Buffalo's post season connections

Sports Illustrated has a story about all the Buffalo connections in the conference finals this year. A story that is actually written by Jim Kelley who himself is a former writer at The Buffalo News.

The one player that stands out on the list is Miroslav Satan who really looked to be on the absolute downswing of his career put has had a rather good postseason. After getting sent down to the minors this season, and almost nobody sorry to see him go after he left Buffalo a few years ago now, suddenly Satan is having a good run of games when it matters most.

What is the deal with Osgood in the playoffs? He struggled all season, but has been playing excellently in the postseason and is being more difficult on the Blackhawks than Luongo even was. If it were not for him Chicago probably would have won game two and be up the series now. Last year he was not the starter for most of the regular season and came in to get sixteen wins in the playoffs, including wins in his first nine games.

Detroit Dominates in the early going

Detroit has been rather dominate so far in the finals. With 4-0 and 3-0 wins it is starting to look as if Pittsburgh doesn't have a chance. This is all despite that the Penguins looked like the better team coming in.

Chris Osgood has a two game shutout now, and while he is helped by the leagues best defense the fact that he can shutout players like Crosby, Malkin, and Hossa is impressive.

Penguins on their end really need to step it up. Dallas, and even Nashville did much better against Detroit then Pittsburgh is doing, and there is really no excuse for that. It's not as if the Red Wings are without flaws, but you need to get some goals if you ever want to be able to win the cup.

Game three of the Stanley Cup finals is Wednesday night.

Osgood improves to 9-0

With the Red Wings 5-2 win over the Dallas Stars Chris Osgood has improved to an impressive 9-0 record in this post season. The win gives Detroit a 3-0 lead in a series that is effectively over.

Dallas has a solid team, but they are not able to pull off a 4-0 run against a team that is this good. Turco may steal one or two, but without any offense, he won't be able to do more than that.

Turco has actually had a bit of a let down in this series, and while he hasn't gotten any help, neither has he been over the top outstanding like he usually is. The Red Wings scored five goals on only 21 shots last game. Dallas is the type of team that needs their goalie to be saving around 98% every night so .761 save percentage is not going to come close to cutting it.

Meanwhile the undefeated Chris Osgood has a solid enough team in front of him that a mediocre save percentage of .889 is more than enough.