When it rains, it pours

April showers us with playoff hockey

If you were in the New York metropolitan area on Tuesday night (as I was) and you were hockey fan (as I certainly am) you had some interesting options from which to choose. You could have headed out to Long Island, where the Islanders would try to skate back into their series against the Maple Leafs in the first playoff game at Nassau Coliseum since the spring of 1994. Or you could have gone to the Meadowlands, where the Devils play postseason games by the dozen each spring and would try to establish themselves as the class of the Eastern Conference and tie up their series with the Hurricanes.

Or you could have saved your gas tank for a rainy day and instead set up two TVs and a couple of remote controls and settled in for the first true hockey feast of this or any season. I'm talking six games in one night, five on TV. March Madness? This was April Anarchy.

The first round is traditionally when you see some of the strangest, wildest hockey of the season; the games that shape the course of each postseason.

It begins, in this retelling anyway, in Montreal for Game 3 of the Bruins-Canadiens series. You couldn't have seen this game from the Coliseum or the Meadowlands, which is why staying home was the right idea. We'll remember this one, folks: the tale of Koivu and the Habs.

I first switched to that game in time to see Boston's P.J. Axelsson split Montreal's defense, roof a shorthanded goal and tie the game at 1-1. The Canadiens didn't quit, though, even when Boston was up 3-1 after two stanzas. Then came the third period and magic struck. Last Friday, I spoke with Doug Gilmour, the old warrior out of retirement, who said to me, "Man, this is what I came back for. These games right here."

It was Gilmour who bustled through the Bruins' defense to score the goal that evened things at 3-3. Then it was Saku Koivu, who has just returned from a battle with stomach cancer and who gives you a thrill every time he's on the ice. He deked Byron Dafoe down to the ground scored the winning goal. Suddenly this No. 8 seed is in control against the top-seeded Bruins. Boston is still the better team, but you know Jose Theodore has a game to steal, which means this one's going to seven. Every time you see Robbie Ftorek on the bench, you get the feeling that the pressure is getting to him, that the Bruins are in danger of a minor implosion. It says here that whichever team wins Thursday's Game 4 wins the series.

The same holds for the Islanders and Maple Leafs. After an eight-year hiatus, boy were those long-suffering Islanders rewarded. You could see a New York win coming -- the team was on-so-close in losing the first two games -- but in the early going this one was a yawner. Then Mark Parrish knocked a goal in from up close to tie the game at 1-1 and some of that happy anarchy broke out at the Coliseum. The Islanders were all over the front of the net, potting rebounds: Brad Isbister forcing his will into the zone, Mike Peca on a breakaway. It ended 6-1. The Isles' power play (four goals) was cooking, which was fitting given a recent power play by GM Mike Milbury. He'd spent a couple of days railing against the refs. He even gathered reporters to watch a film of alleged sins committed by the Maple Leafs. The ploy worked wonderfully. Milbury became the topic on the media's minds and the young Islanders didn't have to hear a lot of questions about the pressure they felt down 2-0. If they can keep their mojo Wednesday night -- the teams will face off just 21 hours after Tuesday's game ended -- they're going to the second round.

Yes, the Devils won, of course, and it says here they're going to win their series. When New Jersey dominates they way it has the past two games, it gets a little boring -- you can only watch Carolina block the Devils' shots for so long. New Jersey is clearly the team to beat in the East. Arturs Irbe was pulled in two straight games and the Devils' top offensive threats, Joe Nieuwendyk and Patrik Elias, haven't even gotten going yet. (By the way, you have to love Brian Rafalski at this time of year.) The Hurricanes play hard, but they can't beat New Jersey in two out of three games.

Nothing could remind you more of hockey's awesome power and danger than watching the Blues' Dallas Drake crash into Chicago's Kyle Calder in the first period of the night's first Western Conference match. It was a daring hit -- the Blues were shorthanded at the time -- and Drake collided into Calder with such force that the St. Louis winger was unconscious before he crashed to the ice, the victim of his own intensity. The hit set the tone of the game, a physically spectacular 1-0 St. Louis outcome. The Blackhawks aren't getting many good chances in this series, their most nimble forwards are not making plays and Blues goalie Brent Johnson has played well enough to put up three -- count 'em, three -- straight shutouts. This series should be over Thursday night. Hey, at least the Hawks ended their playoff drought this year, which is something to hang their helmets on.

Yes, it was late, and I'd had a lot of hockey in my eyes by the time the Avalanche and Kings faced off. But after last year's seven-game epic, who would miss this one? Was it any surprise that two heart-and-soul playoff players, the Avalanche's Chris Drury and the Kings' Adam Deadmarsh set the tone up front? Or any surprise that it was an unheralded forward, Colorado's Steve Reinprecht, who scored the winning goal? St. Patrick had a shutout -- he knocked aside 32 shots, a few of which raised my neck hairs -- and that's why the Avalanche control this series. The Kings, however, are not dead yet. I can see this one going seven.

I had to rely on highlights to see that All-Star team from Detroit take on the rascally Canucks. Still, I saw enough of the Red Wings' 4-2 series-tying win to see Stevie Yzerman's courage, to see the way both teams went to the crease to rattle the opposing team's cage, to see Vancouver's resiliency rallying back from 2-0 down to tie the game, and to see Detroit goals from both Chris Chelios and Jiri Fischer -- defensemen who are a generation apart. I saw enough to be reminded of why I stayed home to feast on the NHL playoffs, still as great a sports spectacle as you will find.

Sports Illustrated staff writer Kostya Kennedy covers the NHL and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.

 

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