Put the brooms back in the closet

Apparently nobody is interested in the sweep. Instead both series will go to at least a game five (and possibly even longer). The Flyers finally won a game, but started to fall apart in the third, and don't appear to be poised to seriously challenge the Penguins for this series.

The Flyers were really carried by their powerplay in this game and scored on two of their five chances (not counting the million plus penalty minutes that were awarded in the final half minute of the game). Meanwhile the Penguins came up empty on their opportunities.

For the Penguins, their star of the game was Jordan Stall, who scored both of Pittsburgh's goals after only getting twelve all season. Both of his goals came in the third period from Tyler Kennedy. At one point it appeared as if the Penguins were going to pull of the comeback and give their team the win, but Malkin, Hossa, and Crosby ended up being pretty quiet for the rest of the night, leaving then one line to do all of the team's work.

While a close series is more fun to watch, neither of these really qualify quite yet. Lets just get onto the finals already (That applies to Hillary as well).

Time to break out the brooms

The Pittsburgh Penguins continued their nearly perfect post season with a 4-1 win over the Flyers on Tuesday night. This gives their third 3-0 series lead in this year's playoffs. While the Rangers did manage to force a game five, the Penguins have been pretty close to perfect in this post season and have put up an impressive 11-1 record.

Out west Detroit is doing the same thing. The Red Wings have given themselves a 3-0 series lead over Dallas, and after sweeping the Avalanche in the last round, have won nine straight games.

The entire third round of the playoffs could easily be done by Thursday May 15th which would almost ensure that playoff hockey doesn't even make it to June this year. After a very exciting first round to the playoffs, rounds two and three have been very straight forward, and over rather quickly. Fortunately the good side to this is that the finals between Pittsburgh and Detroit promise to be exciting. With these two teams clearly a full step ahead of the rest, watching the young offensive team take on the older defensive team will be quite the exciting match up.

Until then it's just time to bust out the brooms and get this second round over with.

Detroit scores 8 to sweep

Detroit got one goal, for every leg of their octopuses in their final game of a four game sweep of the Colorado Avalanche. The Red Wings had been dominate the entire series, but this game wasn't even close, and Detroit didn't even prop up their goal total on empty netters. The Avalanche entered the third period down 0-3 in the series, and 1-7 in the game. Going into those final twenty minutes they knew that they didn't really have anything to play for.

The Penguins on the other hand, were unable to remain undefeated in the post season, and where shutout by the Rangers. Still, they should be the favorites to move on out of that series, and this single loss should do little to slow them down.

Dallas and San Jose have the only game on Friday night.

Setting up the Sweep

All three of Tuesday's games have given the winner a 3-0 series lead, and a chance to get the sweep. While the Stars wins over the Sharks have been the closest (two of the three came in overtime), they will have the first chance to eliminate their second round opponent when they play on Wednesday night.

There is a possibility that all three teams will pull off the sweep, and the second round will be over much quicker then the first round was. Round two could see three series over after just four games, while round one only saw that happen once, and had three series go to the full seven.

The Penguins are going the best of all the teams and are 7-0 in the playoffs so far. Theoretically they could win all 16 games to take the cup. Regardless they are at least doing much better than the 0-4 record that they put up in the post season last year.

The Penguins sweep the Senators

No, I did not photoshop that picture. And, Yes, I am loving it.

The Penguins followed through on my (and pretty much everyone else's) prediction and beat the Senators in round one. Ottawa was in so much of a slump coming in that I was eagerly anticipating the sweep as well.

I believe that Spezza Heatley and Alfredsson combined for one assist and zero goals in the playoffs. While that trio did have some time missed due to injury, the Senators traditionally count on those three to have half of their goals. If zero goals is half of your production, you're going to be in big trouble.

Still as a Sabres fan I couldn't have asked for any better results. Lets just hope that Dallas can finish off the Ducks, and that the Rangers find a way to lose as well.

Nashville also had an awesome game last night, and have come back to tie the series with the Red Wings at two a piece. This was really unexpected and I still don't think that Nashville can pull of the upset, but I would be loving it if it did happen.