Stanley Cup tourney forges ahead And a future Wild star arrives in St. Paul… HERMANTOWN – The Stanley Cup tourney is well into the first round and thus far it would suffice to say that it’s been interesting. The stars of the Qualifying round in my opinion were MON, CBJ, CAR, and the NYI in the East and VAN, CHI, ARI, and CAL in the West. Of course they were all Q round winners, however, the “best” teams don’t always win. In this case, my picks going in didn’t ring true, I went 2-6 in the Q round. Can we be surprised by the Q round results? Probably not. This is a season like no other and to actually try to handicap any round of this tourney would be an epic challenge this year. In the East, Montreal ousted the Pens. It wasn’t a surprise. The Habs have Carey Price in goal and the Pens did not appear to have their “A” game with them. They are in full handwringing mode out in PIT right now regarding what happened. Well, I’ll tell you what happened – your club wasn’t Cup-worthy this year, and then your GM thought he could get them over by obtaining Jason Zucker and Patrick Marleau. Holy hockey pucks, Batman! Zucker has never performed in the playoffs and Marleau is weeks away from his first Social Security check. So what did the Pens do? Canned all of their assistant coaches. Your GM should have got the first pink slip, and then go from there. You can figure it out, I have. I could’ve told Jimmy Rutherford that Zucks wasn’t going to get them over. And you should have rolled with Jarry in goal, not Matt Murray. The NYI knocked FLA out of contention with a 3-1 series win. The Isles never allowed Florida’s stars to get loose and got solid goaltending to advance. Columbus, in what was probably the best Q round series got taken to 5 games to eliminate the Maple Leafs, when they could have done so in G4, but give the Leafs a bit of credit, they stretched it to a 5th and deciding game before the Blue Jackets put the
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hammer down and spanked the Leafs 3-0 in the consequential tilt. CAR had little trouble dispatching the NYR in a 3 game sweep. The layoff broke any momentum the Rangers may have built within the regular season prior to it’s suspension. Over in the West, VAN, after a G1 loss to the Wild, had their way with them in the next three tilts, and the Wild went bye-bye. The Jets, playing without two of their best forwards went down in four games to CAL. They get some respect though; they battled all the way through but were severely undermanned. The Desert Dogs ousted the Predators, and this series outcome wasn’t a surprise to me. When former Wild netminder Darcy Kuemper is on his game and ARI has their five-man unit “D” game going, they are a tough out. The Pred’s netminding struggled and the outcome is history now. CHI sent EDM packing 3 games to 1, and all this loss by the Oilers did was to dig up all the old questions about where this franchise is going. Talent and youth aside, the Hawks veteran stars know how to win at this time of year, and the Oilers stars don’t. Simple. There was no seismic news for the Round Robin portion of the tourney. The order of finish in the East was; PHI, TB, WAS and BOS. In the West it was; VGK, COL, DAL and STL. Of course, I was off on these picks as well. I thought Philly and Vegas were the two best clubs in this portion of play with TB and COL close behind. I didn’t feel that WAS, BOS or STL were impressive at all. Are there any Cup challengers from the Q round? I like the NYI game right now and I like the Canuck level of play at this time. Right at this moment they are preparing to go into a G3 OT versus STL. They hold a 2-0 series lead and if they notch a W here the Blues will be toast for this series. (STL won 3-2/15:06 OT1) Prior to the tourney and in the early going I had contemplated a COL-TB SC Final. I’m not so sure at the moment. It could be that Vegas has the best goalie tandem in the West and the most balance. And in the East, TB has not had star forward Steve Stamkos throughout the tourney. On top of that I’m not certain that Philly couldn’t beat them in a
seven-gamer. So, it’s been interesting, and becoming even more so. The tourney has been good, the NHL has done a stellar job of protecting players and staff, and it has been excellent to see some live hockey action again. *** DID THE FUTURE OF the Minnesota Wild just arrive in St. Paul last Monday? On Monday the 11th, Russian star and Wild prospect Kirill Kaprizov was met at MSP International airport by Head Coach Dean Evason. He is inked for the next two seasons and, personally, I’m eager to see him play and see how Kirill Kaprizov he does against NHL talent. I have been locked in a wait-andsee mode for the last couple of years while there are others ready to anoint him as the next coming of Federov or Ovechkin. I say slow down. This is the Rubik’s Cube of all hockey leagues in the world. It’s a tough nut to crack. But there are some who do not desire to think things through all the way. I’d tell them look, I have seen clips of his KHL play, I saw him live in all of his PyeongChang Olympic games, and so on. But here is the deal; lets not forget that the young man was a 5th round pick, 135th overall. That’s NOT an overall number one pick. He had a very good performance at the Oly’s, without question. But I remind you that the NHL didn’t allow it’s players to go that year. It was NOT a best-on-best tournament. His draft year was 2015 and he is now 23. That’s fine. You could say he has been developing and working on his game all of this time, and he has. Was he better off back in Russia or would the AHL have helped him refine his game a bit more? That’s a great question. I’d urge all of the people that I waged battle with over this player for the past two to three seasons to look at his numbers, his whole body of work thus
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far, break them down and then ask yourself if this player has the ability to drive the Wild to a Cup. Don’t get me wrong. I’d love it if he did. But put your hockey emotions aside, get out your thinking cap and mull over your answer. Is he for real? Or just another product of the Minnesota sports hype machine? PEACE
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