OK, Ilya Bryzgalov had a great game, Teemu Selanne had the game winner and Beauchemin had over 29 minutes of ice time. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the team with the most shots usually wins the game.
On to my Eastern Conference predictions:
Ottawa vs. Buffalo
This series will go down to the wire. Buffalo looked unstoppable in the Philly series and with Briere firing on all cylinders, Drury coming back to his Avs days and Ryan Miller looking like a wall...I think that Ottawa will have a tough time advancing. Coaching advantage also goes to Buffalo. Ruff's made them buy into a system and the team is delivering. Ottawa on the other hand will only go as far as Spezza takes them. He cannot take a night off as he so often does, coasting and cherry picking will not be useful against Buffalo.
Before the playoffs had started I would have picked Ottawa to win, but the way that Buffalo is working as a team makes me say Buffalo in 7.
New Jersey vs. Carolina
Many pundits say that Staal is about to break out. The problem with that statement is that you cannot breakout against Brodeur. As much as Carolina is on a roll and as much as Cam Ward has been playing so spectacularly, Carolina will fall to a well rested New Jersey team.
Compound the following: a healthy Elias that has not played the full season and has 11 pts in 4 games, a young goal scorer in Gionta that had 48 goals in the regular season and 6 points in 4 games in the last round, Gomez on fire also with 6 points in 4 games and the big time game breaker of Martin Brodeur with a 1.00 GAA and a .965 save percentage.
New Jersey wins in 6 simply because they will falter at the beginning. They had a much easier time with the Rangers than Buffalo did with Philly.
Jack Johnson, "King of Hockey"
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