6 days after dispatching the Senators, the Penguins still don't know who their 2nd round opponent will be.
Might it be Jaromir Jagr and the New York Rangers, or will it be Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals? At least it's down to 2 teams, after the Bruins went down 5-0 to the Canadiens in game 7 last night. Had the Bruins won, the Penguins would have faced off against them for the next week or two.
Interestingly, it seems like a lot of the talk in Boston is about how much credit the Bruins deserve for playing Montreal so tough and taking them to 7 games as a decided underdog. Personally, I think the Bruins should have won that series. If I were a Bruins fan, I'd have a hard time getting over coach Claude Julien's decision to bench one of their best offensive players for games 2, 3 and 4, 19-goal man Phil Kessel, becuase he "didn't compete enough" in game 1. During the games he missed, the Bruins went down 3 games to 1 in the series, and 2 of their 3 losses were close games --- games where Kessel could have made the difference. Checking is tight in the playoffs and players like Kessel can break a game open. That's what he did in games 5 and 6. I believe taking a game-breaking player out of your lineup in the playoffs is a mistake unless he's costing the team. Kessel wasn't costing the team, and had no chance to redeem any poor performance in game 1 until, as it turned out, it was too late for Julien and the Bruins.
I'll be watching game 7 of the Capitals/Flyers series tonight with great interest. I believe the Captials are a better round 2 opponent for the Penguins than the Rangers are, so I hope Washington pulls off the comeback and advances. Plus, what Penguins fan in their right mind doesn't want to see the hated Flyers bounced? Certainly, the league is hoping for a Washington/Pittsburgh series. They would love nothing more than to see Ovechkin face-off against Crosby and Malkin in a marquee, made-for-national-tv matchup.
Whoever our opponent is, I'll break down the matchup tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment