ROUND 1 OVER..

So, Islanders out - see my last blog - but some surprises at the end of the first round of the Stanley Cup this year.

Mini-me supports New York Rangers (think he does it to wind me up as a New York Islanders fan!) and so we've been head to head in round 1 NYI playing Pittsburgh Penguins and NYR playing Washington Capitals. Both tough match ups.

The Rangers managed to hang on in there to game 7 of their first round and the last game of round 1 for them was undoubtedly their best yet. A real treat for anyone watching (except Caps fans of course) which ended in a 5-0 shut out by the Rangers and their progression to round 2 winning 4 games against 3. Lundqvist again proving himself to be, "probably the best netminder in the League."

Round 2 has started - some amazing match-ups top come.

New York will play the Boston Bruins, close rivals and both teams quite hard hitting. It will be a great round to watch from game 1 on.

Detroit Redwings will play Chicago Blackhawks, again close rivals and another source of family rivalries in this house as Mrs P has adopted Detroit as her favourite team. Largely due to the presence of one Henrik Zetterberg it must be said. She knows nothing about hockey! lol

Detroit v Chicago is the first of these Original 6 games facing off tonight in Chicago at 8:00PM ET (1:00AM here in the UK).

All four of those are 'Original 6' teams, a term used to recognise the group of six teams that composed the NHL for 25 seasons up to 1967 when the League was expanded.

The remaining match-ups feature non Original 6 teams and are Pittsburgh Pengiuns v Ottawa Senators (Pittsburgh are up one game already), LA Kings v San Jose Sharks (LA up one game with a 2-0 win on Tuesday night).

My money is on Pittsburgh v LA in the final but anything can happen in the Stanley Cup...

 

NOT NEW YORK..

Game 6 of the first round of 2013's Stanley Cup playoffs. New York Islanders fighting to stay in with a chance to go through to the next round against the number 1 seeded team from the east Pittsburgh Penguins.

All excitement. They've done extremely well to get to this point.

And opened well by putting themselves into the lead after only 5 and a half minutes. The Islanders completely dominated Pittsburgh, spending what seemed like 90% of the on-ice time in front of the Pittsburgh net for most of the first period. Rewarded for their effort by scoring their second goal with barely 30 seconds left to play in the first period - a truly amazing split second response by McDonald.

The Penguins though, never let it faze them and matched the Islanders goals first 1-1 by 7:39 into the first period, then 2-2 after 11 minutes of the second period. The 3-1 lead by the Islanders grabbed just into the third period lasted until 14:44 when Martin's slapshot whistled past Nabukov and returned the game to even numbers.

Brooks Orpik put the last goal into the Islanders net, a slapshot from the blue line that hit the left hand post, bounced to the right hand post and bumped inside the net line. It could so easily have bounced the other direction and maybe, just maybe the Islanders could have been in with their 7th game chance this evening.

Here's a link to the highlights video

So. To my blog title. Not quite right as it happens. The New York Rangers managed to hold on to a 1-0 lead on Sunday evening  against the Washington Capitals and with a series tied at 3 games each will now play their 7th game of round 1 this evening at 8pm ET.

Vokoun, the Penguins netminder summed up the NYI-PIT series well, "Give them a lot of credit. They played a great series and they played really hard. They're an up and coming good team."

And the web is full of commendations to a team that is only just getting into its stride. Young players abound. Only two guys with Stanley Cup playoff experience? Tavares already a major star player and he's only 22 years old... There's clearly a lot more to come from this line up.

At least I won't be tempted to stay up late now and catch the playoff games live is over, I'll catch up each morning from now on- until the final final of course! And with the Islanders now out of the running I am not planning to jump on a plane and travel to NY for a final series sometime in June - the sun of Gran Canaria beckons instead.

#PITvsNYI over.

See you next year!

TWO GOAL BREAKAWAY..

Correction, three goal breakaway...

That's what killed NY on Thursday night at the Pittsburgh Penguins v New York Islanders game. Game 5 of a best of 7 Round 1 Stanley Cup playoff match up. Islanders hanging in there and have to win two in a row now to stay in.

Until Thursday the Islanders had done well to come back from a disastrous first game (5-0 loss) by winning the last two games and arriving at 2-2 game stand off.

So, the Penguins first made a two goal lead, then a three goal lead thanks to Sidney Crosby (one of their star players) in the second period.

To add insult to injury they opened it further to 4-0 within the first 6 minutes of he third period.

The Islanders didn't really look like they were communicating most of the game. In my eyes, the real star for them in the series so far has been Nabokov, their netminder. Even he didn't shine on Thursday night and was pulled and replaced by 23 year old Kevin Poulin for the last 15 minutes and 4 shots on goal - none got past him.

Amazingly, some of the best playing of the game by the Islanders came in the dying minutes. They managed top keep the puck out of the net in the last three minutes even when faced with a 5 on 3 players situation  following a whole heap of penalties - Hickey for elbowing at 18 minutes, Hamonic and Cizikas for roughing at 18:39 (matched by 2 Penguins players) and  Strait, Aucoin and Martin 10 minute enalties for misconduct at 19mins 36 (joined by 2 Penguins players for the same).

The Penguins netminder was changed in the last game from Fleury to Vokoun and this seems to have had the desired result for them, Islanders 31 shots on goal during the game being kept out of the net by the 37 year old Czech player from Karlovy Vary.

Pittsburgh: 31 shots on goal - 4 goals
New York: 31 shots on goal - 0 goals

Says it all.

Roll on Saturday night when Pittsburgh play on the Islanders home ice at the Nassau Centre, Long Island. I'm staying up to watch! You gotta be positive.

Note: for US readers, the games that start at 7PM ET air live here in the UK from midnight so we have to stay up and watch late night games - adds to the ambience for me though is a little annoying in the mid-week when work calls the next day!

IN THE NET..

Game 4 last night between New York Islanders and Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round of the 2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

A real game of ping pong this one. First one team scores (the Islanders got the first lead as Brian Strait got his first ever NHL goal), then the other evens up 45 seconds later. 1-1 out of the first period.

2-1 to New York 6 minutes into the second with Pittsburgh making it even again within 60 seconds.

Pittsburgh then took a 3-2 lead at the end of the 2nd period and it all started to look more familiar as the Penguins game tightened up.

It took the Islanders a while to get back the 3rd goal in the second period, but guess what? With 1 minute 25 to go they did it. Then the Penguins stuffed another one in to make it 4-3 in the first minute of the 3rd period . No panic though, 15 minutes 30 on the clock to go and the NYI evened up to 4-4.

5-4 lead for the Islanders after some really close in work by Tavares. First one shot with a rebound and then proof that persistence pays as he got another chance to hook it round Fleury's right hand side.

Then the first two goal lead of the game opened up. 6-4 to the Islanders in the last minute and a half as Cizikis simply walked it into the net past the Penguins Fleury.

This was the first time that the Islanders have won a playoff game at home since 2002.

Two games each in this best of seven.. Pittsburgh host the Islanders on Thursday 7th, then it's back to Long Island on Saturday 11th. I wish I was not so busy with work and there to soak up the atmosphere!

Persistence paid in another game too.

Montreal were leading 2-1 into the final few seconds of their game against Ottawa on Tuesday. But they managed to even up with 22 seconds left. The game went into overtime  and Ottawa managed to get the winning goal in the first three minutes of OT. 3 games to Ottawa, 1 to Montreal and it looks like the Canadiens may bow out in round 1 this year..

STANLEY CUP SO FAR..

Spot that break from tradition up there? Usually my blog titles are three words only. Couldn't quickly make up a 3 worder today. Sorry.

Anyway, the Stanley Cup is well into the first round of the playoffs. 16 teams playing for the ultimate cup. 8 teams from the Western Conference, 8 from the Eastern.Each round is best of 7 games - an exhausting haul to mid-late June with teams playing every other day, home or away. They're earning their dollars right now.

All for this..

My teams, New York Islanders and the Montreal Canadiens are both faring ok - little early to tell but the NYI at the very least are doing incredibly well given they were drawn against the favourites from the East Coast, Pittsburgh Penguins (PIT in chart below). Three games in, won one, lost two - but only just to be honest and the last two games being high scoring - proving the NYI can score against the Penguins. And a lot when they get their act together. 

The first game was a write off as they lost 5-0 but they came back to a 4-3 win and then took the Penguins into overtime in game 3 to win 5-4.

Here's the run down so far (at early evening 7 May). Eastern Conference on the top row, West on the bottom for the uninitiated!

The other team I follow closely, Montreal, are faring a lot worse against Ottawa Senators (OTT in chart above).

The surprise so far has been the New York Rangers, not my team but I like to watch and they are 'mini-me's' favourites. They seem unable to start the playoffs proper against the Washington Capitals (WSH above). 3-1 down in game 1, then a very uneventful game that went all the way into overtime (OT) with a score of 0-0 until the Capitals scored 8 minutes into OT. Then a 4-3 win for them in game 3.

Their school report says "must try harder". Especially when they get Power plays (the other team have a player off ice for a few minutes - again for the uninitiated).

Also watching Detroit Redwings (second on bottom row above) closely as they have failed to ignite their star players so far (lots of late night catching up on my tablet in bed with Gamecenter Live!)

If you want to keep up with progress, the NHL have a great, constantly updated results chart here.

More soon..

STANLEY CUP 2013...

And so... it is that time of the year again.

The NHL Stanley Cup is about to start - with the last of the regular season games scheduled for Sunday 28 April. The Stanley Cup starts on April 30th - NHL Countdown Clock

This has been a strange and rapid season as the NHL didn't even get started this year until after Christmas (due to player/union/NHL disputes about the split of revenues). But, I am very happy to say that the Stanley Cup is on. We know the 12 teams that are now going through from the East and West coast teams. The top 6 of each are: 

Very happy to see both my teams I follow in the playoffs this year; Montreal Canadiens and New York Islanders (the latter for the first time since 2006/07).

It should be an interesting journey as hardly any of the NYI team have played in the Stanley Cup before as they have been building a strong new, young team for a few years. Nabokov, the netminder is a seasoned playoff guy but hardly any of the forwards have been there before.

I might even jump a plane to NY if they get through the first few rounds.

The atmosphere in some of the sports bars in Manhattan is going to be brilliant, even better still on Long Island (where I've never stayed before). 

More reports coming very soon...