Western Conference Finals:

1) Chicago vs. 5) Los Angeles

Chicago won season series 2-1.

Total Shots
Kings: 84
Blackhawks: 84


Goals scored
Kings: 9
Blackhawks: 12


Hits
Kings: 92
Blackhawks: 65


Faceoffs Won
Kings: 95
Blackhawks: 95


Power Play
Kings: 2/11
Blackhawks: 2/14




Eastern Conference Finals:

1) Pittsburgh vs. 4) Boston

Pittsburgh won season series 3-0.

Total Shots
Bruins: 88
Penguins: 76


Goals scored
Bruins: 5
Penguins: 8


Hits
Bruins: 81
Penguins: 87


Faceoffs Won
Bruins: 102
Penguins: 80


Power Play
Bruins: 2/8
Penguins: 2/11

can't wait.

this is the NHL's best final four in a while.

Considering how dope the NBA playoffs were last year, maybe we should always hope for labor disputes so we can get through the slog of the regular season faster.

It's a perfect length.

Long enough, but each game still matters.

i'd go with 50 games.

I think right in the middle 60 would be fine. But I dont mind the 80 game schedule.

and still do well.

if your team is playing awful you know it doesn't really matter as long as they turn it around at some point

There's no urgency until the last 20-30 games.

Play your division four times, other conference once, other teams in your conference three times. That almost works out.

Even cooler that the last 5 champs were still in as of last night.

Hockey at the same time has parity and consistency.

it looks like this one came first.

minus the first game of course. Quick was still recovering and getting his game back. I think we have the edge now. Kings in 5.

I think it's going to be a super competitive series.

Cro is playing well for Chicago, he had an awkward moment or three but overall I think he's playing well enough to give them a chance.

I like them to split the first four, anything beyond that always up for grabs. I do think the Kings will pull it out, they are getting that feel back from last season for real finally.

And then add in the shortened season so cats are that much fresher...expecting some classics.

The way the Pens played most of that Ottawa series there isn't a team in the NHL that could beat them in 7 games.

The way they played vs the Islanders games 2-4 they didn't deserve to be in the playoffs.

All 3 games vs Boston were close 1 goal games so the regular season didn't matter.

Not hard to see Vokoun going ice cold, needing a goalie switch and never getting back on track, but also not hard to see the pens just scoring 4-5 goals a game and it not mattering.

My pre playoffs prediction was Boston vs Chicago in the finals, but I'm changing here to Pens in 6.

for the pens.

i didnt really see anything exposed during the last series. first round had some wobbly stuff but that was hardly unexpected. there were a lot of guys getting their legs under them coming off injuries.

with tons of fights, hitting, ugliness.

That would be their best shot, IMO.

But I see the Penguins in 6.

torey got his galoshes on.

They can get gully.

Nobody is giving the Bruins a chance to win. I think it's going 7 and I got the B's taking it as long as they can put the puck in the net and I think they can vs Pit.

Look at the stats above - it seems a little flukey that Pit pulled off a season sweep. Pittsburgh can score more but Boston's D and tending are better.

I *really* want them to come and get game one and make it interesting right away.

You're in the conference finals, there are 2 really good teams left and people have to predict one.

Most are picking the #1 seed who have been favorites the majority of the year and lived up to it for most of the season.

Most are picking 6 or 7 games meaning they expect a close series that could go either way but since they have to pick a winner they are picking one.

This is not a no respect situation, it's a series everyone is saying will be really good.

And I don't respect Marchand, Lucic or that teapartier ex-goalie.

Otherwise, I just think PIT is better.

I figure I should at least let you know where you and every Bruins fan stands.

not when it comes to fantasy football but you know, politically.

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It's only funny till someone gets mad. Then it's hilarious.

he's just another hick living in rural 'murica now. good. no need to give a fuck about him.

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It's only funny till someone gets mad. Then it's hilarious.

-

.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udBAYuS5jgw&feature=youtu.be&t=15s

Always painful.

but that made it no less awesome

i'm really mad i didn't watch that blazed. i bet it would be amazing. i'd have had to stop it ten times to ask penetrating questions, including, but not limited to:
-how'd she get stuck on that machine?
-how could van damne have been remotely hurt by any punch thrown by a mascot?
-how could they never do the mascot laughing as van damne kicked it in a gigantic, pillowed midsection?

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It's only funny till someone gets mad. Then it's hilarious.

Zus is getting that ice time, damn, playing with Kane and Sharp and playing well. He has been great. Love 'Zus, such a fucking warrior, and super committed to seemingly all the weird, ostensibly antiquated European mullets and poofs.

Kopitar is getting to be that guy where no one wants to say anything, but everybody knows. He is playing a strong position game and moving the puck quickly. You don't see him staying on the puck, his reach is limited, etc. Everybody is dealing with a bunch of bangs and bruises, but I think this might be deeper. We'll know after the season, I guess.

Because the guy makes a lot of dirty hits and you can't really deny it, but you also don't want to jump on the bandwagon of everyone who thinks your whole team is dirty because of it.

He has taken steps to be less dirty but sometimes it just cant be contained.

He knows he is one sideways fart away from a very long ban at any moment.

Any other player, that's a major/misconduct, but a short suspension if any.

I expect to see him suspended for the entire series, possibly longer of McQuaid is seriously injured.

I do not expect a suspension for Dave Bolland for his hit on Mike Richards in the other game.

same exact hit

you can't treat everyone like a monster because one player is. cmon.

that is the definition of inconsistent.

You want to keep calling cooke a monster that is cool, Cooke's hit was dirty, but they were equally dirty.

I don't think that's unfair in this case.

Marchand's hit was a minor penalty and was called as one.

Cooke's hit would have been a minor penalty at a minimum. The way they have begun to call this in the past three seasons (roughly), it was a major.

Where the severe unfairness will come, is when he gets shitcanned for the series for a pretty common hit.

Going back to how they call that play, I don't understand why players don't stay down on the ice and go to the dressing room after EVERY major hit that is a penalty or otherwise causes a stoppage. That one instant is where the refs make their call, and they no longer look at intent alone, they really scrutinize the result of the play. Just act like you're dead, 5 minutes guaranteed on the PP is better than 2 unguaranteed minutes, right?

The league really needs to clarify things and the way they will ultimately do it is by removing all hits that target the head and all hits from behind.

I'm not going to give the obligatory macho commentary on that. Women's hockey is a beautiful game with limited checking, right?

Eventually that kind of game breaks our way

There is a lot of room out there for Boston, getting up the ice and sometimes when they get the zone. If their power play were not toothless, they'd have at least one more goal by now.

Right now Boston is looking like they are going to make him if they want to win.

i think the Bs have been very good 5on5 here though, so any power play stuff is a bonus.

0 goal periods followed by 4 goal periods followed by 0

Thats why I am saying Boston doesnt want to keep just a high speed end to end game going, eventually some of those Malkin opportunities are going to find their way in the net.

This is how the Flyers beat us in the payoffs every year

Get in their heads, they start snapping and making mistakes. Pens are a team that need to stay cool and collected

and Cooke.

It's back and forth, I'm not saying the Pens aren't doing things I"m just saying getting into this kind of series is bad news for them and the more they do it the more frustrated they get and worse they play.

And you're right - pittsburgh does not want this.

I'm surprised to see Crosby acting like that.

All it does is add fuel to the fire of his haters and make him play bad

he's a finesse player that can dominate the finesse game. he's no wimp, but he has no business chirping Chara and he's not a guy who thrives in a chippy game.

you want to fight chara? for really?

It would be on the reel of world's most one-sided fistfights for sure.

well his bitching and whining is one thing. He has calmed down recently. But he is always trying to start shit with players knowing he will never have to throw a punch. Let me go and start shit because I know my boys got my back. Pussy.

I doubt it will happen, Chara is too valuable to his team to fight. But it would be sweet. They have never fought before. Murray is very strong and has incredible balance. He is a decent fighter, too. They both get into a couple every year, but the playoffs have been pretty light on fighting. That Malkin/Bergeron slap fight was not much to look at.

If he has a few great opportunities that get turned away on great saves early he might lose it.

That was what led to the frustration for him last night, he knew he should be scoring and he was getting beat by a great goaltending performance, combine it with a chippy game and he came unhinged as you said. That is what made the Ottawa series go so smoothly, once you let the team and especially Sid roll with some offensive momentum they become an unstoppable force most times, when the opposite happens they just lose their cool.

The first few shifts, or first score really will be the determinant for him in game 2 probably and if it goes against him it will set the tone for the rest of the series.

marchand is pretty good in big spots, too.

boston has the best fourth line in the league and i dont think it's close. st louis's guys are pretty good, i suppose, and anaheim crafted a good one but it wont stay together.

they are great PKers but 5 on 5 they are weak.

It will never happen but I'd like to see Claude play around a bit there and sometimes play Seguin with Campbell and Paille. Campbell has been stronger than Kelly and Peverly offensively.

their fourth line is good and has great chemistry, i wouldnt break it up. i'd just play it more.

kelly is pretty much a defensive forward. peverley is kind of frustrating because every so often he'll have a stretch where he's on fire. more so when he was on atlanta, but a bit with boston, too. kind of a c grade mike richards.

dont know if they have a depth guy that would be better, i sorta doubt it.

He's like 27 or 28, right?

I doubt they'd make a move to get more offense into the lineup right now though, doesn't play to their strength against the Pens.

where the hell is Winchester?

Boston's goals were all legit, the first was pretty weak but no complaint about their 3 goals.

Pens should have goals though, too many posts, just misses and great saves. This game could be 3-3 or even higher scoring both ways, but when one team just can't get any breaks it's just not gonna happen.

that third goal vokoun was battling hard but too much critical space was ceded there. they were boned.

that is the thing, boston has room all night. i couldnt identify a strength in pittsburgh's checking game tonight. their offense was OK, obviously it's capable of playing even better.

but we scored goals in that series and made shootouts out of these games.

murray and orpik are their tougher guys, both of them have some very real limitations.

letang is soft, i am sorry, but he has a sick offensive game, no question.

like i said, if boston's young guys can keep on keeping on, their D is in great shape, especially now with ference back. that is the key to the series, imo, if they have to play chara/seidenberg all fucking night or they get some balance.

pittsburgh hasn't been shut out in like a year and a half lol. i imagine this will be rask's only shutout.

pittsburgh needs therien back in there, get them playing heavier. their backcheck was a nightmare tonight, and the forecheck didnt do it any favors.

If Pens don't figure out how to beat him in game 2 this is a wrap.

Though to be fair he did get a few lucky bounces that would have changed the game, but it doesn't take away from his great play

those are both facts

The game should have been like 5-5 but he made sure that did not happen, no taking it away from him.

If you think luck also doesnt play into sports sometimes then I don't know what to tell you.

had an engagement party to go to. Their neighbors wifi was mediocre at best and I was watching on my phone outdoors. But from the little I saw it looks like the Blackhawks strategy is to launch shots from the blue line and hope for a rebound? Instead of dumping pucks it was hard slap shots. Either way we need to score points and stop with the shitty penalties.

Crawford takes up so fucking much of the net that there is never any space on the first attempt it seems. But his equipment is also huge and he's not always super duper in control of his body, so he kick some out, especially off the ends of his pad.

Oduya's shot that led to the first Chicago goal was textbook shooting for a rebound, beautiful, Sharp was shifty to get to the front of the net, too.

The Kings also shot for them, during the second intermission that had a little segment with both teams doing it. I think it's a good look against either guy. It's not an either/or thing with creating traffic either, you have to have at least one guy in front with good position for any of these plays to work.

You're definitely right about the penalties. It's weird that they have taken relatively few penalties overall, but there have been a lot of bad ones, O-zone penalties and/or lazy stuff where they are caught reaching.

I missed the entire 2nd period so I didnt see the Kings shooting for those rebounds. But I dont see it working for them. They NEVER have anyone in front of the net for 2nd chances. They are always in an umbrella. The entire playoffs they keep getting pushed wide and never can take the middle of the ice. I mean even when they are scoring a lot of goals they are never in the middle of the ice.

they just need the right guys out there, some of these guys are not natural finishers. dwight king's hands were sculpted by Rodin, true story. penner has the hands and the body but he doesn't get that greasy. no one is going to mistake brown for ryan smyth down there, he's somewhat gifted in terms of pushing a six-inch shot a foot wide, but he gets a lot of opportunities. kopitar right now doesn't have his full range of motion from what i see. but williams, richards, carter and maybe a couple other guys are good down there playing pucks off the end boards or rebounds. williams has been making a living off broken plays the last couple of games, two of his three goals and some chances.

i just don't see much to shoot at with crawford. there's some room between his pad and his arm, like with most goalies, but the kings only have a couple guys who really snipe (carter primarily). mostly they have guys who score from in tight, they are not going to do that on the first opportunity.

for chicago, it took a really nice two-man play between oduya and sharp (drop pass, letter perfect shot to the far pad, well-timed move by the passer to get in and finish the play). i'm not sure how much success they will have. it's kind of weird, some of quick's stances (especially where he sprawls and leans forward, kind of crab-like) look like they leave room high but they don't. he's so in control of his angle that he cuts down the space behind him and his shoulders take care of the rest. that was another thing on the sharp goal, he challenged pretty aggressively and got caught a little too high. there's really no secret though, he's pretty hard to beat. if they are going to win, i think they need a noticeable edge in puck possession time, which they had yesterday.

I am totally unsurprised on Bolland. That was a legit play, at worst, a charging minor.

Cooke, well, that is a very common play and almost no one would be suspended for it, but with his history, yeah, I expected him to get canned for at least one game, probably two and maybe longer if McQuaid were hurt. But he got nothing. The league didn't even look at it.

Torres has got to be pissed about this. I'm still not sure what I think of that suspension. It's good to see Stoll back though.

They lose their best forward so far in the playoffs with Richards. The guy stepping in for him just came off a concussion. Richards, Doughty and Regehr all got shaken up in this game. I feel bad for Kopitar, he is giving everything he has but he doesn't have much.

This is the worst game I've seen Quick play in a long time. Dunno if it's the B2B or a bad Italian beef sandwich or what but he had some pretty iffy goals. First one is a good shot but honestly he should have no net to shoot at. They also had another bad sequence where they had a failed clear and had everyone stuck on one side of the ice. That is ow they gave up that goal to Boyle in Game 7, and a handful of others recently.

Second goal, nice play by Seabrook but it was about a 150-foot play where he took his guy out and then beat him back. Not a strong angle by Quick, kind of a sharp angle shot and it still beats him.

Third one the defender bats in, yes, but he doesn't have his pads closed or sealed to the ice. Goaltending is not a reaction game anymore, everything happens close to the net and that blocking style is what it's all about.

Carter getting one was big but a three-goal rally? I dunno. I can only think of a couple such comebacks, one of which was when Calgary rallied from I believe four goals down against Vancouver in 04 when Sutter was coaching them. I cant remember if they won that game or just went to OT. That was a helluva run. Philly came back from 3=0 in Game 4 against Boston in 2010, but they got going earlier in the game.

That's about all you can positive. I guess Bernier didn't give anything up, made a couple nice saves. But, at the same time, they got some gifts (slashing call when Clifford got grazed, a PP out of that weird scrum that Clifford started) and had some other PP time, too. Plus Chicago was not exactly surging for offense with a 3 to 4 goal lead.

hopefully Toffoli is playing every game from now on. Not no 10 minutes with the 4th line. He needs to be getting minutes the kid can play. But man they looked done. Combination of all the hurting players with the previous 2 series. I dont know if they have enough left. We got lucky last year with every one staying healthy. This year is the exact opposite. Every one is getting beat up out there. Every day its a new player going down.

and if richards goes.

it's kind of flabbergasting that richards even attempted to play. between this and petro last year, i am wondering how serious "player safety" is taken during the playoffs. the guys will always want to go, but cmon, there was not even 24 hours separating the injury from the decision.

with toffoli, the only thing is that there is kind of diminishing marginal return on a rookie's minutes often, i think. you play a guy for 12 minutes, he doesn't give you that same quality, consistency and intensity over 22. i think he could settle around 15 and do well. get him some power play time, he's good along the boards and he can snipe.

as far as injury luck goes, yeah, i had a talk with justin williams about that last year (a guy who knows injuries!) and he was talking about the importance of things falling into place, with health being the biggest. the breaks tend to even out, right?

never seen a hockey practice before.. something I'd like to do

Kings practices are open to the public, Ducks are not. Today would have been a bad day to go, but Wednesday would be pretty decent. There is a good chance both teams will practice at the same place now that it's the playoffs (often the road teams will practice at Staples).

It's in El Segundo, out by the airport, Toyota Sports Center. The Lakers also practice there, but those are not open to the public and, of course, they haven't been practicing at this time of year for a while!

Anyway, I went for work today and there were hardly any fans. Today was an optional skate and no one that played in Game 2 participated. The guys were, understandably, pretty whipped.

Practices typically start about 11am.

None of the regulars skated today but Muzzin was on the ice. Martinez was not.

The only regulars I saw were a couple straggling around after a film session and then Williams, Brown and Fraser were there with Sutter.

.

Not even top 3 issues

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It's only funny till someone gets mad. Then it's hilarious.

The 3 goals on Vokoun were not on Vokoun, 2 were on turnovers almost any goalie would have let in and one on bad D combined with great Boston O.

Fleury comes in and just is Fleury right away

but damn, he fLuery'd the shit out of that.

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It's only funny till someone gets mad. Then it's hilarious.

i dont get what is going on with him.

Look how many goalies and kickers go from the top of their profession to out of the league or bench player within a year or two, it's not that uncommon.

I don't know that Fleury's career is over, but he just is not an elite goaltender in the playoffs anymore. He has not been for several years.

we have seen luongo and other guys have those kinds of swings, too, maybe not this drastic though.

i mean, they rushed him up and he recovered from that. bounced back from last year to have a fine season. i don't get it, but then again the mind of a goalie is generally a strange and bewildering place.

LOL

I liked the part when the Pens scored and their fans were all excited but then marchand scored on Fleury, predictably.

No message

did anyone catch the replay of Marchand's 2nd goal where he and Cooke were shoving each other, being dicks as they are, and all the sudden Marchand looks up, sees open ice, gets the puck and scores, while Cooke is left in the dust.

That's who he was talking shit to after his goal, Cooke.

I strongly dislike both of them so I found it amusing.

http://i.minus.com/ibvOeOLogSZJ3Y.gif

it looks choreographed.

i am telling you, man, i started out disliking marchand but the dude won me over pretty fast.

players who are dirty or cheap in a purposeful way and back it up with skills are the kind of guys you win games with. no one ever won without bending the rules in this game or any other. he'll never be my favorite player, but i can appreciate him.

I gave the Pens too much credit, I thought they were beyond the bush league play of last year's first round.

This has happened several years now with just breaking down in multiple ways in the playoffs.

He came into this year on the hot seat and needed atleast the ECF to save his job in my opinion. However if they get swept and play like this for 4 games, I would say he may still be gone, because somewhere in the playoffs either he quits coaching or they quit listening to him and he can't control them. Too many years in a row.

I tend to think the team just stops listening to him, there is no way he is coaching things like make all your passes blue line to blue line all game

and feel good about him keeping his job, barring some strange opportunity to make a huge hire. Short of Scotty Bowman coming out of retirement or something, I don't see it. Where is the clear upgrade?

If they have someone in the organization that they are in love with, that would be another angle.

I guess the Baby Pens fared well this year but without doing much Hockey's Future stuff this year, I don't know that much about them. I guess Granato would be another possibility.

all those Crosby & Malkin giveaways.

WTF?

Also Paul Martin had a rough game. Two of the early goals were largely on him. Just terrible positioning and decision-making for when to get back and cover.

Like goaltending is even near the top of the issues so far this series.

Very few of the goals scored are soft goals due to bad goaltending and are just factors of terrible team play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwD_QiWPu8I

Especially from a team that is not far removed from blowing a 3-0 series lead.

I feel like I'd be a little more cautiously optimistic

no.

the 0-2 isn't a bad joke but the rest of it was lame. Act like you been there because we just were, idiot!

And I didn't know slimmer Kevin Smith was a B's fan.

good game from the Kings. I hate that they have to be down to come out and play well. I am tired of spending the 3rd period watching them play D and barely hang on. Its like we finish strong when we are behind and finish weak when ahead. We need another win Thursday.

that's just a cliche to say that the team was not totally brain dead at some point during the game.

the end of the game, eh, every team comes hard with a deficit. pretty rare that two evenly matched teams (or close to it) are not going to see the trailing team dominate possession. chicago came hard as fuck, Q was like "we found our game in the last 10 minutes, needed to be that way from the start." i guess i knew what he meant, but if they played that way all night, they'd have had six or seven bad pinches wind up in their net and also been exhausted.

kings i thought made great adjustments, stuff like darryl and brownie were talking about. a little tighter F1, much better F2 support, F3 over the top providing another wave of pressure. The difference here versus the SJ series is that they also had the defense cheating a little, either to take away a receiver or to deny board space early. Basically they the Hawks make one of two types of plays coming out of their own zone, a hurried decision or a pressured play. That was the idea, I think, and it worked well for a lot of the night.

Chicago did hit a couple of long passes as a result of the adjustment but they didn't kill the Kings. Overall, their spacing was fucked up, all those tight little Barcelona breakouts and shit weren't there. They always have a guy close to the puck on offense (on defense, too, really), but last night they were spread out at times.

I liked the move with the centermen. Stoll had some jump early, he plays well with Williams as we saw when they skated with Ryan Smyth a couple years ago. Kopitar I thought looked a little better physically and paring down his role a little worked beautifully. He concentrated on defense and did the job on Toews's line. It maybe didn't have a huge impact, but it worked well enough, also gave a little shakeup to the lineup (similar to Brown moving down earlier).

I saw Richards and talked to him briefly. Just BS'ed for a second, but one of the radio guys asked what chance we had of seeing him in Game 4, he just said he hoped to play. Not exactly earth-shaking news.

wow

not that NBC shows penalty replays, but from what I can tell.

Just a shame we did what we did before going on the road and playing a tough playoff game.

If you hit the post you missed the net. Aim better next time, but chances are if you did it would have been saved.

Say a FG kicker missed 4 fgs in a game but 3 of them clanked off the upright, that would be even more frustrating to watch than just 4 shanked kicks right?

Ever seen your basketball team throw up a desperate full court shot and have it bounce off the rim twice but not go in? That sticks with you more than when they heave it up and it falls 5 feet short of the basket right?

Do you need more examples? A miss is a miss, but some misses are more excruciating for a fan, especially in a must win OT game.

I thought you meant it as "If it weren't for the posts it would be a different series", as in, these should have been goals, but weren't because of the posts.

Same way a lot of people hit the post and then say "Wow, your goalie got lucky on that one". No, he didnt, you missed the net, that's why it got by him.

But yeah, I agree, hitting the post is obviously harder to swallow than missing completely.

Heat of the moment it feels like you beat the goalie and should have scored. It's a game of bounces, it could bounce off a post and in, it's not so much the post saved a goal it's more damn what an unlucky bounce.

Obviously they need a win because you can't go down 0-3 but this is one of those games that would just be a heartbreaking loss no matter what the series score is, will just prove the Pens can't win no matter how long the series goes.

Basically seeing a goalie that is going to win his team a cup

You want to be mad fine, but a high stick to the face is uncalled for (accidental or not). Taking stupid penalties only puts your team in a hole. Keith is a repeat offender so I thought it should have been 3 games minimum.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/06/05/duncan-keith-suspended-one-game-for-high-stick-on-carter/

Duncan Keith Suspended One Game For High-Stick On Carter
June 5, 2013 6:25 PM
By Adam Hoge

LOS ANGELES (CBS) Blackhawks defenseman Duncan Keith was suspended one game by the NHL’s Department of Player Safety Wednesday for his high-stick on Kings center Jeff Carter Tuesday night.

Brendan Shanahan, the league’s director of player safety, announced the suspension Wednesday after meeting with Duncan Keith earlier in the day.

“This is more serious than a case of a player simply having to be responsible for his stick,” Shanahan said in the explanation released by the NHL. “It is not an accidental high-stick nor is it a defensive high-stick to an opponent. This is a retaliatory high-stick to an opponent that causes an injury.”

The incident happened in the second period of the Blackhawks’ 3-1 loss to the Kings in Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals. Keith had lost his glove in a battle with Carter and when Carter jabbed at the glove as Keith went to pick it up, the Hawks’ defenseman swung his stick and caught Carter in the mouth. The center needed 20 stitches and had some damage to his teeth.

“Even if Carter did indeed chop down on Keith’s hand, that still does not justify the extent of Keith’s actions,” Shanahan said.

Shanahan also pointed out that Keith is a repeat offender as he was suspended five games in 2012 for an elbow to Vancouver Canucks forward Daniel Sedin’s head.

“We had a hearing and I said my piece,” Keith said earlier Wednesday before the ruling came down. “Said the same thing last night, it was an accident. I didn’t mean to get him where I got him.”

Meanwhile, Blackhawks goaltender Corey Crawford wasn’t too happy with Carter’s actions before Keith retaliated.

“Maybe should look at the two slashes Carter threw at his hand right before that,” he said Wednesday. “He took a couple shots at him. Obviously you can’t hit a guy in the face, but it was some pretty vicious slashes right before that.”

With Keith out for Game 4 Thursday night at the Staples Center, expect Sheldon Brookbank to see his first action of the postseason. Brookbank played in 26 of 48 regular season games.

For more Blackhawks coverage throughout the playoffs, follow Adam on Twitter at @AdamHoge.

Even if they dont admit it, the NHL weighs games differently for a guy who plays 30 minutes than a guy who plays 10. I really don't have a problem with that, it makes a lot of sense "when ya really look at it" (c) Darryl Sutter.

They also weigh the severity of the injury and the fact that a playoff suspension is heftier than a regular season one. They are transparent about that.

I thought it was the right call to can him for one game. Pretty fair. Especially after they didn't even look at the Bolland hit on Richards, although in my opinion that are mostly a legit play gone wrong. It was a minor penalty at most to me.

Big loss for Chicago but they can pull it together for one game.

One of the things I find dumb is how accepted it is that when a guy loses his glove, you slash his hand. That is dangerous, slashing an exposed bone is way, way more likely to injure than one protected by a glove or padding. I'm not saying Carter deserved to be wacked like that at all, but he should have been penalized and I certainly understand some kind of wack from Keith. Still, like you said, it was a dumb play that put his team at a disadvantage immediately and now in Game 4 as well. He should have taken a number and kept it moving.

Boston has to be close to breaking it if they win this game

He's happening.

couldnt believe I missed this one. I really hope we can get passed Chicago. Bruins Kings match up would be so great. Especially since my sis inlaw is a MASShole.

after that I was, for maybe the first time I can remember, just hockey'ed out. had to do three stories today (not complaining about the exposure, money or fun i had doing them though) and spent a lot of time waiting for nothing at all.

ate a sandwich, sat in traffic, made some phone calls and just saw that i missed a CLASSIC FUCKING GAME. why couldnt i have lost interest on a day with a shitty game?

Wednesdays are skating practice for our house. The boy has class at 5:30. We try and get 2 or 3 hours of open ice skating before that. Then we go out to dinner and dessert. Plus its in Escondido and we live in Murrieta. Nice 40 minute drive. I sat down and passed out for 2 hours.

I started looking for them after every game after seeing what they did last year during the Stanley Cup Finals. Shit my son made me watch the videos during the off season at least twice a day. Right now we are down to once a week. But here is the one from the game today.

http://youtu.be/ikzSo9pAcl4

hrudey was my neighbor last game, totally magnanimous and laid back guy. next to him was bob cole. not bad company.

Hero Status Achieved

my boys dont even look bad they just look wounded. Its like watching a horse limp to the finish line. At this point I am curious to see the injuries. I mean Penner is out producing Kopi. Some thing has to be wrong.

richards is out, kopitar is playing at 40% and he's still better than pretty much anyone who would replace him. let's not pretend stoll is feeling great either.

the kings have one center and, not coincidentally, one line right now.

bottom line is right now chicago has a whole bunch of good players and the kings have only a handful. there's a lot of reasons why, but tonight the kings, like you said, gave it a real good shot but they just don't have enough.

voynov was good again tonight. i feel like a genius having done something on him and something on 'zus yesterday and, to top it off, before tonight's game i was working on a bickell story.

i should start answering sutter's questions for him. oddly i think he'd appreciate that.

the kings are overextending themselves like crazy though. one sequence that i think illustrated is one that probably got glossed over.

some chicago dman (i dont know, a right D so maybe seabs or oduya) was deep in his zone, regehr pinched along the boards and got caught in too tight recovering from sliding down on offense or something. basically he wound up very deep, in a forechecker's position and he made a lame effort to pressure that didnt affect the pass and just left him WAY out of position.

toffoli tried to haul ass back to his spot, but in the end the kings were left with just doughty in the zone against kane and toews. they flubbed the 2on1 but the kings were courting disaster.

most of the goals they have given up have been off mistakes. failed keep ins have killed them. a bad line change is ultimately what did them in, it's not their first costly one of the series either.

i guess what i am saying is that the kings have generally played well but glaring mistakes have killed them and those mistakes have been a result of having to do too much. they can't let the game come to them at all. everybody's eating soup out there, but the blackhawks have spoons and the kings have forks.

we are beat to shit and still JUST not winning. A healthy Kings team is SCARY. If the season ends here I am definitely proud of what they did. Definitely a good start to that Dynasty errr winning culture Dean is trying to start here.

People will remember a sweep and remember it as the Pens just getting man handled and beat, but with the exception of game 2 these has been hard fought pretty even games.

The difference came down to a goalie that couldn't be scored on and a few things in each game that swung the game.

Even game 1 with the 3-0 score was just 3 good goals vs plenty of opportunities for the Pens that just didn't go in.

That's not an excuse or trying to take away from the Bruins, these games (except 2) were all just close and well fought, they just all broke the same way.

that even a sweep can be a thrilling series. I'm trying to think of a comparable example in the NBA and I can't do it.

despite all the mistakes, breakdowns and everything else, this series was not a blowout, it was simply one player making sure his already good team could not lose.

They won all 4 games and won the series there is no BS to it.

My point is that with the exception of game 2 they were all close hard fought games.

Hell one went to double OT and ended 2-1 where Boston scored less than 2 minutes in and then went over 4 periods without scoring again.

One ended 1-0 where the only goal came halfway through the last period

Game 1 didn't have a pretty score but everyone watching thought it was a close game despite the 3-0 score. It was one of those ok the goalie stopped every good opportunity but we had them at least, he won't do this again type games....except he did it again and again and again.

If you want to think the Bruins totally just ran away with this and the games were never in doubt than that's cool, but they were in doubt for most of the game (except game 2). One team did what they had to do to win each game though and one team didn't.

Crosby 0
Malkin 0
Iginla 0
LeTang 0


Ya'll went from scoring 4 goals a game to LESS THAN .5.

The scores might have been close and every game was hard fought but that is domination over a team like that.

http://i.minus.com/i8pG1fsNI6ehR.gif

Every game but 1 was in question the majority of the game, 2 came down to the final second. One team did what they had to do to win each one though so they get to move on as they should.

I realize in the history of the sport this goes down as a 4-0 sweep and a total offensive collapse by a team people thought were cruising to the cup after last round that was designed to win this year. I'm just saying that the games were close hard fought exciting games for the most part that could have gone either way except for a few keys, most importantly an unstoppable goaltender that cup winning teams often have.

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It's only funny till someone gets mad. Then it's hilarious.

As I've said, the score gives an impression this game was not close, this game was close until it eventually reached a point where the Pens were out of it which was the 3rd goal 8 minutes into the 3rd period.

So for 48 out of 60 minutes the game was not a wrap, both teams were getting great opportunities, there were a lot of great saves made, near misses, and chances that looked as good as in.

Granted none of them went in and the pens lost 3-0 but if you watched this game you felt it was a close hard fought game that went Boston's way because of better defense and goaltending, at no point was anyone thinking wow Boston is just killing Pittsburgh. Even Cenario would admit that.

It was a close game, 3 of the 4 games were close thats all I'm trying to say what is wrong with saying yes they were good close games- unless of course you didn't watch.

*edit* remembering back, game 1 was where the mental breakdowns started happening after the 2nd period and that is because it was a 1-0 game where Crosby felt he should have 3 goals already but just got denied time and time again, then they fell apart. This was the result of a great goaltending and defensive performance though, not a result of just being blown out of the building.

doesn't mean game 1 was close.

it wasn't a dominating sweep, it was about as close as a sweep can be. but that's still a sweep and that matters.

being dominated by a stiffling defense and an amazing goalie is still a form of being dominated. the best offense in the league scored 2 goals in 4 games. that's being dominated, just not based on offense.

but this doesn't really matter.
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It's only funny till someone gets mad. Then it's hilarious.

The Penguins offense got shut down and fell apart, but at the same time for most of the series (not game 2 at all) their D and goalie which were their biggest weaknesses stepped up big time and made the games competitive.

If someone said going into the series that between games 1, 3 and 4 the Bruins would score 6 goals you'd have said, oh so the Penguins won all 3 of those games easily.

Just saying like you said it's about as close as a sweep can get, in the end they got swept and that is all that matters, I just think a lot of overreactions are going to happen because of it when most of the games were games that could have swung either way very quickly.

This is the stuff I'm talking about when I say how tight most of this series actually was.

http://twitpic.com/cw1p29

You look at the overall play in the playoffs though, I heard what Sid and others said, but I'm not giving them Game 1 to latch onto those two, especially the way they came into Game 2.

You look at their firepower, you look at their result, this series was a miserable failure with one epic game and one good one. We are talking about what are supposed to be the two best offensive players in the world, one of whom got his OK linemates onto the scoring leaders charts, too. That doesn't even look at Neal, a top goal scorer, and Iggy, a former scoring champion. Can't score at all? No goalie is that good. I know they hit some posts (usually the outside part but whatever), but overall there's just no excuse for that kind of power outage. They got at least 15 power play chances, I don't think either of their goals was a PPG.

Just that with the exception of game 2 I was never watching a series that made me say "wow this team is getting swept out of the building"

It's a worthless thing doesn't need all the back and forth with people, it was just a harder fought series than history will give them credit for...in the end they go home in 4 games and will go down as one of the most disappointing playoff losses in the city's history.

That gif though...

i really respect Z, and the guy is a pretty singular athlete. 6'9" dude with a greco roman wrestling background who climbed mount kilamanjaro. i dont think too many teams have one of those on their roster lol.

NO Commercial Breaks.

1) Chicago vs. 4) Boston

congrats to Chicago. I hope you get swept. For no reason other than me hating Patrick Kane. Great series. I wish we could have been healthy. But I am happy with our season. Going to be an interesting off season. Interested to see what Dean does with our surplus of young dmen. We need more depth at LW. Might need a back up goalie. Great season. Go Bruins.

really tough

great to see kopi and richie rewarded for gutting that one out, but too bad they couldn't score in that first OT. from about 2 minutes in until about 14 minutes in, they seemed poise to take it.

second OT, played with too much fire, they gave chicago a handful of odd man rushes and eventually they had to pay. kane with kind of a cheeseball hat trick. one bunny off a blown penalty call, another off a flubbed icing thing (why quick doesn't cover that, i won't know, he made another poke check straight to either fro or stalberg later, too) and then the winner was legit. there's nothing funnier to me than the cheesy hat trick, carter had one last year in phoenix. i think it was a natural hat trick, in fact.

anyway, the breaks ultimately even out. you look at last year, they could do no wrong and they stayed astonishingly healthy all things considered. even with the layoff, it was tough as hell to repeat.

i hope they manage things well on defense. i really dont think they need to add much. i imagine penner and fraser have a pretty limited future, should see vey and pearson sliding in there.

both of them dominations.