Hockey's Oldest Rivalry

The Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens will meet for a 33rd time tonight in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Bruins - Canadiens rivalry is one of the best in hockey, if not in all of sports. The teams hate each-other, the fans hate each-other, even the CITIES hate each-other.. what more is there to ask for?

As a Bruins fan I am undoubtedly biased when predicting this series, but I'm not a huge Hab hater. I do dislike the Canadiens because.. they're the Canadiens.. but I believe that they're a really great team. A lot of the reasoning behind that is because they have great goal tending. Carey Price had an amazing regular season - 72 games, 38 wins, 8 shut outs? That's not too shabby for a 23 year old who's protecting the net in one of the craziest hockey cities in the world. Aside from their great goal-tending, Montreal got lucky with rookie P.K. Subban this year. Only 21 years old and he played in 77 games, recording 38 points for the team. He also plays with a toughness that the Habs needed to add to their roster, especially when playing the Bruins. Montreal has also stepped up their special teams play; ranking 7th in power play and penalty killing percentages.

Then there's the Bruins... I feel as if they've had a perfect team to make it all the way every year but something always happens. Whether it's an injury to a key player or bad penalty, they lose it all in round 2 game 7. This year, however, they really do have a perfect team for the playoffs. Tim Thomas played his best regular season ever, better than any other goalie in the NHL. Tuukka Rask, the Bruins go-to guy in 2009-2010, hasn't had as much time in the spotlight as he did last year but the games he did play in showed us that he hasn't lost much of his edge. As far as offense goes the Bruins had four 20 goal scorers this season and last year they only had two! That's not even including injured Marc Savard or playmaker David Krejci. Milan Lucic lit up the lamp this season like never before, scoring 30 goals, leading the Bruins roster. (Nathan Horton, Patrice Bergeron, and rookie Brad Marchand were the other three B's to score over 20.) Even the Bruins tough guy Shawn Thornton recorded 10 goals on the season, a career high for the infamous instigator. The Bruins defense has always been pretty solid but with the addition of Tomas Kaberle they seem to be unstoppable. The Bruins acquired Kaberle at the trade deadline from Toronto and he instantly clicked with the team's style of play. With guys like Kaberle, Chara, and Seidenberg on the blue line we know it won't be easy for Montreal to get very many scoring chances.

If you were to compare the two teams based on offense, defense, goaltending, and special teams the Boston Bruins would win every category aside from special teams.. they are ineffective on the powerplay and although their penalty killing isn't terrible it is nothing like Montreal's. All in all this will be a pretty even series for the 3rd and 6th seed teams and will undoubtedly be an exciting one. I say, Bruins in 5!

Lu's Unimaginable Save

Game 1: Luongo Shuts Out The Hawks

I wasn't sure what to expect from this series. I knew what I wanted; the Canucks to dominate the series and finally get their revenge on Chicago. I also knew that based on the numbers the Canucks SHOULD dominate the series.. but I wasn't expecting it (to avoid getting my hopes up.. only to be crushed - I am a Bruins fan after all.) What the Canucks did with this game was set the stage for the rest of the series. They came out a little flat in the first few minutes of play but then some switch was hit and they were ON for the full sixty.

It was kind of sad to see how overwhelmed Crawford was with the play in his zone for a majority of the game. However he was able to handle his own and aside from two first period goals by Chris Higgins and Jannik Hansen, he stopped 31 shots and was pretty solid throughout the three periods.

I don't know WHEN this happened but Roberto Luongo finally learned how to play in the post-season. He looked incredible tonight making an unimaginable save in the first period with the very tip of his skate. He had a lot of help from his team, who kept the play mainly in the Hawks zone. However they did manage to get 32 shots on goal, but Lu, or the goalpost, stopped them all. Hopefully he is able to keep this up because with shutout goal-tending like this, there is no way the 'Nucks won't be Stanley Cup contenders.

The Blackhawks didn't look bad by any means but they didn't look as prepared/excited/ready to play as the Canucks did. A huge part of this was probably the venue, maybe next week when they're at the United Center the tables will be turned, but for these two games Vancouver has home ice and tonight they've shown that they're going to take advantage of that. So, Chicago has to be ready for the high energy game that the Canucks are bringing and try to find some way to get around Luongo on Friday night.

Canucks and Blackhawks Meet Again..

The Vancouver Canucks and Chicago Blackhawks start their playoff series tonight in Vancouver, and I am extremely excited. I'm excited as a Canucks fan and as a hockey fan in general. Over the past few years these teams have been huge rivals in the playoffs, and every year the Blackhawks have been the victor. I believe that this year will be different. This year the Canucks are the top team in the league, their goalies are at the top of their game, both of the Sedin twins are healthy and scoring points like crazy, and the team as a whole just CLICKS.

As for the Blackhawks, the only reason they're even in the playoffs this year is because the Dallas Stars didn't put enough effort into their 5-3 loss to the Wild on Sunday. The Blackhawks are in NO position to defend their championship because they're not the same team. They got rid of almost half of the guys who played a significant role in their Stanley Cup win, including their champion goalie - Antti Niemi. Not to say that Crawford hasn't been a great rookie goalie this year.. but they're nothing like they were and quite frankly, it would be a miracle if they made it past the first round.

 It will definitely be an interesting series though. I believe the Canucks would be able to sweep it based on talent alone, but because of the history between the two teams, it might be more difficult. Chicago seems to think they're in Vancouver's heads and that this alone can win them the series. I'm not saying the fact that Chicago has beaten them in the past is enough for Vancouver to blow the series, but I'm sure it may cause them to lose a game or two, especially on enemy ice. My prediction for tonight's game is a Vancouver win, and for the series, Canucks in 6.