Canadiens and Wings Take Series Lead

Canadiens Defeat Bruins

Tom Kostopoulos had a goal and an assist and Carey Price made 17 saves as the Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins 4-1 in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference quarter-final.

The best-in-league Canadiens PowerPlay was mis-firing all night with Alex Kovalev making some uncharacteristic poor passing decisions. However, the Habs managed to take advantage of some opportune scoring to down the Bruins as expected at the Bell Centre in Montreal Thursday night.

Sharks Even Series With Flames

Nabokov made 21 saves in his sixth career postseason shutout, and rookie Torrey Mitchell scored a power-play goal in the Sharks’ 2-0 victory over the Calgary Flames on Thursday night, evening their first-round series at a game apiece.

Dion Phaneuf turned 23 yesterday and logged 9:20 of ice time in the first period. The second period saw the Flames take three straight penalties. They only took two penalties in all of game one. The Flames outshot the Sharks 10-8 in first period, but the second period was a whole other story. The Sharks had 27 shots, notching two goals, while the Flames had three measly shots.

Detroit Edges Nashville In Series Opener

Henrik Zetterberg scored the go-ahead goal just under seven minutes into the third

period and added an empty-net goal later in the period to lead the Detroit Red Wings to a

3-1 home win over the Nashville Predators.

Predator’s fire-bug Jordin Tootoo notched his first ever playoff goal, but the Wings were too strong as the Elder Statesman, Dominik Hasek, turned aside 19 shots to give the Wings a 1-0 series lead.

You Must Draw First Blood

Joe Pelletier provides us with this interesting statistic:

Since the NHL adopted the current conference-based playoff format in 1993-94, clubs winning Game 1 have gone on to win the series 133 of 195 times, or 68.2% (all series best-of-seven). For the Conference Quarter-Finals only, clubs winning Game 1 have won 74 of 104 series (71.2%).

Ovechkin’s Wheel of Fortune

Many fans may not know this, but Wheel of Fortune Host Pat Sajak is a die-hard

Washington Capitals fan. Sajak has actually been a hockey fan for many years and recently had the following to say about Alexander Ovechkin:

“I lived through Gretzky, and all those great Blackhawk players, but I’ve never seen anything like this guy,” Sajak said. “I’ve seen skilled players, but I’ve never seen anybody with that level of skill who is that willing to be physical and mix things up. He’s a combination of everything you like about hockey: he’s faster than anyone I’ve seen, he’s quicker than anyone I’ve seen, he’s got a longer reach than anyone I’ve seen. I said when Ted signed him for 13 years, ‘Hockey just may work here.’ I’m actually planning my

life around these playoffs.”

North Dakota Gets Ousted Again

You can call it a butt-kicking, a blowout or any combination of terms. Whichever you choose, it was another Boston College victory over North Dakota in the Frozen Four.

Things started bad and slowly got worse for North Dakota, as the Eagles ran off four first-period goals en route to a 6-1 victory in the opening game of the 2007 Frozen Four. The Eagles will face the winner of Thursday’s second semifinal between Michigan and Notre Dame in Saturday’s title game.

I should have known better than to pick North Dakota to win the NCAA Division I championship; this is the third straight year that Boston College has eliminated them in the national semifinal.