First Round Recap

Today is the first day of Senior Projects, and, therefore, the official start of this blog.

Here are just some of the many first round moments I found memorable.  Clearly these select clips do not do justice to a great first round of the 2011 NHL playoffs.

Controversial for obvious reasons:

Classic:

Hands down the prettiest goal scored in the playoffs thus far from Bobby Ryan of the Anaheim Ducks:

Boston's Tim Thomas established himself as one of the league's best during the regular season, and he continues to be excellent in the postseason.  The following 2 vs. 1 save summarizes just how good he has been:

Part of what makes playoff hockey so much fun is the hostile atmosphere created in the arenas by their respective fans.  The following two videos show the fans having some fun during the Ranger vs. Capital series.  Washington, however, got the last laugh as they went on to beat New York and advance to the second round, only to be promptly eliminated by the Tampa Bay Lightning in just four games.

Alex Ovechkin working his magic against the Rangers:

The overtime hockey so far has been phenomenal, but no overtime goal has been more dramatic than the blast from Alex Burrows that eliminated the Chicago Blackhawks in game seven in Vancouver.  Chicago forced a game seven after being down in the series 3-0.  It was starting to look like they were going to take the series from Vancouver the way Philadelphia did against Boston last year.  

I'm not too sure that this first round series clinching goal justified a celebration like they won the Stanley Cup, but emotions were running high and it was a huge goal none the less.

Another huge game 7 overtime goal came from a bullet off the stick of Nathan Horton.  I was fortunate enough to attend game 1 of the series in Boston.  The game ended with a lot of disgruntled fans, expressed with remarks such as "I want to punch a baby seal," "if I had any hair left, I would pull it out, but I'm bald as $***," "you're seven feet tall, kill somebody (referencing Zdeno Chara)," and "I want to shake a baby."  The fans got their way in the end, however, thanks to Horton.

PK Subban's goal that sent game seven of this series into overtime to begin with:

Hockey fans even got treated to a penalty shot in game six of the Vancouver vs. Chicago series.  Michael Frolik scores off of a nice deke.  Cory Schneider, who got the controversial start over Roberto Luongo, gets inured on the play and Luongo is forced to come in and finish the game after all.