Winning games is what counts.
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Andrew Cogliano was in disbelief. They had only one regulation loss to a Californian team this year, and it was against the team they just bested, the Ducks.
The Predators showed they are for real, withstanding everything the Ducks threw at them in Games 6 and 7. “He was really good”, Nashville coach Peter Laviolette told reporters. As I sat in my seat and took in the game, I realized one major flaw in the supporters.The Predators handled the pressure splendidly.”It’s been nice to get a couple days of practice in and kind of get over your little injuries that you’ve accumulated over the last 10 or so days of the first round”, Thornton said.
The Ducks’ recent Game 7 failures followed similar scripts that all started with an early goal by the visitors: Detroit, Los Angeles and Chicago all scored in the opening 4 1/2 minutes.
Despite having home-ice in the series, the Ducks lost their third home game of the series; this time by a tally of 2-1. The focus in this series has got to be our own play and what we do with the puck, the way we play with the puck and the way we play without the puck. San Jose’s favorite hockey team has often played well as an overdog. Bruce Boudreau dropped to 1-7 in seventh games in his National Hockey League coaching career, including six consecutive losses in Anaheim and Washington.
Hard to imagine what was said in the Anaheim dressing room between periods, but the Ducks responded with a vengeance in the second period. The Sharks scored six goals in Game 5 to get the three-goal win and wrap up the series. The Sharks know they’ll have to be precise with their zone entries to try and make sure Rinne has a hard time handling any sort of dump and chase effort and start a transition play going the other way. Despres blocked the high pass with his glove and deflected the puck to the ice. “I’m just as big a part of that as anyone else”. I feel like we should be going on.
That goal tied Wilson with Martin Erat for fourth place on the Predators’ all-time playoff goal-scoring list with eight.
Taking up where he left off in helping the visiting Islanders advance beyond the first round for the first time in 23 years, Tavares assisted on Travis Hamonic’s goal that erased an early deficit and later scored his sixth postseason goal on a blistering shot from the left circle to give NY a 4-1 lead midway through the second. Gaustad tipped Shea Weber’s shot from the right point with 4:07 left in the first period. Boudreau challenged the call, which video replay upheld.
This game also featured a sequence of three goals in 90 seconds and yet also some great saves by goaltenders Braden Holtby and Matt Murray. Still, Jamie McGinn hit the crossbar on a wide-open look. “I thought we could go for a deep run and I really like the way this group plays the game, and everyone in the organization”, left wing David Perron said. “But the defense was fantastic tonight”. We won’t know until we get to the game, and we’ll go from there. The Islanders won their first series since 1993.The Ducks have been plagued by slow starts in previous the previous three Game 7 losses and this recurring issue snaked them once more.Nashville would like to see its power play begin to click after the club went 1-for-26 against the Ducks. Jonathan Quick is one of those goalies that can just flip that switch and be playoff ready no matter how the team is playing at the end of the year. Corey Perry and Jakob Silfverberg were held without a goal in the seven-game series.
Anaheim very almost pulled even with less than eight minutes to play, but Hampus Lindholm’s shot from the point rang the left post, and Corey Perry was unable to swat it out of the air and into the open net. It was another game seven at home for the Ducks and fans seemed to somewhat confident going in. “Everything about it was a battle, a fight”.
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Of all the teams who survived the first round of the playoffs, Nashville had the toughest and longest route to the second. Nashville scratched RW Gabriel Bourque (upper body), C Cody Bass (lower body), D Petter Granberg, LW Eric Nystrom and LW Austin Watson.
