Archive for NHL Playoffs
Lord Stanley: Free Canucks Promo Packs at Game 2
Posted by: | CommentsFor any hockey fan lucky enough to attend Saturday’s Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals in Vancouver, the action on the ice won’t be the only form of entertainment within the arena. Upper Deck will be giving away free promo card packs featuring top players on the Canucks roster to all attendees!
THE PUCK STOPS HERE: Roberto Luongo is one of five Canucks players featured in the free promo packs.
The eight-card packs will include five Vancouver players: Daniel Sedin, Roberto Luongo, Henrik Sedin, Alexandre Burrows and Ryan Kesler; one “Stanley Cup Memorable Moments” card; one checklist card; and one “History You Can Hold” card spotlighting Upper Deck’s upcoming 2011 Stanley Cup Championship Box Set. And to add a chase element to the promo packs, Upper Deck has created five different “Stanley Cup Memorable Moments” cards that will be randomly inserted at a rate of one per pack. The five random inserts are: Ray Bourque Takes His First Stanley Cup; Wayne Gretzky Works His Magic; Patrick Kane Wins Stanley Cup; Bobby Orr Flies through the Air; and Alex Ovechkin Tallies a Playoff Hat Trick.
There will also be randomly inserted “Instant Winner” cards in various packs which will allow those lucky fans to stop by the Upper Deck Booth (located at Section 329) during the game to secure their prize. Upper Deck will be taking pre-orders during the game for its Stanley Cup Box Set, which will start shipping approximately five weeks after the Stanley Cup finals conclude. The company will also have its P-Card Station set up to produce personalized Stanley Cup trading cards of anyone who stops by the booth. Get your picture taken by the pros and see yourself wind up on your very own Upper Deck hockey card! And for anybody not attending Game 2 in Vancouver, you can still place your pre-order for Upper Deck’s Stanley Cup Champions Box Set by visiting Upper Deck’s online store.
SECTION 329: Upper Deck will be creating personalized trading cards for any fans who stop by the booth.
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The Stanley Cup Finals: Bruins vs. Canucks
Posted by: | CommentsThe Stanley Cup finals are upon us with Game 1 on tap for tonight in Vancouver. It has been an interesting season so far which will culminate in a team winning the Cup that has been without one for many a year. The Boston Bruins come in with their last Stanley Cup-winning squad having played way back in 1972. That team was powerful and skillful with the likes of Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, Johnny Bucyk, Fred Stanfield, Ken Hodge and Derek Sanderson adding to the offense, along with Gerry Cheevers and Ed Johnston patrolling the nets. The team was built for success and achieved it. This year also marks the first time since 1990 that they have made it to the finals.
PRIZED NETMINDERS: Luongo and Thomas will be the ones who dictate where the puck stops.
This year’s edition of the Boston Bruins has been building towards this all season. It starts in net with Tim Thomas. The front-runner to walk away with the Vezina Trophy this year has been off and on during the playoffs but has put up when it matters most and is going to play a huge role in the Finals as he tries to backstop the Bruins against the league’s top team.
The Bruins added strength at the deadline to make their run. Chris Kelly acquired from the Ottawa Senators has added an element of depth that the Bruins simply didn’t have before. The addition of Tomas Kaberle from the Maple Leafs has added to the back end. This deal in particular hasn’t always appeared to work at face value, but with the Bruins in the finals, it’s tough to argue against it right now. The addition of Rich Peverly (along with Boris Valabik) from Atlanta has also added punch.
Holdovers Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron, Mark Recchi and Milan Lucic have been the driving forces all season long, and newly minted Nathan Horton during the off season has been a force for the B’s in the playoffs. They will all be tasked to matchup well against the depth of the Vancouver Canucks.
Rookie Tyler Seguin opened a lot of eyes during the Conference Finals scoring some key (and beautiful) goals. A four-point game in just his second appearance solidified a place for the up-and-comer. A spike was immediately seen on the secondary market for his key cards.
The Canucks have been building towards this moment for what seems like years now. Their General Manager, Mike Gillis, isn’t afraid of mixing things up and just because traditional methods may work, he isn’t afraid to try and tweak them to make them better. The Canucks have used a total of nine different defensemen this off-season with all nine making contributions. This is not unlike the regular season when it seemed as though the Canucks had a revolving door at the position with guys going in and out of the lineup quite frequently. Up front, the attack is led by the Sedins. No longer labeled the “Sisters,” with both of them leading the league in scoring over the past two years, they must be accounted for. Looks like Zdeno Chara will be tasked with stopping the brothers mighty.
Secondary scoring has not lacked in the form of Alex Burrows and heart and soul Ryan Kesler. The best matchup of the series could be that of Kesler and Bergeron. Both are great two way players, great on face-offs, who will be tasked with not only stopping one another, but adding offense as well. Deadline acquisition Chris Higgins has shown the ability to be a top six forward on the Canucks and at times has been their best player.
HEART AND SOUL: There's little doubt that Kesler will be the driving force for Vancouver in this series.
The Canucks are a fairly veteran team overall with Cody Hodgson being the one guy who could excite fans of the hobby. He will be a holdover rookie who will debut in early releases of 2011-12 products and will be a driving force early on. He may not see much ice during the Finals, but if someone goes down with an injury, he will be one of the first to be called upon. The former Canadian Junior Player of the Year will be primed for the opportunity should it arise.
Vancouver is battling in its third Stanley Cup Finals having come up short in its two previous tries (1982 and ’94). Roberto Luongo will be the man in the nets for Vancouver and if he shows well or leads the team to the championship, expect him to finally enter the lore of “King Richard” Brodeur and “Captain Kirk” McLean, the previous two goalies who led the Canucks to the championship round.
It should be a great final, and I am looking forward to either one of these teams hoisting the Cup. This year one more thing is certain: we will have another European leading his team to Lord Stanley’s mug and raising it over his head.
Who is your pick to win, as well as your vote for the Conn Smythe Trophy given to the playoff MVP? Who has the most to gain in the hobby in terms of secondary market activity with a good series? Let us know your thoughts by posting a comment below.
Christopher Carmichael has been hockey fan of over 20 years. He has been an active member on various hobby related sites, most notably www.hobbyinsider.net, and is a moderator on www.cloutsnchara.com. Christopher also does some part time writing for the Insiders Edge (www.insidersedge.net for more details).
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Seguin’s potential on display in playoff debut
Posted by: | CommentsI wonder which wise guy at Tuesday’s press conference following Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals was the first to ask Claude Julien if Tyler Seguin would play Game 3.
I’m sure that one got a chuckle from the assembled media scrum, and having been in a few of those in my day, I have no doubt whatsoever that someone lobbed that question at the Bruins head coach. It’s possible there were multiple reporters tripping over each other for the honor.
Seguin was a spectator for the first two rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which isn’t unusual for a 19-year old rookie — even if said rookie was the No. 2 overall pick in last summer’s draft. He recorded a goal and an assist in his playoff debut in Game 1, but still he was only in the lineup at all because top center Patrice Bergeron was out with a concussion. (Side bar: How many Bruins fans, upon hearing the announcers refer to “Bergeron” for the first time in this series, got excited thinking Patrice had made a miraculous earlier-than-expected return to the lineup, only to be let down to learn it was actually Lightning defenseman Marc-Andre Bergeron?)
Seguin had his share of ups and down this season, which also is not at all unusual for a kid that young. He had only 11 goals and 22 points in 74 games, and was one of the only Bruins skaters with a negative plus/minus (his minus-4 was second worst on the team).
So with Patrice Bergeron set to return any day — likely as early as Game 3 tonight in Tampa — it seemed the former Plymouth Whalers star might be skating on borrowed ice time in these here playoffs. Before Game 2, it was probably assumed he’d return to watching from the press box as soon as Bergy was ready to go.
PUT ME IN COACH: Seguin is ready to go for the Bruins, whether at home or on the road.
But after putting forth what easily stands as his best performance as a pro, and being arguably the best player on the ice for the victorious Bruins on Tuesday, the thought of Seguin not playing when the two teams hit the ice this evening is pretty much inconceivable. His four-point night (two goals, two assists) sparked the Bruins to a thrilling 6-5 win in a game the home team couldn’t afford to lose after dropping Game 1 on Saturday.
Seguin breathed life into Boston’s non-existent power play, logging about a minute and a half of ice time with the man advantage as the Bruins went 2-for-5 — matching their total output for the previous 12 games combined (2-for-41). It’s been well documented that Boston won their first-round series against Montreal in seven games without scoring a single power-play goal (0-for-21), the first time a team has advanced without scoring such a goal in a series in NHL history.
I started scribbling out this blog post after Seguin’s second goal — both were beautiful “goal-scorers” goals — and didn’t even get halfway through that process before Seguin added two helpers and staked Boston to a 5-3 lead.
Now one great game does not a “star” make, but once again he was the second pick in his draft year, so the pedigree is there. Bruins fans certainly hope there are many more games like Tuesday’s in the years to come for this youngster, selected with what would have been Toronto’s draft pick before they shipped it off to Boston in the trade for Phil Kessel.
BALANCING ACT: Seguin is savvy enough to know his place on the Bruins is wherever they need him.
It’ll be interesting to see how Julien uses Seguin for Game 3 if Bergeron does return — and all indications point to that happening — whether he’ll continue to get time on the power play or not, and how he’ll handle his road playoff debut.
What I’ll also be curious to see is who the odd man out will be if both are in the lineup. The Bruins haven’t had much of a varied lineup throughout the playoffs, skating the exact same 12 forwards for every game until Seguin spelled Bergeron the past two contests. It’ll likely be either Shawn Thornton (one assist, a minus-1 and 2 PIM in 13 playoff games) or Gregory Campbell (1-2—3, team-worst minus-3 and 2 PIM).
Either way, if the rest of the games in this series can come close to the excitement of Game 2, hockey fans are in for a treat.
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Sharks Collapse of 2011 Would be Worst Yet
Posted by: | CommentsThe fourth win to eliminate a team from the playoffs always comes toughest, the saying goes. As the San Jose Sharks are learning the hard way that tired proclamation is often quite true.
For the second consecutive postseason, the Sharks jumped out to a 3-0 series lead against the mighty Detroit Red Wings, quite an accomplishment in itself. In 2010, after a brief 7-1 hiccup in Game 4 in Detroit, San Jose closed the deal in five games and advanced to the Western Conference Finals for the second time in franchise history.
A year later, that fourth win appears in serious jeopardy. The Red Wings have won three in a row, and they have all the momentum heading into Thursday’s decisive Game 7 at HP Pavilion.
For his part, Sharks coach Todd McLellan did his best at Tuesday’s postgame press conference to place focus on the still-ripe opportunity his team has Thursday, which is really all he can do. Dwelling on the specter of such an epic collapse is not much of an appealing alternative.
Could veteran left winger Patrick Marleau be the key to a Sharks' victory tonight?
“We’ll ignore it,” McLellan said when a reporter asked if he would address with his team the history of teams blowing 3-0 series leads (it’s only been done three times in the NHL, for the record). “At 3-0, we’d won three games in a row. At 3-3, they’ve won three games in a row. That’s why these series are all an odd number of games. We could have been in the exact same situation we are right now by winning one, losing one, winning one, losing one… It doesn’t matter how we got here.”
Sharks fans, whether they admit or not, can’t be feeling super confident going into Game 7, even with the home ice advantage at the Shark Tank. Sharks fans, whether they admit it or not, have been conditioned to expect the worst. As a Minnesota Vikings fan, I know this. We can smell our own.
“‘Confident’ is never a word a Sharks fan should use when considering the recent playoff history of the franchise,” Director of Upper Deck Authenticated, and devoted Sharks fan, Steve Sloan said Wednesday. “At this point, I would use the term ‘hopeful.’ Hopeful we can shed past playoff demons.”
To recap that recent history, the Sharks have finished with better than 100 points each of the past five seasons, and six of the past seven (they had 99 points in 2005-06). They have won Pacific Division championships in six of the past nine seasons, including four in a row. They’ve been the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference twice in that span, and been a No. 2 seed three other times, including this year. They also won the Presidents’ Trophy as the team with the best record in the NHL in 2008-09.
All that has amounted to a pair of berths in the conference finals – that’s it. Last year, they were unceremoniously swept out of the playoffs by eventual champion Chicago after finishing with 113 points in the regular season.
Yet even with all that frustration, losing Thursday would be “the crown jewel of Sharks playoff failures,” Sloan said. “They would have lost in every conceivable fashion after winning the Pacific Division four straight seasons: Not advancing past the (second round) by losing to a lower seed (fifth-seeded Dallas in ’07-08); blowing the Presidents’ Trophy by losing to a No. 8 seed; getting swept in the conference finals; and then blowing a 3-0 lead.”
But they haven’t done that yet. The Sharks still have the chance to put it all right Thursday by just winning that fourth game. And they’ll have the home crowd behind them, which can’t be completely discounted.
“The place will be loud, and the younger guys feed off that excitement,” Sloan said.
But the longer the game remains scoreless, or should Detroit jump out ahead, the tougher it will be to keep the negative thoughts from creeping in, both on the bench and in the bleachers. If the Sharks can get an early lead and keep it, they’ll be fine. But if the Wings jump out first and take the crowd out of it, the home ice advantage will be neutralized and the game will be a coin flip or worse for San Jose. “If they get down early, it could get ugly,” Sloan said.
The key to being let down by a team that has never failed to let you down is the ultimate belief, in the face of so much evidence to the contrary, that this time it’s going to be different. I’m siding with my Sharks fan brethren on this one: I think that San Jose – like the Vancouver Canucks in their first-round series with the Chicago Blackhawks – gets its act together just in time to avoid catastrophe, and win 4-2 tonight, with Patrick Marleau finally showing signs of life and picking up a couple points.
We’ll all know the actual outcome in just a few short hours.
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NHL Playoffs: Where are All the Hobby Heroes?
Posted by: | CommentsAs we approach the end of the second round of the NHL playoffs, there are a few things that are abundantly clear. First is this: the second round is the anti-first round. After only one series going less then six games in the first round, the second round has the potential to be a round of blowouts. Not so much in terms of the scores of the games, but faster series.
The second thing that is pretty clear is that these NHL playoffs are void of hobby heroes. A number of very good players are having very good playoffs, but a fair number of so-called big-time players have been very average.
SHOT, SCORE: Martin St. Louis is doing all he can to make some noise in this year's NHL playoffs.
Not that scoring is the only determining factor of what a player can bring to the table, but for the casual fan, they will be looking to the top scorers’ lists to find out who to watch. Right now when you look at the top scorers’ list you see a few fairly familiar names: Martin St. Louis (a former Art Ross Trophy winner); Patrice Bergeron (who is currently concussed); Claude Giroux (who has been eliminated); Ryan Clowe (a nice role player); Vincent Lecavalier (who is playing rejuvenated hockey, and is a former No. 1 overall pick); and Steve Downie (he of all of 32 regular-season points). Again, some nice players, but not the Steven Stamkos, Alexander Ovechkin or Sidney Crosby level that people clamor for in the hobby.
On the bright side, maybe some of these players get a bit more attention in the hobby, which is never a bad thing, but this is the time when hobby and hockey heroes are made, a time for a star player to elevate his game to new levels. Think Crosby, and Evgeni Malkin a couple years back. Think Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg the year before that. Big-time players putting up big-time numbers and playing big-time roles and coming up large. The hobby loves it and so do hockey fans.
This year, there has been some relative no-names showing up big time in the playoffs. Already mentioned Steve Downie, teammates Sean Bergenheim (tied for the playoff lead in goals) and Teddy Purcell have been one of the top lines in the playoffs, and are making teams pay for putting all of their eggs out to stop their “stars.” If they can continue this trend against Boston in the Conference Finals, they may well return to the Cup finals, after not many fans gave them a fighting chance against Washington even after they got by the Pittsburgh Penguins.
A couple of highly touted players, one an off-season acquisition and one a home-grown talent, are putting together big postseasons, and not just on the score sheet. Vancouver’s Ryan Kesler has carried his team to this point through the second round, and is finally scoring. He puts up numbers in bunches, and is a player who plays both ways as well as anyone in the game today. He can get under your skin as well, draw penalties, win face-offs in all three zones, the man can do it all. His game-winning goal in Game 4 against Nashville was a thing of beauty.
Nathan Horton, a former No. 3 overall pick in 2003 (Kesler was taken 23rd in the same draft), has finally gotten over losing (being in Florida for so long will do that to a kid), and showed up big in the playoffs. A couple of game winners, dropping the flippers against rugged veteran Sean O’Donnell versus Philadelphia, and doing the things that need to be done. He and Milan Lucic are playing big, bad Bruin power forwards to a tee. It is good to see him finally doing what many believed he would be able to do right out of junior hockey.
I love the NHL playoffs every year, and every year they present us with something different. This year seems to be the year of the “grinder,” the guys who all hockey people “in the know” talk about as being so important. Good players are playing well, but for whatever reason, this year seems to be lacking a “hobby hero.” With two more rounds to play, maybe the next big thing will present himself yet.
Christopher Carmichael has been hockey fan of over 20 years. He has been an active member on various hobby related sites, most notably www.hobbyinsider.net, and is a moderator on www.cloutsnchara.com. Christopher also does some part time writing for the Insiders Edge (www.insidersedge.net for more details).
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