Playoff Open Thread, May 18th

Let’s check in on some old friends

We had a far less chaotic night on Monday as the odds-makers correctly called all three decisions and we only got one (1!) overtime game after the pure madness of Sunday. I guess you really can’t win them all, folks.

Yesterday’s Games

Boston Bruins 4 - Washington Capitals 3 (OT) Series tied 1-1

Our old friend Craig Anderson played valiantly as the Bruins outshot the caps 48-39 and took the game to overtime but all to no avail as Boston eventually tied the series. Things got off to an inauspicious start for Andy as the Bruins opened the scoring on Craig’s Achilles Heal, the wrap-around. Alex Ovechkin and TJ Oshie teamed up to get the game tied only to watch Patrice Bergeron and Boston’s big line restore the Boston lead at 2-1. The Caps tied late in the first frame where most of the action occurred. Boston kept Andy especially busy in the second as they outshot Washington 15-9. Washington got their first lead of the game early in the third on Garnet Hathaway’s second goal of the night. Alas the relentless Bruins forecheck tied it late in the third on a scramble play and won it in the first minute of overtime.

Carolina Hurricanes 5 - Nashville Predators 2 CAR leads series 1-0

Colour me shocked that the team who rolled a defensive pairing of Ben Harpur and Erik Gudranson suffered the first lop-sided loss of this NHL post-season. Filip Forsberg opened the scoring in this one for Nashville on a beautiful drive to the net but the celebration was short-lived for the Preds as Teuvo Teravainen evened things up moments later, beating Juuse Saros on a re-direction. Vintage Jordan Staal showed up to open the scoring in the second period as the Carolina captain snuck through two Nashville defenders and roofed one perfectly over the shoulder of Saros to give the Hurricanes the lead. The Cursed Amulet himself, Matt Duchene set up former Hurricane Erik Haula who tied the game 2-2 midway through. After forty minutes of fairly even hockey, Carolina stopped playing with their food and blew the game wide open with three goals on 13 shots in the final frame as Saros could only do so much to keep his team in it.

Colorado Avalanche 4 - St. Louis Blues 1 COL leads series 1-0

Any former Sens in this game that we want to talk about? Nope. Absolutely none. Nothing to see here. Moving on. Remember the 2019 Stanley Cup champion Blues? Well, these ain’t them. Colorado opened the scoring on the powerplay courtesy of blueline phenom Cale Makar as the Avs took control of the game about ten minutes in and just never stopped applying pressure on the Blues. St. Louis did get one on the board on a sweet one-timer from Jordan Kyrou to make it a tie game at 1-1 through two periods. The third, however, belonged to Colorado’s top line of Nathan MacKinnon, Gabriel Landeskog, and Mikko Rantanen who combined for 8 points on the night. All told, the Avalanche outshot the Blues 50-23 and that’s not a typo.

Today’s Games

New York Islanders @ Pittsburgh Penguins 7:30PM EST (NYI leads 1-0)

Tampa Bay Lightning @ Florida Panthers 8:00PM EST (TBL leads 1-0)

Minnesota Wild @ Vegas Golden Knights 10:00PM EST (MIN leads 1-0)


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