Stanley Cup - Second Round Recap

The second round of the Stanley Cup wrapped up last night when the San Jose Sharks overwhelmed the Nashville Predators 5-0 in game 7 of their series.  You can see my predictions for the second round in this post. And here is a recap of all the series:

Pittsburgh Penguins defeat Washington Capitals 4-2 as predicted. The Capitals, the best team in the league all year long, picked a bad time to fall into a scoring drought. Matt Murray was Braden Holtby's equal or better in goal in the series and Washington's budding star Kuznetsov was almost invisible for the second series in a row. Some untimely defensive lapses, good team defense by Pittsburgh, and their greater depth in scoring was the difference in this series.

Tampa Bay Lightning defeat New York Islanders 4-1 as predicted. Ben Bishop, in goal for the Lightning, had a horrendous game 1 and was pulled but came back to help Tampa Bay essentially steal games 3 and 4 with some outstanding play.  John Tavares was held pointless in the last four games of the series and, without his offense, the Islanders just couldn't score enough to keep up with the Lightning.

St. Louis Blues defeat Dallas Stars 4-3 as predicted.  Dallas kept on beating the Blues defense with long stretch passes through the neutral zone, especially in the second period when both teams have to make the long change. St. Louis also had too many defensive zone failures that allowed Dallas to stay in the series.  Fortunately for the Blues, Kari Lehtonen was just horrible in goal for the Stars in the deciding game 7 and the Blues survived.

San Jose Sharks defeat Nashville Predators 4-3 as predicted.  I had thought this was going to be a long, hard series and it was, going all seven games.  Nashville just kept on coming and every time you thought they were done, they came back with a vengeance.  The Predators looked like they had solved Martin Jones, the Sharks goalie, with high shots over his shoulder.  But the Preds could not keep Anaheim's big scorers in check, especially Logan Couture and Joe Pavelski - but, then again, no one has been able to stop Pavelski in these playoffs. Game 4 of this series was one of the all time classics with the Predators prevailing 4-3 in triple overtime.  Joe Pavelski scored an incredible goal in overtime that was eventually disallowed due to goalie interference - a 50/50 call that could have gone either way.  Mike Fisher finally ended this terrific game, filled with end-to-end rushes, in the third overtime to seal the win for the Preds and tie the series at 2.  But all that effort took a toll on the Nashville defense and by the time game 7 rolled around, they just looked like they didn't have anything left.

One thing to note is how many goals have been disallowed in these playoffs due to coaches' challenges on offsides - some of which turned out to be critical calls.  I'll be back later this afternoon with predictions for the conference finals which start tonight.