There are four games on the schedule tonight after an eventful first two days of action. Let’s take a look at tonight’s NHL Playoff Predictions.
| Rangers vs Canadiens ML +130 / -150 O/U 5 |
Blue Jackets vs Penguins ML +144 / -160 O/U 5.5 |
| Blues vs Wild ML +163 / -200 O/U 5 |
Sharks vs Oilers ML +135 / -155 O/U 5 |
Here are tonight’s starting goaltenders, courtesy of LeftWingLock.
Rangers vs Canadiens: I will eat crow. I’ve got my knife and fork out, so let’s get a good heaping mound of crow on my plate.
Tanner Glass scored a playoff game-winning goal.
After I criticized Alain Vigneault and the Rangers coaching staff for dressing the hard-hitting Glass over the highly skilled Russian sniper Pavel Buchnevich, Glass showed me up by scoring the only goal on a goaltender in the entire game. After a faceoff draw, Glass took a step in and fired a backhander in the general vicinity of the net.
It just so happened to go bar-down over the glove of Carey Price.
Okay, Hockey Gods, I see you.
So yes, the gamble on Glass payed off. It was a high-flying, hard-hitting game in which the Canadiens and Rangers played very tight defensive games. But I will still defer to the great analogy used by Blueshirt Banter’s Joe Fortunato on this one.
In case you skipped the notes, here's my little blurb about Glass https://t.co/WauktHDiVq
— Joe Fortunato (@JoeFortunatoBSB) April 13, 2017
The lineup is what it is, so let’s just get right to the game. Now that the Rangers have taken the first game of the series in Montreal, the pressure is all on the Canadiens to win Game 2. The Rangers are the best road team in the NHL, having won 27 as the visiting team this season, but the knock is always that they cannot win in the Bell Centre.
And that is true, for the most part. Henrik Lundqvist was 0-5-1 in his last six against the Canadiens, sporting a 3.45 goals-against average and a .886 save percentage. In his career, he is 4-9-1 in the regular season at the Bell Centre with a 3.97 goals-against average.
Those numbers change drastically in the postseason, however. In his lone postseason encounter with the Habs in 2014, Lundqvist went 4-1-1 with a 2.15/.922 split plus a shutout. Add another win and another shutout to that now.
Claude Julien announced at practice that there would be no lineup changes from Game 1 to Game 2. So if I’m going to complain about the New York fourth line, I might as well complain about the Montreal fourth line too. And how Dwight King should be on it and not Alex Galchenyuk.
I can’t think of a bigger waste of talent than burying Galchenyuk with Steve Ott and Andreas Martinsen. If they want to just have a grind-your-face-off fourth line, stick Dwight King on there and move Galchenyuk up to the third line. Because watching Dwight King try and keep up with Artturi Lehkonen and Andrew Shaw was awful.
Losing both home games would be disastrous for the Canadiens. For what it’s worth, the Rangers are 1-5 in their last six games following a win.
Prediction: Take the Canadiens to even up the score tonight. Play the under.
Blue Jackets vs Penguins: A last-minute goalie switch played no part in Game 1 of the series, as Marc-Andre Fleury led the Penguins to a 3-1 victory over the Blue Jackets.
Columbus had every possible opportunity to take the lead early on. They fired 16 shots in the first period to the Penguins’ three. Pittsburgh escaped with a scoreless opening frame. Once the second started, the Pens put the pedal to the metal and scored three times on 16 shots. They allowed only four shots in the frame.
Evgeni Malkin had a pair of assists in the game. Phil Kessel had a goal and an assist. Bryan Rust scored his seventh career playoff goal to open up the scoring.
So let’s look at the positives for the the Jackets. They did come out of the gate firing. They will be taking on Fleury again, who despite his experience, is still a markedly worse goalie than Matt Murray. And it is the playoffs, where the road team is 5-2-1 so far.
However, they will need John Tortorella to not be quite so…well, John Tortorella-like. Torts sat both of his regular third-pairing guys in Kyle Quincey and Markus Nutivaara in favor of bottom-rung guys Gabriel Carlsson and Scott Harrington.
Both played under nine minutes and were outshot terribly.
And they will play again tonight. What exactly is Torts thinking?
#CBJ coach John Tortorella said starting Harrington and Carlsson over Quincey and Nutivaara was a "coach's decision."
— Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) April 13, 2017
Oh, and Brandon Saad was benched for the final 15 minutes of the game with the Jackets trailing 3-0 (and 3-1 later) because of a turnover. Torts did his usual screaming act, and Saad appeared miffed in the postgame scrum. Saad will be back on the top line tonight.
The Tortorella meltdown has begun.
The Penguins will need a better start tonight. If they can strike early, they can really make the Jackets and their staff squirm.
Prediction: Take the Penguins to win. Play the under.
Blues vs Wild: Minnesota dominated puck possession, got all the high-danger chances and still wound up losing in overtime against the St. Louis Blues in Game 1.
Momentum shifted when a defensive zone faceoff win went horribly, horribly awry for the Wild. Eric Staal won the faceoff to the left of Devan Dubnyk cleanly. Defenseman Jonas Brodin had time and space, but instead skated into the corner and tried to flip the puck over Alexander Steen and out of the zone. It would have been a miracle pass to angle the trajectory so that the puck went over Steen’s reach and still somehow landed on the stick of Nino Niederreiter for a breakout.
Instead, Steen batted down the puck easily, slid the puck to Vladimir Sobotka and the Wild trailed 1-0.
Heading to St. Louis down two games in the series would be a disaster for the Minnesota Wild. The Blues have now won seven of their last eight road games. After scoring two or fewer goals in a game, the Wild are 1-7 in their next game this season.
Translation: when their offense goes dry, it runs bone dry.
But last night was the quintessential kind of win that Wild fans are all too familiar with under Mike Yeo- capitalize on a mistake, shell until it’s tied and pray for an overtime winner. If Minnesota plays like they did in Game 1, they win nine times out of 10.
In four games in Minnesota this season, the Blues have scored six goals. The Wild have scored 10. The bottom line is last game was more puck luck than skill for the Blues. The Wild are their own worst enemy at this point.
Prediction: Take the Wild to rebound tonight. Play the stone-cold under.
Sharks vs Oilers: Man, the poor Oilers. It has still been 11 years since their last playoff victory.
Edmonton led 2-0, but a third period goal from Paul Martin evened up the score. The game would head to overtime, with the Sharks breaking through three minutes in. Melker Karlsson ended the game with a lethal wrister.
Connor McDavid got his first playoff point with an assist on Milan Lucic’s goal.
There were plenty of positives and negatives from the game. Cam Talbot played exceptionally well, stopping 41 of 44 shots. The penalty kill went 5-for-6, which saved the game in many respects. The top line was challenged but held together well.
However, the bottom six was outclassed by the Sharks’ toughness. I don’t mean physically, I mean tenacity. This was a San Jose team that was relentless on the forecheck and picked apart every mistake made by the inexperienced Oilers. Joonas Donskoi and Joel Ward had great games on the third line.
Edmonton’s third line was especially atrocious. Deadline acquisition David Desharnais played just over six minutes.
But at least they got a lot of hits? Yay?
What’s worse is that Logan Couture made a surprise appearance in the Sharks’ lineup and played over 20 minutes of solid hockey. He won faceoffs and was second among forwards in powerplay time. He wasn’t perfect, but he has earned patience at this point.
Joe Thornton is still listed as questionable…for now.
Prediction: Edmonton simply has too much to improve on. Take the Sharks to stun the Oilers once again. Play the over.
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