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TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS VS BOSTON BRUINS- 7:00PM EDT/4:00PM PDT (Toronto leads 2-1)
After stumbling in Game 2 in Boston, the Leafs got things back on track, and hung on for a 3-2 victory to take a 2-1 series lead. For the Leafs it’s pretty simple: keep doing what you’re doing. They’ve been fairly effective at keeping the Bruins most effective players neutralized at 5 on 5. Making sure they stay in control of their emotions and out of the penalty box against a very good Bruins PP is again a must. The Bruins have to find a way to disrupt what’s been a pretty decent performance from the Leafs defence. That, and it probably wouldn’t hurt for Tuukka Rask to steal them a game and avoid heading back to Boston for an elimination Game 5 Friday night. The Leafs really don’t want to be heading to TD Garden for the start of a best of 3. No real changes for the Leafs tonight, but I would expect that David Backes sits tonight in favour of Joakim Nordstrom.
DALLAS STARS VS NASHVILLE PREDATORS- 8:00PM EDT/5:00PM PDT (Nashville leads 2-1)
The Dallas Stars probably deserved to win Game 3 on Monday night, but sometimes you’re gonna have a goalie like Pekka Rinne steal one for his team the way he did for the Nashville Predators. That’s not to say there isn’t room for improvement. Getting their secondary scoring going and not relying on Jamie Benn to do it all would be a big step, as would getting a fairly stagnant power play clicking. Nashville needs to score early and take the crowd out of the game, because if Dallas is on a roll, they’ll be heading back to Nashville with the seeds of doubt firmly planted.
COLORADO AVALANCHE VS CALGARY FLAMES- 10:00PM EDT/7:00PM PDT (Colorado leads 2-1)
Hands up if you had the series potentially over in 5?
Liars.
While not on the scale of the two sweeps we saw last night, this would still be a fairly sizable upset and a sign that perhaps the Flames aren’t as far along in their rebuild as first thought. It’s been said that Colorado is a one line team. Problem is, that one line can destroy you if you don’t come up with a way to make it less effective. Between that, Mike Smith regressing back to Mike Smith, and the Flames getting sweet FA from their biggest players, it’s not looking good. Add in the fact that Colorado is getting far more secondary production, and you have why they’ve found themselves in a hole after such an impressive showing in Game 1. The Flames cannot afford to lose this game or all of the excitement and expectations of a long overdue playoff run in Calgary will be for naught. The Avs meanwhile couldn’t have asked for a better debut from Cale Makar. Scoring on his first shot in his first game at home against the team he grew up cheering for? Sounds more like a movie pitch than real life, but here we are.
GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN
I’m in one of those moods, so here’s CELTIC FROST on a Swiss tv show in 1985 with a short interview followed by them performing ‘Into Crypts of Rays’.