The defending champion St. Louis Blues were vanquished in six games by the youthful yet gritty Vancouver Canucks. This leaves in the West in seeding order Vegas, Colorado, Dallas, and Vancouver.
This is a good mix of teams and the eventual winner in the West will have to earn its way for sure. Right now both Vegas and Colorado look extremely tough. But I wouldn’t discount Vancouver because their goalie was outstanding in this series against the St. Louis Blues.
In post season hockey it’s all about goaltending, your power play, and your penalty killing.
In the East my Boston Bruins advanced along with Tampa, Philly, and the NY Islanders.
Boston’s fragile netminder Tuuka Rask left the bubble to go home. We’ll have to see about the Bruin’s goaltending.
If I were Las Vegas the two teams I’d have circled right now would be the Vegas hockey team along with the Colorado Avalanche. Vancouver would be my Cinderella dark horse.
As far as the Thunder..I’m tempering my thoughts because I don’t want to diminish the feel good regular season they just experienced. Lu Dort came back and proved me right by basically shutting down James Harden. I love Lu Dort. I love his committment to getting in front of his man and playing old school defense. Eddie Sujtton would love Lu Dort.
Here’s the really bad news for Oklahoma City even with Dort playing great… the Thunder still lost Game 2 by thirteen points with Harden being contained and Westbrook not even playing.
The worse news for the Portland Trailblazers is Damian Lillard hurt his hand. That truly sucks.
So for me right now it’s more about the hockey in the West than the basketball in the West. For real hockey fans the West matchups are truly compelling.
My son lives in Denver and plays in the Wednesday night mens open league there at Denver University…. so it’s the Colorado Avalanche for our family.