VENGEANCE!

Is there any sporting event on this planet more intense and entertaining than playoff hockey? Not for my money. And, even better than the high quality of all the hockey games I have watched this post-season is the fact that the Philadelphia Flyers, who finished with an NHL-worst 56 points last year (a record of 22-48-12), have advanced to the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals for the first time since the lockout. The Fly-guys disposed of 65-goal scorer Alexander Ovechkin and his Washington Capitals. And what a series it was. Big hits, big saves, big comebacks. Overtime in games four and seven. The birth of a new out-of-division rivalry between two of the youngest and most talented teams in the NHL, and possibly an ever more bitter rivalry between the most intimidating fans in the league and the inhabitants of the nation's capital who have recently discovered and fell in love with the game of hockey.
But now, the Flyers must shift their focus from surviving the first round to possibly upsetting the East's number-one seeded Montreal Canadiens and moving forward with their plan to extract vengeance on the National Hockey League. The Habs needed seven games to dispatch the eight seed Boston Bruins, and found themselves in a similar situation as the Flyers, after building a 3-1 series lead only to be forced into a game seven. The deciding game of the series was not nearly as closely contended as the Philly/Washington game, however, as Montreal squashed Boston 5-0. The Bruins had been drained by fighting back to force the seventh game and clearly could not compete with the far superior Canadiens in Montreal.
As difficult as it was to contain Ovechkin & Company, Montreal presents an even bigger challenge to the sixth-seeded Flyers. The Habs won all meetings with the Flyers this season, out-scoring Philadelphia 15-6 in those games. Overall, Montreal has beaten the Flyers in six straight, the last Philly victory was way back in November of 2006, where the Orange and Black doubled up the Canadiens, 4-2. When asked to describe the type of game the Canadiens play, and whether the Flyers should expect a physical, gritty series like the one they just came out of, and those classics with Toronto over the past few seasons or more of an open-ice fast and skilled approach with which the likes of the Buffalo Sabres have worn the Flyers down with in the past, my resident hockey expert Shaun Stamm replied "Both. . . and it's scary." And the statistics tell the same tale. Montreal had seven players finish the regular season with 50 or more points. Alex Kovalev lead the team with 35 goals, 84 points and a plus-minus of +18. Mark Streit finished third on the team with 62 points, also good enough for third among all NHL defense-men. Montreal finished the regular season with the best power play in the league, converting over 24% of its chances. The Flyers were no slouch man-up either, boasting the second ranked power play, coming it at 21.8%. And Montreal's goaltending has been very good as well. After trading Cristobal Huet to Washington, The Canadiens called up Carey Price from the AHL, who went on to post a 24-12-3 record with a goals against average of 2.56. In the playoffs, Price has been even better, posting a 2.09 GAA and a save-percentage of .925. Montreal can also play a very physical game with players such as Michael Komisarek, who finished the regular season with 266 hits, second in the NHL. In the playoffs, the Habs have four of the top ten hitters in the league, including the leading hitter of the tournament, Steve Begin, averaging more than 5 hits per game in the first round. No other team has more than one in the top ten. So the Flyers are in for another tough series with a team that will test them every period at both ends of the ice. There is nothing better than playoff hockey.
So that's my brief review of what's coming up. For an even more extensive comparison of the two teams, check out http://www.nhl.com/nhl/app/?service=page&page=NewsPage&articleid=361418
If you know me, you know that I don't talk up other sites or writer or works in any media that somehow compete with my own, but NHL.com, and this article specifically do a good job of breaking down the series.

Starting Thursday I will begin providing greater coverage of the NHL playoffs, and on Saturday I plan on attempting my very first LIVE COVERAGE of the NFL Draft, so if you're a football nerd like I am, check it out.