Chicago & Carolina Face Must Win Situations!

After a night off, play resumes in Carolina tonight where the Hurricanes have their backs up against the wall.  They trail the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-0 in the best of seven Eastern Conference Final.  Carolina has got to figure a way to slow down the Penguins juggernaut offense.  Sidney Crosby and Evegni Malkin have been on fire this series, Malkin especially. He has taken his play to another level in this series.  He has nine points in the series with six of them being goals.  For the first two rounds, we saw Crosby and Malkin almost take turns being the difference-makers from game to game.  Now, they’re both going simultaneously, and I don’t think there’s a team anywhere that can stop them when that happens. One thing no one is really talking about is Pittsburgh’s goaltending.  Marc Andre-Fluery has been solid between the pipes making key stops when he’s had to.  Let’s face it, with the Pens offense as strong as it is, Fluery has an easy job.  Just keep things close and they’ll take care of the rest.

Carolina on the other hand is in all kinds of trouble.  The Canes stars have all but disappeared in this series.  Eric Staal has pretty much been a non-factor and Eric Cole is battling injuries.  Also where has Ray Whitney the Canes leading scorer in the regular season gone. He has been a complete non-factor. It’s no wonder Carolina is having trouble scoring and keeping up.  Cam Ward while he hasn’t been spectacular he also hasn’t really given up any soft goals.  He is fighting but he needs help from his defensemen and they are being overwhelmed.  Game four tonight in all likelihood will be the Hurricanes final game of the season.

Over in the Western Conference the situation isn’t really that different from the east.  The Chicago Blackhawks also have their backs up against the wall trailing the Detroit Red Wings 3-1 in the best of seven series.  The Wings have proved to be too strong for the youthful Blackhawks to overcome.  They’re going to go to the finals (sorry, Hawks) without getting top-end production from many of their top guys.  That’s what is so impressive.  No Pavel Datsyuk, no Nicklas Lidstrom, no Tomas Kopecky, no problem in Game 4.  Throughout these playoffs Chicago has played with a lot of energy and passion, they just don’t have the experience to beat a team like Detroit.  It also doesn’t help when you lose your starting goalie to  an injury.  Nikolai Khabibulin at least kept things close and gave Chicago a chance to win but without him the Hawks virtually stand no chance at winning.  This years accomplishments will set the stage for the Hawks to have successful future runs at the Stanley Cup for the next few seasons.

Check out these highlights of the best plays of the week.