Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.
There may be a lot of you who are surprised there is hockey this weekend.
I'll freely admit to being one of them. I'm even more surprised that there are two games this weekend.
Both the Dallas Stars and Philadelphia Flyers were left for dead after falling behind 3-0 in their respective series. Even though they were playing on home ice, they were heavy underdogs in Game Four.
They both got the job done. Their prize? They're being left for dead entering road games this weekend.
While I think it would be outright lunacy to predict one of these series will be extended, you can't rule it out. After all, most of you ruled out these series even going five games, and here we are.
Dallas tries first, as they face Detroit Saturday in "Hockeytown". We'll be live-blogging the game here at FanHouse, so join us for the action starting at 1pm Eastern.
Can this added confidence carry the Stars to a Game Five upset?
(Still to come: The conference finals indeed continue, NBC prays for a regulation end to Saturday's game, and a YouTube to remember from the incomparable Tie Domi)
Now don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying the broadcast is biased towards the Flyers -- it's not, despite what Pittsburgh may say. Versus is actually doing a pretty good job of covering the playoffs, in my opinion. They haven't really had any major snags, although their studio team is lacking any names recognizable to the casual fan. But that's neither here nor there.
Let's get back to what we were here for in the first place. A business lesson. So, we have the Flyers and Versus, two seemingly separate organizations. Let's do about .01 seconds of research. Who are each of them owned by?
VERSUS, a wholly owned company of Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA, CMCSK), is distributed via cable systems and satellite operators throughout the United States.
Now it's clear that there haven't been any serious conflicts of interest here. I really don't think that the coverage on Versus has been biased towards the Flyers in any way. It's just interesting what happens -- or what could happen -- in this country when we have so many large conglomerates.
And so we've come to this. What was supposed to be a knock-down drag-out series is looking very dangerously like a Pittsburgh sweep. Except for about ten minutes during the first period in game one and brief stretch in the second period of game two, this series has been almost all Penguins these first three games. Marian Hossa, Sidney Crosby, and Evgeni Malkin have stepped things up big for the Pens while everyone not named Mike Richards has faded into the woodwork for the short-handed Flyers.
Braydon Coburn won't be coming back tonight thanks to his ugly eye injury, but playing to avoid a sweep in front of the home crowd is always a huge incentive (just ask Dallas or New York). Gary Roberts won't be playing for the Penguins thanks to what's being called "mild pneumonia," which I had no idea existed. The Flyers are really going to have to raise their level of play from where it was in Game 3 if they want to make another trip to the western part of Pennsylvania. Can they pull it off? Follow along with our liveblog after the jump.
Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.
It appears that the only thing separating the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Detroit Red Wings from a date in the Stanley Cup Finals is the formality of a fourth win. Just like Detroit had done in Dallas Monday night, the Penguins took a 3-0 series stranglehold in Philadelphia with a 4-1 win last night.
Defenseman Ryan Whitney and trade deadline acquisition Marian Hossa scored goals less than three minutes apart in the first period to open the Game Three scoring, with new playoff scoring leader Sidney Crosby assisting on both goals. Flyers forward R.J. Umberger cut the lead in half with his 10th goal of the postseason, but a third period goal by Ryan Malone and an empty-net goal by Hossa sealed the decision for Pittsburgh.
It's tough to say why 3-0 series leads are such the rage in the NHL lately, but since the first round ended, five of the six series in Rounds Two and Three have started with near-sweeps. While I'll admit that there is some excitement generated from having elimination games happen early in a series, in a practical sense it makes for some quickly uninteresting series. Granted, I'm a fan of a team that was eliminated in Round One, so I'm somewhat cynical. Even so, from a competitive angle these playoffs seem to have lost the thrill of a tightly-contested series; right now the most interesting topic of discussion seems to be what will happen when juggernauts collide in the cup finals. It looks as if the Fanhouse panel will be discussing that Detroit-Pittsburgh matchup sooner than we thought.
After the break: More from your Fanhousers, the Stat of the Day, and a YouTube summary of Detroit and Dallas Game Three.
Games don't get much more important than game three's in a 2-0 series and tonight's Penguins/Flyers game is no exception. If the Flyers win, they cut Pittsburgh's lead down to 2-1 with another game in the Wachovia Center looming on Thursday. If the Penguins win, they take a 3-0 lead and history, the odds, and basic probability is on their side.
Can the Flyers get to Marc-Andre Fleury? Can the Penguins silence the Philadelphia crowd early? Can the Flyers keep up being down two defensemen? Did Gary Roberts really get pneumonia? The answer to all these questions and more are coming tonight in the biggest game of the season for both teams, so follow along with the liveblog after the jump.
As the old saying goes, "If it wasn't for bad luck, the Flyers wouldn't have any luck at all." One day after taking a puck right between his eyes, Braydon Coburn's prospects for Game 3 on Monday are not looking very good. Anyone that saw him go down with blood pouring on the ice probably isn't surprised by that news, but it's still a blow to the Flyers to have the worst confirmed. From the Philadelphia Daily News's Flyers' blog:
Flyers defenseman Braydon Coburn is considered "probably doubtful" for tomorrow night's Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals against Pittsburgh, general manager Paul Holmgren said today.
Coburn required more than 50 stitches to close a circular cut around his left eye suffered early in the Flyers' 4-2 loss Sunday night in Game 2.
There's two ways to read that phrasing from Holmgren: 1.) "It's the Stanley Cup Playoffs and we're not telling you jack about his injury," or, 2.)"He got hit in the face with a puck and has 50 stitches between his eyes ... what do you think?" Since it is the playoffs, we can't really rule out the first one, but the second is certainly more likely. There is at least a silver lining today; there's no damage to Coburn's eye, so he'll likely make a full recovery. If he can't go on Tuesday, Ryan Parent will take his place in the lineup.
After the Penguins cruised to a 4-2 win in game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, mostly everyone agreed that the Flyers were nowhere near physical enough and that trying to score with the Penguins, as they did in the first period of the game, was going to lead with a short series. The Flyers must agree because word out of Pittsburgh today is that John Stevens is going to dress Steve Downie tonight. Downie, for his part, seems ready to go:
"I'll play my usual, simple, physical game," he said. Downie, who has played in four of the team's 13 postseason games, said he already has learned something about the Penguins.
"Discipline. That seems to be the key to Pittsburgh," he said. "You don't want to give them too many power plays."
If Downie does indeed play (and Stevens hasn't confirmed it yet), then discipline will definitely be the key for a player that only played in 32 games, averaged less than 10 minutes on the ice in those games, and still racked up 73 penalty minutes. The Flyers do need to be more physical tonight, but the last thing they need to do is take stupid penalties that give the Penguins a chance to take an early lead in front of the home crowd.
Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.
It became evident very quickly Friday night that the coaches in the Eastern Conference Finals had some work to do.
Yes, both teams were scoring and creating chances. Neither team, however, was playing much defense. The goalies were tested more than usual, and the action was exciting.
In the end, Pittsburgh was the team that got their defense going first. They held Philadelphia off the board through the last two periods of a 4-2 Game One win.
Petr Sykora set the early tone, getting open in front and making a great move on Martin Biron for the game's first goal. Mike Richards scored two in a row for the Flyers, before a Biron turnover led to a goal by Sidney Crosby to tie it for Pittsburgh. Late in the first, Evgeni Malkin held the puck in the Philadelphia zone by a hair, skated in, and wristed a shot past Biron, giving the Penguins a 3-2 lead after one.
Malkin added a short-handed goal in the second period to make it 4-2 before things finally settled down. Of course, that wasn't good news for Philadelphia, since they had to make up a two-goal deficit.
(Still to come: More on Flyers-Penguins Game One, the Stars try to rebound, and we'll dig something up from YouTube. You'll then have to judge whether or not it's cool.)
Before the second round of the playoffs, a Montreal fan adorned the Rocky statue in Habs' colors, the statue was quickly cleared by security, and that was that. Given the proximity of Pittsburgh and Philadephia and the diffusion of people going both ways across the state, things might be a little different in the Eastern Conference Finals. Penguins fans have been bombarding the Rocky statue with black and gold this week, but the Flyers' fans aren't taking it sitting down this week.
Already, a radio station in Philly has offered tickets to the first person willing to guard Rocky all week, while this craigslist ad has appeared, calling for the draping of a prominent Pittsburgh statue (presumed to be Willie Stargell, Roberto Clemente, or Art Rooney since the Shrine to Mario is yet to be built, but presumably in the offing) in orange.
This, friends, is what the playoffs are all about. We've got two fanbases here that are pretty much dropping everything else in their life, hellbent on proving their city superior, and we haven't even dropped a puck yet. This is going to be a crazy two weeks or so in Pennsylvania. It makes me more than a little sad that I moved away.
H/T to The Pensblog, who's all of this one, of course.
The Penguins and Flyers kick off their playoff series tonight at seven, but it's not the first time these intrastate rivals have met in the playoffs. In fact, they've played three times in the post-season in the past and the Flyers have won all three series. What better way to get in the mood for round four than to check out some YouTubes of the Flyers and the Penguins playoff past?
1989 Patrick Division Finals In 1989, Mario Lemieux and finally reached the playoffs in his fifth season. After a first round sweep over the Rangers, the Pens ran smack into the Flyers, who took them out in seven games. I'm honestly not sure what game in the series this brawl is from but it's awesome.
Every day from Monday to Saturday, 
As the old saying goes, "If it wasn't for bad luck, the Flyers wouldn't have any luck at all." One day after taking a puck right between his eyes, 
After the Penguins cruised to a 4-2 win in game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, mostly everyone agreed that the Flyers were nowhere near physical enough and that trying to score with the Penguins, as they did in the first period of the game, was going to lead with a short series. The Flyers must agree because word out of Pittsburgh today is that 
Before the second round of the playoffs, a Montreal fan adorned the Rocky statue in Habs' colors, the statue was quickly cleared by security, and that was that. Given the proximity of Pittsburgh and Philadephia and the diffusion of people going both ways across the state, things might be a little different in the Eastern Conference Finals. Penguins fans have been bombarding the Rocky statue with black and gold this week, but the Flyers' fans aren't taking it sitting down this week. 
