2011 Stanley Cup Playoffs: Round 3 Summary

The trouble with procrastination is that you are prone to forgetting things.  I delayed writing a post about the conference finals for so long that I kinda forgot what the hell I wanted to say about it in the first place.  Anyways, here are my thoughts.  As they say, better late than never, right?

Eastern Conference

(3-5) Boston-Tampa Bay: So I was hoping that Tampa would be the team to take out the Bruins. I thought that they could do it.  I mean, I don’t think that Boston’s forwards are that good. Obviously, I am aware that must be good enough to have made it this far but they just don’t impress, you know.  On the other hand, Tampa’s forwards are just incredible.  Martin St. Louis, my little man, you are so awesome it’s beautiful.  Also, Lecavalier totally found his groove throughout the playoffs and Sean Bergenheim?  Where the hell did he come from?  No, seriously.  Where did he come from?  When it came to it Dwayne Roloson, as good as he was, Tim Thomas was just better.

The Bruins might have won but in the end, it was pretty close.  It’s not like it was lopsided or anything.  They took the series on third period Nathan Horton goal in game 7.

Side note: I remember going into game 4 the series was in the Bruins’ favour 2-1.  I remember thinking that if Tampa didn’t take that game it was pretty much certain that the Bruins would advance if they had a 3-1 chokehold.  At the end of the first period the Bruins were up 3-0 and I had very little hope for the Lighting.  Anyways, something came up that took me away from the tv until the dying minutes of the second period.  Long story short, I saw that the scoreline was now 3-3 and all I could think was wtf?  Tampa went on to win the game 5-3.  From the beginning until the end, Tampa Bay confused the heck out of me.  It was an interesting ride even if it was a series shorter than I would’ve liked.  Either way, it can’t be denied that they entertained me along the way.

Western Conference

(1-2) Vancouver-San Jose: Now this series was pretty lopsided.  And unbelievably wacky.  First off, Vancouver finally began to score more.  Yay Vancouver.  In a five game series they managed to score 20 goals.  That’s more than either the Chicago series (7 games, 16 goals) or the Nashville series (6 games, 14 goals).  It’s mostly due to game 2 where they scored 7 goals alone (thanks to Ben Eager’s epic meltdown).  By the way, while Eager taunting Luongo on his goal was absolutely petty and mean spirited, I aint gonna lie, it was hella funny.  Game 4, in particular, was hilariously wacky, that is, if you aren’t a Sharks fan.  Here’s a pretty good recap of the game from this CBC article:

“Blowing five consecutive power plays in 21 minutes was enough on its own to doom any team, but San Jose then compounded its death wish by committing four indisputably bad penalties of its own in 2:46 of the second period, leading to three 5-on-3 advantages for the Canucks that within 37 seconds became three goals, a post-season record stretching back even to before the Seattle Millionaires and the Ottawa Silver Seven.”

And as if it were the icing on the proverbial cake, Kevin Bieksa’s series winning goal was also strange with no one being able to see the puck except Bieksa himself.  Tip of the hat, monsieur, tip of the hat.

P.S.: did anyone catch Logan Couture’s post-game interviews?  Maybe it’s that he’s young and new to the experience that he took it so hard, but he seemed so fragile.  Dude needed a hug, just saying.