three games in Winnipeg on their way to a somewhat surprising win over the Jets and Nashville’s Cup dreams were dashed at the hands of a Dallas team that nobody gave much credit to coming in to the post-season.
Basically, nothing makes sense in round one.
In fact, I had my not quite two year old daughter Emma fill out a bracket at the start of the playoffs and she has a damn good chance at a perfect eight for eight in round one.
I have been watching hockey for 25 years and I am being schooled by a baby.
With that in mind, here’s Emma with another edition of Tuesday News and Notes.
-While the results have been unpredictable, one constant in the first round of the playoffs seems to be the success of former Senators. Robin Lehner has a first round upset to go along with his Vezina Trophy nomination. Mark Stone looked pretty much unstoppable in the early part of that first round series against the Sharks and Erik Karlsson has been racking up points at a decent rate despite clearly playing through some sort of injury. Meanwhile Matt Duchene, playing in the playoffs for just the third time in his NHL career, has looked great for the Blue Jackets. From Ottawa’s perspective, this is probably the best case scenario. The Senators have to hope that going on a long run with CBJ is enough to convince Duchene to stick around there long term because it would mean an additional first round pick coming Ottawa’s way. An unprotected 2020 pick from a team with a couple key UFAs in Sergei Bobrovsky and Artemi Panarin would be huge for the Senators.
-It has been almost one month since the Sens organization let it be known that they were in the market for a new President of Hockey Operations. And while it sounds like they have approached a handful of high-profile candidates, it doesn’t seem like they have had much traction to this point. Steve Yzerman was on their wish-list but not surprisingly, he jumped at the opportunity to return to Detroit as a General Manager. Dean Lombardi was another name kicked around but he seems content to do whatever it is he’s doing with the Philadelphia Flyers. Trevor Linden apparently turned them down too. It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that the Senators are having a hard time filling this somewhat ambiguous role. With that said, some of the names kicked around so far seem a little bit like wishful thinking. The team is still hoping to have someone in place by the time the Entry Draft rolls around next month.
-Same goes for the Head Coach position. Although similar to when I wrote about this a week ago, things seem fairly quiet on that front. One name that has been gaining a bit of traction lately is Brad Shaw, Columbus Blue Jackets Assistant Coach. The original Ottawa Senator has a great track record and is likely among the list of candidates Dorion would like to interview. Of note, the Senators actually talked to Brad Shaw the last time they were filling out their Coaching Staff and from what I heard at the time, actually offered him a position as an Assistant Coach. The money was apparently better in Columbus though. Will be interesting to see if he’s in the mix again but as a Head Coach.
-Both Game 7’s are going to overtime tonight, by the way. I would tell you who is going to win but I don’t want to ruin the surprise. Ah to hell with it- Toronto and San Jose. William Nylander and Kevin Labanc are the overtime heroes.
