Playoffs - Thu, 09 May - Results

NY Islanders v Pittsburgh 0-4 - Game 5 - The Pittsburgh Penguins had all the answers Thursday night. As a result, they moved to within one victory of advancing to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Asked troubling questions by the spirited, nothing-to-lose New York Islanders in losing two of the past three games, the Penguins finally found some answers in a dominant Game 5 performance, taking a 4-0 decision at the Consol Energy Center. Game 6 of this best-of-7 series is Saturday night at Nassau Coliseum (7 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, RDS). The eighth-seeded Isles need to win that game to force a winner-take-all Game 7 back here on Sunday. The Penguins did not start out the way they wanted and had to weather a first-period storm that saw the flying-high Islanders dominate play for long periods of time. If it were not for the brilliance of Vokoun, there was a good chance that Pittsburgh could have trailed at some point. Perhaps most important was that Vokoun, who started Game 5 in place of the ineffective Marc-Andre Fleury, bought the Penguins some time to find their offense. After being outplayed for the first 25 minutes or so, as Pittsburgh used a two-goal outburst during an 82-second span of the second period to put the Islanders back on their heels. Tyler Kennedy, another Game 5 insertion, scored the game-opening goal at 7:25 of the second period when he got behind the Islanders' defense on a line change and was sprung on a successful breakaway by a crisp outlet pass from Letang. Murray added to that lead when his harmless wrister was misplayed by Islanders goalie Evgeni Nabokov and ended up knuckling off the goalie's glove, over his head and into the net. After that, Crosby and Vokoun, who made 31 saves to earn his second playoff shutout and first since 2004, took over the game. Crosby was the best player on the ice for much of the final 40 minutes and had two breathtaking plays to put this game away. The first came on a second-period goal that gave the Penguins a 3-0 lead. After taking a pass from Jarome Iginla, Crosby picked up speed as he hit the attacking blue line and used some nifty stickhandling to split the defensive pairing of Lubomir Visnovsky and Thomas Hickey before snapping off a shot that eluded Nabokov (23 saves) and found the far corner. In the third period, he assisted on the Letang goal that chased Nabokov from the game. On the faceoff following Matt Martin's roughing penalty, Crosby was able to draw the puck back to Paul Martin at the point and then receive it back before threading a backhanded saucer pass to Letang, who slammed the puck home. The Penguins answered the questions necessary to win, largely through the bold moves of coach Dan Bylsma. Bylsma turned to Vokoun when Fleury, the No. 1 with a Stanley Cup ring from four years ago, couldn't make the saves to see the Penguins clear of pushes from the Islanders. He also inserted Kennedy, Joe Vitale and defenseman Simon Despres into the lineup and juggled his top two lines, moving Chris Kunitz with Evgeni Malkin and James Neal while Iginla moved to the right side of Crosby, joining Pascal Dupuis on the top line. But, it was the choice to go with Vokoun that will be most remembered. All Vokoun did was stop everything thrown at him by an Islanders team that had scored 14 times in the past three games. Vokoun made the biggest of his saves when he stopped John Tavares on a semi-breakaway with the Penguins holding a 2-0 lead. It was the type of save they were not getting from Fleury, and it energized the Penguins while demoralizing the Islanders. They will have to be better on Saturday night to extend this series, and then, the Islanders will have to come back here and win a Game 7. It's the same scenario the Islanders faced in their last playoff meeting with Pittsburgh 20 years ago, when they won Game 6 at home before ending the Penguins' hopes of a third consecutive championship by winning Game 7 in overtime. I am still having nightmares that Pittsburgh failed to get passed the Islanders that time, and am concerned history could still repeat itself with this series.
Ottawa v Montreal 6-1 - Game 5 - It doesn't have to be pretty. It just has to work. The Ottawa Senators have proven that time and again this season, gutting out wins when either their injured list or the shot count or the tough opposition suggested they had no business doing so. That special feeling, that resolve, has carried over into the Stanley Cup Playoffs and led the Senators into the second round. The Senators defeated the Montreal Canadiens 6-1 on Thursday night to win their Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series in five games, extending an unlikely story of overcoming injuries to vital players for at least one more round of spring hockey. It was the first series victory for the Senators since reaching the Stanley Cup Final in 2007. Only four members of that team remain today, captain Daniel Alfredsson, Chris Neil, Chris Phillips and the injured Jason Spezza. A big reason why the Senators found a way in this series was the man playing in goal. Craig Anderson stymied the Canadiens once again Thursday, just as he did the entire series, stopping 33 shots and withstanding a fierce first-period charge as Montreal played to extend its own unlikely season for one more game. But it wasn't to be, as an injury-ravaged Canadiens team scored nine goals in five games, and just six at even strength, against Anderson, who stopped 171 of 180 shots for a .950 save percentage. Anderson is not the lone reason Ottawa overcame so much to reach this point. All the injuries allowed the Senators' young players to develop faster than they would have, to the point where some who may have been still in the minors are now playing big roles for a team that just made it to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Playing without starting goaltender Carey Price, captain Brian Gionta, center Lars Eller and grinders Brandon Prust and Ryan White, the Canadiens came out extremely strong in the first period as they were pushed by a Bell Centre crowd who wanted to see the home team play one more game this season. The Senators certainly weren't about to feel sorry for Montreal's injury situation, having themselves overcome long-term injuries to Spezza, defenseman Erik Karlsson, defenseman Jared Cowen, forward Milan Michalek and Anderson, among others, to reach the point where they held a 3-1 lead in the series and came to Bell Centre with a chance to win the franchise's first series in six years. The Canadiens were one of the biggest surprises in the NHL this season, going from last in the Eastern Conference to winning the Northeast Division, a turnaround orchestrated by general manager Marc Bergevin and coach Michel Therrien that centered around a young core comprised of Price, P.K. Subban, Max Pacioretty and newcomers Alex Galchenyuk and Brendan Gallagher. In spite of the five-game loss, that future remains bright for the Canadiens, but it was hard to digest for many of the fans at Bell Centre on Thursday night. There weren't that many fans remaining at Bell Centre by the time the teams shook hands, but those who remained cheered throughout the final minute of the game and acknowledged what the Canadiens accomplished as the team saluted them one last time. The Senators relied on Anderson to keep them in games long enough for them to figure out a way to win throughout the series; Thursday night was no different, as Montreal got the game's first five shots on goal and was buzzing around the Ottawa net early. A terrific glove save just past the one-minute mark of the first period off Rene Bourque was only a taste of what was to come from the Senators goaltender, who finished the first period with 15 saves. In the other net, Peter Budaj was making the first playoff start of his career at age 30, and two shots into that start the Senators went ahead 1-0 when Budaj allowed a juicy rebound off a Matt Kassian shot that Zack Smith pounced on and scored at 2:17. The Canadiens had yet another sequence of about a minute buzzing around the Senators net in the seventh minute of the period, one where Bourque hit the goal post, Jarred Tinordi hit the side of the net and Galchenyuk shot just wide with an open net. About five minutes later Cory Conacher scored his second of the series when a puck went off Erik Condra's skate, off the post, off the back of Budaj's pad and sat in the crease for a tap-in at 12:26. The way Anderson was playing at the other end, it felt like the game, and the series, was over. As it turns out, that was all the goal support he needed. Subban scored on a power play with 14.9 seconds left in the period, but that was as close as the Canadiens would get. Turris scored his third goal of the series shorthanded at 11:29 of the second to make it 3-1 and a third period in which the Senators scored three power-play goals was essentially a coronation for a team that referred to itself all year long as the Pesky Sens. That peskiness has gotten the Senators all the way to the second round of the playoffs.
Minnesota v Chicago 1-5 - Game 5 - After back-to-back early exits from the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Chicago Blackhawks have officially reacquainted themselves with the feeling of winning a postseason series. Chicago scored three goals in the second period and ended the Minnesota Wild's season by winning 5-1 on Thursday night at United Center in Game 5 of their Western Conference Quarterfinal series. Marian Hossa scored a pair of goals, his second and third of the playoffs, while Corey Crawford (21 saves) played spectacularly in goal, especially in the first 20 minutes. He earned his fourth win of the postseason and officially avenged a less-than-stellar performance in last year's first-round loss to the Phoenix Coyotes. One of those instances happened after he allowed a goal to Cal Clutterbuck on the first shot he saw in the opener, a shot that Crawford admitted he should have stopped. Rather than letting it get to him, Crawford didn't allow another goal in that game, which the Blackhawks won in overtime. He limited the Wild to six goals in the next four games to help the Blackhawks polish off the series. Midway through the second period Thursday night, instead of a stream of criticism, Crawford heard fans going crazy chanting his name. He appreciated it, even if it happened 10 seconds before Torrey Mitchell scored the Wild's only goal. Fourth-line center Marcus Kruger, third-line center Andrew Shaw and star left wing Patrick Sharp also scored for Chicago, which continued to display a balanced attack that has made this team reminiscent of the one that won the Stanley Cup three years ago. Players who are still around from that team are reluctant to make comparisons, but that championship run was the last time the Blackhawks won a playoff series, yet another accomplishment this year's team can cross off its "to do" list. Chicago also won the Presidents' Trophy for most points in the regular season (77) to earn the home-ice advantage for as far as it goes in the playoffs. Facing elimination, the Wild came out strong. Minnesota pushed hard for an early lead and quickly put heat on Crawford. He stopped all 10 shots he faced and helped kill off an early Wild power play. That helped the Blackhawks turn the tide. They went ahead on Hossa's first goal, a snap shot from the left circle that beat Minnesota goaltender Josh Harding to the short side at 15:39. The pass came from Chicago captain Jonathan Toews, whose assist was his first point of the playoffs. It didn't take long for Hossa and Kruger to extend the lead early in the second. Kruger scored on a wraparound between Harding's pads at 3:19 and Hossa made it 3-0 a little more than three minutes later by outmuscling Harding for the puck in the crease and sliding it home with a backhand. Mitchell made it 3-1 at 10:11 with a snap shot from the slot, but Shaw scored his first career playoff goal 35 seconds later against Darcy Kuemper, who relieved Harding after Hossa's second goal, to restore Chicago's three-goal lead. Harding made the start despite leaving Game 4 after one period with an undisclosed lower-body injury. The Wild were already without starter Niklas Backstrom, who got hurt in warmups before Game 1 and didn't play at all in the series due to a lower-body injury. After all three goalies participated in the Wild's morning skate, Harding told Minnesota coach Mike Yeo he was OK to make the start, further shouldering the load after missing most of the regular season dealing with effects of medication to deal with his multiple sclerosis. Chicago will face either the sixth-seeded San Jose Sharks, who swept the Vancouver Canucks, or the seventh-seeded Detroit Red Wings, who must beat the Anaheim Ducks on Friday night to extend their series to a seventh game.