Thoughts From My Couch

This was one of my favorite postseasons to date. It featured one of the closest rounds in postseason history with six of the eight series in the first round going the distance. We got to see some new faces make it to the conference finals and the coronation of a new champion against a team looking to build a dynasty. Not to toot my own horn too much but I had a good postseason picking winners, selecting the correct team in 11 of the 15 series from my original predictions. I want to go over some of the best and worst of the postseason as well as my picks for my All-Star teams of the playoffs.  Postseason Superlatives Biggest Team Suprise- Edmonton Oilers This is less of a surprise because of the guys on the team and is based more on the fact that they hadn't gone this far in the postseason with McDavid and Draisaitl. While they did get swept by Colorado in the Western Conference Final, they won two incredibly fun series, including an incredibly fun five-game win over the Pacific Cha...

An excellent season and a thrilling postseason culminated in an exciting series for the ultimate prize in sports featuring the two best teams in the league. In the lead-up to Game 1, this series was set to either coronate the league's newest dynasty or serve as the crowning moment for a team that has often underperformed in the postseason despite their immense star power. What we got was an exciting and memorable final between two spirited squads. I'd also like to brag and say that I called it. Here is the review of the Stanley Cup Final.  Stanley Cup Final Review Tampa Bay Lightning v. Colorado Avalanche Game 1- "It's Going to be One of Those Series"- Colorado 4, Tampa Bay 3 (OT) From the drop of the puck for the first game, Colorado looked to be in control. Captain Gabriel Landeskog opened the scoring and Valeri Nichushkin doubled the lead less than two minutes later to lead 2-0 before the midway point of the period. Nick Paul got the Bolts on the board to cut t...

Eastern Conference Final Review Tampa Bay Lightning defeat the New York Rangers, 4-2 These two teams took different paths through the second round to get to this point. New York needed a tense seven-game series to outlast the Carolina Hurricanes, while Tampa Bay swept the Florida Panthers with ease. This meant we were getting a well-rested Lightning team against a battle-tested Rangers team. The story of this series front the start was the battle in the net between the best in the world, Andrei Vasilevskiy, and the best this season, Igor Shesterkin. We knew what each team could do offensively, but Game 1 shocked a bunch of people. Chris Kreider picked up right where he left off with a goal just over a minute into the game, but Steven Stamkos answered before the midway point to tie it at one, where it would stay for the rest of the period. The second period started similarly. Frank Vatrano gave New York the lead back, but Ondrej Palat responded less than a minute later. With the game ti...

The end of the shortened 2020-21 season was a bitter one with the Canes winning the Central Division before losing in the second round in five games to the eventual champions, the Tampa Bay Lightning. They had a lot of decisions to make in the offseason and it resulted in a very different team hitting the ice on Opening Night for the 2021-22 season. Some major pieces were gone like Dougie Hamilton, Petr Mrazek, and James Reimer. New to Raleigh were controversial defenseman Tony DeAngelo and the new goalie duo of Frederik Andersen and Antti Raanta, as well as some depth guys in Brendan Smith, Ian Cole, and Ethan Bear on defense. While the roster looked pretty set at the beginning of the season, one rookie made some shockwaves as he made the roster as one of the healthy extras. What would follow was a season of extreme highs and some relative lows and it was one of the most fun to date.  Season in Review The Team With a final record of 54-20-8 and 116 points, this was the best regula...