NHL Playoffs are sweeeeeeeeet

Aren’t the NHL Playoffs the best?   We sit now with just one game left in the second round, but that one game with be the fifth Game 7 of the playoffs.   If you’re a San Jose Sharks fan, this is the last thing you wanted.   And yet Sharks fans should not relent.  Not only do they have Antti Niemi, the goalie that helped the Chicago Blackhawks to victory last year, he is playing out of his mind.  By my count, the score should have been something like 11-1 last night – without the empty netter at the end.

When the Sharks improbably went up 3-0 on the Detroit Red Wings in the Western Conference Semifinals, a little tick went off in my head.   I’ve seen this before, I said.  Being a lifelong Boston Bruins fan and Red Sox fan, I know this script from both sides of the stage.  In 2004, I watched the Red Sox do the impossible.  They won four in a row after being down three games.  And they didn’t just lose those first three to the Yankees, they got their asses kicked.  You have every right not to believe me, but I promise you, I have no reason to lie.  I said, Detroit will come back and force Game 7.  They’re too talented, even with Jimmy Howard in net.

Conversely, I had to stomach painfully watching my Bruins drop four in a row the Philadelphia Flyers in the 2010 Eastern Conference Semifinals.  In Game 7, the Bruins again had the lead, by three goals, only to see it slip away.  Revenge is the sweet taste of victory, my friends.  But, let’s face it, every avid sports fan has a host of insecurities and superstitions that dictate how they view and digest each development with their favorite teams and players.

My Jiminy Cricket was telling me to be afraid, be very afraid.  The only thing that could make what happened last year even worse would be watching a more improved, more experienced Bruins team lose again to the Flyers in the Semis.   But my objective half got the better of me.   Ryan Miller was nowhere near the top of his game, yet he and the Buffalo Sabers still took the Flyers to 7 games.  And then there was the whole revolving door in Philly’s net.  Which begs the question, would an actual revolving door have stopped more pucks than the lackluster combination of Brian Boucher, Michael Leighton, and Sergei Bobrovsky?

What followed were four of the best games I’ve seen Boston play this year, sweeping Philadelphia rather handily.  This didn’t come as a shock to me.  Their first round match up with the Montreal Canadiens was a classic hockey playoff series.  Except, it didn’t follow script.  The Bruins finally got that French-speaking monkey off their back, and did not let a lower seeded, less talented Canadiens team upset. 

As a fan, it really did feel like the hockey gods were pulling another fast one on Boston.  The game in hand, Patrice Bergeron had a complete mental lapse (divine intervention?) and inexplicably, unforgivably took a high sticking penalty in the final minutes.  Here we go again, I said.  So it seemed only fitting that a rising blast from the stick of P.K. Subban would find it’s way past Tim Thomas.  And then he taunted the crowd, and angered the gods.  Enter Nathan Horton.

The Bruins will face a talented, but more importantly, hot team in the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference Finals.  The Lightning have won 7 games in a row after being down 3-1 to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round.  Goaltender Dwayne Roloson put up spectacular efforts against a potent Washington Capitals offense in the Semis.  It serves to be a great series.  The Lightning have a host of flashy forwards, most notably Martin St. Louis and Steven Stamkos.   But the Bruins are by far the best defensive – and defensive minded – team in the NHL this year.   And they have Tim Thomas, playing as hot as ever, and coming off maybe the greatest regular season a starting goalie has ever played.

Claude Julien has been an invaluable asset to the Bruins as well.  In his first year in Boston, he won the Northeast Division with a team that wasn’t supposed to make the playoffs.  He has a roster committed to their system, and their style of play.  The most poignant moment for Julien was the timeout he called in Game 4 against Montreal.  Down 3-1 in the 2^nd period, with all the momentum on Montreal’s side, he called the timeout (in hockey you only get one, so you’d better call it at the right time) and calmed his players down.  They responded by tying the game up before the period’s end, and persevered to win the game in overtime.

The playoffs are a long and difficult battle.  No matter where you finish at the end, there will invariably be different ups and downs.   The Sharks and Red Wings both know that.  The winner of tomorrow night's Game 7 will face the Vancouver Canucks in the Western Conference Finals.   The Canucks barely survived a first round onslaught from the defending champs and played a hotly contested six game series with the Nashville Predators.

No matter what happens, one thing is clear to me.  The NHL Playoffs are awesome.   The level of play is unmatched and the drama is simply genuine.  Only four the seven games in the Bruins-Canadiens series were on cable outside local markets, and only because NHL Network decided last minute to carry CBC’s broadcast to American viewers.  This is a shame.  Hockey players locked out several years ago, in most part to save the league, which they did.  The rule changes have brought us the game we watch now, and it’s as good as ever.  If we keep demanding broadcasts as fans, it will only be a matter of time until the national networks carry more games.  Start by watching Game 7 of Sharks-Red Wings tomorrow night, it will not disappoint.