Let The Playoffs Begin!

The Penguins have landed in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2001. They will face the Ottawa Senators at Ottawa beginning on Wednesday 4/11/07. Games are scheduled as follows:

Wed 4/11 at Ottawa 7pm
Sat 4/14 at Ottawa 3pm
Sun 4/15 at Pittsburgh 6pm
Tue 4/17 at Pittsburgh 7pm
Thu 4/19 at Ottawa 7pm (if necessary)
Sun 4/22 at Pittsburgh 1pm (if necessary)
Tue 4/24 at Ottawa 7pm (if necessary)

Ottawa won home ice advantage for the first round even though they were tied with the Pens in points. The first tiebreaker is number of wins and the Senators had more in the regular season.

Sidney Crosby will be awarded the Art Ross trophy for his league leading total of 120 points. Crosby becomes the youngest player in NHL history to achieve this distinction. Since 1988 the trophy has been awarded to 3 different members if the Pittsburgh Penguins, Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr and now Sidney, a total of 12 times. The rest of the NHL has won the award 7 times. Pittsburgh has been exceedingly lucky to have players of the caliber capable of leading the league in scoring so often. Maybe they should rename it the Penguins Trophy...

Here's a great article about Sid on Yahoo Sports: http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news;_ylt=ArvYPOOcGzQxOc6..2OiBLJ7vLYF?slug=jo-crosby041007&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Evgeni Malkin, a leading candidate for rookie of the year, lead the league in rookie scoring. He finished the season second on the team with 85 points. Congrats to Geno...

Jordan Staal, a very pleasant surprise from the beginning of the season, is also a candidate for rookie of the year on his defensive abilities on the penalty kill. Staal also led the league in short-handed goals with 7.

The Pens won the season series with Ottawa by winning 3 out of 4 games. Two of the games were won in a shootout, one by one goal on April 5th and an early season loss at Mellon Arena on November 10th. While this is a good sign of how the playoffs will proceed, much is being made in the media about the huge experience advantage the Senators have in post-season play while the Pens have very little. In my opinion, this has no bearing on the outcome of the series. Veterans Gary Roberts and Mark Recchi, both have their name on the Stanley Cup, will be able to impart their knowledge on the younger players like Crosby, Staal and Malkin. And as head coach Michel Therrien has said for much of the season, "These guys are just out there to have fun. They are too young to realize what they are accomplishing and having too much fun to realize the pressure they are under."

The series should be highly intense with some terrific offense from both sides. Both teams like to play an up-tempo game and are capable of scoring goals practically at will. There has also been some bad blood recently between them so look for some major scrums throughout. Georges Laraque could become a valuable member of the team very quickly if the Sens start taking liberties with the Penguins stars.

All in all it should be a very entertaining, high profile first round series. My prediction: Penguins in 6.