MVN - Most Valuable Network

Hockey Teams Live to Play Another Day

In the NHL, both the Philadelphia Flyers and the Dallas Stars won game four of their series to live another day. Both teams stepped up when needed and both teams avoided being swept in conference finals. The odds aren’t good, though. Both the Flyers and Stars were down 3-0 in their series before winning one game. They have to win four in a row to stay alive. The other teams don’t have that pressure.

Of the Flyers or the Stars, the Flyers seem to be in better position to make it a series. The Stars will need more than a few miracles against the Red Wings. I’m not ruling out Dallas, but were I more interested in gambling, I prefer to make the safer bet, not the longshot.

In the AHL playoffs, the Ducks affiliate, the Portland Pirates, tied up their series with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguinettes. Bobby Ryan has been very good in the playoffs and for a young guy, he has shown very good beard growing skills as well. I didn’t think he had the ability to grow hair like that. Next year with the Ducks he will be an excellent facial hair addition in the playoffs. The Pirates now head back to Portland for the next two games in the series.

In the World Championships, Canada, Sweden, Russia and Finland advanced to the semi-finals of the tournament. Finland, with Teemu Selanne who hoped to find international gold, was defeated 4-0 by Russia this morning. The best Selanne can hope for is bronze. Canada and Sweden have yet to duke it out, but the line of Ryan Getzlaf, Dany Heatley and Rick Nash should continue to produce. Both Getzlaf and Chris Kunitz would enjoy bringing back gold to the Ducks next year, much like Sami Pahlsson did winning Olympic gold in 2006.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 16th, 2008 at 12:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.