THE ROUNDUP- PLAYOFF EDITION- APR 21/19

DALLAS STARS 5 NASHVILLE PREDATORS 3- (Dallas leads 3-2)

If you want to see ominous signs, look no further than what happened to the dude who sang the anthem for the Preds/Stars game last night:

Talk about foreshadowing... Yeah, another face plant from the Preds as former Nashville Predator Aexander Radulov burned his team for a couple goals en route to a 5-3 win and a chance to eliminate the Preds in Dallas Monday night. The Radulov, Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin line continues to wreak havoc, but the Stars are getting help from the rest of the lineup too, this time in the form of a pair of goals from Jason Dickinson. One of the biggest reasons the Preds find themselves in this hole is their inability to cash in on the power play. It’s not entirely surprising, as the Preds owned the worst PP in the NHL this season, but going 0 for 11 at playoff time is a ticket to nowhere. The Year of Upsets North American Tour continues for Nashville, it would seem...

ST LOUIS BLUES 3 WINNIPEG JETS 2 (St Louis wins 4-2)

The St Louis Blues story this season is nothing short of amazing. From 31st place on Jan 2nd to 3rd in their division was miraculous enough. Now they’re onto the 2nd round of the playoffs and with the Calgary Flames already out of their way and a very real possibility they’ll be facing Dallas and not Nashville next, we need to prepare ourselves that this story could end with a St Louis Blues Stanley Cup. The Jets faltered too many times during this series, and while they’re not going to blow things up, there’s going to be some interesting moves made with this team over the summer, as some key RFA’s will need to be signed and at least one good player is going to have to be let go in order to make things fit. Also, if Jim Benning is reading this: Tyler Myers is awful, this series was a showcase of his awfulness and you should feel bad for even considering him an option to help the Canucks. If you want a large bottom pairing Dman, bring back Nikita Tryamkin. You’ll make the fan base happy and save a few million dollars. And I don’t want to gloss over the performance of Jaden Schwartz last night. After scoring the winner in the dying seconds of Game 5, he scores 23 seconds into Game 6, the first of what would be a natural hat trick and the last one stood up as his 2nd straight GWG.

WASHINGTON CAPITALS 6 CAROLINA HURRICANES 0- (Washington leads 3-2)

Well, it took a few games but the Champs showed up. That was an utterly dominant performance last night. Balanced scoring, physical play, and a lethal PP. The Caps are still very much a force to be reckoned with and have to be considered the team to beat in the East should they get out of this one. Also, can we just take a moment to appreciate one of the worst moves of this past season from Jim Benning. Over the summer Benning traded 4th line C Nic Dowd to the Caps for Jay Beagle. the 33 year old Beagle, under contract for another 3 years, gave the Canucks 3 goals for his $3 Million cap hit, while Dowd, who the Caps paid $650k this season, scored 8 times. He signed a new 3 year deal... for $750k/year and is 5 years younger than Beagle. And last night he scored a beautiful penalty shot goal for his team. Ridiculous.

For the ‘Canes, they’re going to need to come up with the best game they’ve played all season, because the Caps are playing like they’re done screwing around. It does look like they could have Andrei Svechnikov back for Game 6, which would help tremendously.