Posted on 04/10/2011 8:34:00 PM PDT by airborne
The matchups have been determined, and the combatants will ratchet up their quest for the Stanley Cup, with the NHL's postseason beginning on Wednesday, April 13.
Here is the schedule for the 2011 Stanley Cup Playoffs Quarterfinals.
2011 EASTERN CONFERENCE QUARTERFINALS
#1 seed Washington Capitals vs. #8 seed New York Rangers
Wednesday, April 13 at Washington, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, April 15 at Washington, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, April 17 at New York, 3:00 p.m.
Wednesday, April 20 at New York, 7:00 p.m.
*Saturday, April 23 at Washington, 3:00 p.m.
*Monday, April 25 at New York, TBD
*Wednesday, April 27 at Washington, TBD
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#2 seed Philadelphia Flyers vs. #7 Buffalo Sabres
Thursday, April 14 at Philadelphia, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, April 16 at Philadelphia, 5:00 p.m.
Monday, April 18 at Buffalo, 7:00 p.m.
Wednesday, April 20 at Buffalo, 7:30 p.m.
*Friday, April 22 at Philadelphia, 7:30 p.m.
*Sunday, April 24 at Buffalo, 3:00 p.m.
*Tuesday, April 26 at Philadelphia, TBD
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#3 seed Boston Bruins vs. #6 Montreal Canadians
Thursday, April 14 at Boston, 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, April 16 at Boston, 7:00 p.m.
Monday, April 18 at Montreal, 7:30 p.m.
Thursday, April 21 at Montreal, 7:00 p.m.
*Saturday, April 23 at Boston, 7:00 p.m.
*Tuesday, April 26 at Montreal, TBD
*Wednesday, April 27 at Boston, TBD
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#4seed Pittsburgh Penguins vs. #5 seed Tampa Bay Lightning
Wednesday, April 13 at Pittsburgh, 7:00 p.m.
Friday, April 15 at Pittsburgh, 7:00 p.m.
Monday, April 18 at Tampa Bay, 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday, April 20 at Tampa Bay, 7:30 p.m.
*Saturday, April 23 at Pittsburgh, TBD
*Monday, April 25 at Tampa Bay, TBD
*Wednesday, April 27 at Pittsburgh, TBD
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2011 WESTERN CONFERENCE QUARTERFINALS
#1 seed Vancouver Canucks vs. #8 seed Chicago Blackhawks
Wednesday, April 13 at Vancouver, 10:00 p.m.
Friday, April 15 at Vancouver, 10:00 p.m.
Sunday, April 17 at Chicago, 8:00 p.m.
Tuesday, April 19 at Chicago, 8:00 p.m.
*Thursday, April 21 at Vancouver, 10:00 p.m.
*Sunday, April 24 at Chicago, 8:00 p.m.
*Tuesday, April 26 at Vancouver, TBD
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#2 seed San Jose Sharks vs. #7 seed Los Angeles Kings
Thursday, April 14 at San Jose, 10:00 p.m.
Saturday, April 16 at San Jose, 10:00 p.m.
Tuesday, April 19 at Los Angeles, 10:30 p.m.
Thursday, April 21 at Los Angeles, 10:30 p.m.
*Saturday, April 23 at San Jose, 10:30 p.m.
*Monday, April 25 at Los Angeles, TBD
*Wednesday, April 27 at San Jose, TBD
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#3 seed Detroit Red Wings vs. #6 seed Pheonix Coyotes
Wednesday, April 13 at Detroit, 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, April 16 at Detroit, 1:00 p.m.
Monday, April 18 at Phoenix, 10:30 p.m.
Wednesday, April 20 at Phoenix, 10:30 p.m.
*Friday, April 22 at Detroit, 7:00 p.m.
*Sunday, April 24 at Phoenix, TBD
*Wednesday, April 27 at Detroit, TBD
-------------------------------------------------------
#4 seed Anaheim Ducks vs. #5 seed Nashville Predators
Wednesday, April 13 at Anaheim, 10:30 p.m.
Friday, April 15 at Anaheim, 10:30 p.m.
Sunday, April 17 at Nashville, TBD
Wednesday, April 20 at Nashville, TBD
*Friday, April 22 at Anaheim, 10:00 p.m.
*Sunday, April 24 at Nashville, TBD
*Tuesday, April 26 at Anaheim, TBD
- * denotes if necessary
- All Times are Eastern Standard Time
The glassed-in wall of shame takes on a new dimension.
Well now we know why the Sharks were so eager to get to the sin-bin last night.
For the same reason that Reg Dunlop took deliberate penalties?
It wasn’t Reg, that was Paul Newman’s character. They never give the guy’s name, just that Eddie Shore sent him. But yeah... nnhnnhnnhnhnhn.
Think of this variety of flashing as the kinder gentler cousin of mooning.
It’s the quiet and tasteful Canadian way.
Mr. Eager was rightly dissed, but politely so.
Hockey News Ping!
According to an unconfirmed and to this point unsubstantiated report in the Globe and Mail, an agreement to sell the National Hockey League’s Atlanta Thrashers to a Winnipeg group which plans to relocate the franchise to the Manitoba capital is done.
Sources told the Globe and Mail Thursday night that preparations are being made for an announcement Tuesday of the sale and transfer of the Thrashers to True North Sports and Entertainment, which owns and operates the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League and the MTS Centre arena, which would become the NHL team’s new home.
http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=563305&navid=mod-rr-headlines
Surprised it wasn’t the Coyotes.
They lost a team before. Can they keep one this time?
Makes more sense to locate hockey teams where there are hockey fans.
Less than two decades ago, the NHL decided that a metro area like Phoenix with a few thousand hockey fans among 3+ million people was a better market than a city like Winnipeg with several hundred thousand serious hockey fans among only 600,000 people. It looks like they're starting to see the folly of that growth strategy.
The growth strategy would have worked if the teams didn’t stink. Success draws fans, failure tests fans. The Thrashers made it to the playoffs once and got swept out of the first round, the Coyote continued the franchise tradition of making the playoffs and losing the first round then they did 6 seasons in a row without making the playoffs, not much reason for people to “discover” the team. Even “traditional” hockey markets like Edmonton and Calgary started having attendance problems when the teams hit the skids. Meanwhile the Sharks regularly get to the second round of the playoffs and have a good fan base and make money.
Success on the field makes for success off the field. Doesn’t matter what the sport is or whether or not the location “should” care about it. People will pay to watch perennial winners, and they stay away from perennial losers in droves.
Nothing against southern teams or their fans, but hockey in places like Nashville, Phoenix, Atlanta just seems... unnatural.
At one point hockey anywhere was unnatural, because it was a new sport. That’s why I’ve always scoffed at the “traditional market” argument. If the Moose continue the lack of winning tradition the Thrashers have had they won’t be getting much support from Winnipeg either, nobody really wants to start cheering for losers, they’ll stay with a losing team they’ve already built loyalty to, but they won’t build loyalty to losers. That was part of the problem the Jets had, and the Thrashers are much worse than the Jets ever were, 1 playoff series, no playoff wins (I mean games), it’s hard to imagine any audience beating down the doors to watch that team.
Discostu: I think your focus on the importance of "winning" is relevant, but it should not be overestimated. In an era when major sports leagues are interested in developing and maintaining as much parity as possible, it's going to be extremely difficult for a team to build a tradition of winning when the rules are increasingly stacked against it. In a league where 16 out of 30 teams make the playoffs, the odds of a team winning more than one or two Stanley Cups in a fan's lifetime are going to be pretty slim . . . and the sheer numbers here indicate that a team is almost as likely to miss the playoffs as make the playoffs in any given season.
That's why in my book, "winning tradition" is less important than "tradition," period. The Cubs can fill Wrigley Field even though they haven't won a World Series in a hundred years, and have been marked by ineptitude for many of those years.
I've long said that there are only eight NHL franchises with hard core fan bases -- and by this I mean a franchise that can get 15,000+ fans to a late-season game even if the team is out of playoff contention. These eight teams would include the "Original Six," plus Philadelphia and Edmonton. Winnipeg may very well be another such team, since the Jets did very well at the gate even when they weren't a great team. The Jets didn't move to Phoenix for lack of attendance. They were simply a very small market (the smallest in the NHL at the time, after the Nordiques left Quebec City) and could not keep up with the growth of the NHL as a big-time North American sport. They also had the misfortune of spending most of their NHL existence in the same Smythe Division as some of the most dominant teams (in terms of on-ice performance and media exposure) in the NHL . . . including the dynasty years of the Edmonton Oilers, the Calgary Flames of the late 1980s, the Los Angeles Kings during the Gretzky era, and the Vancouver Canucks during the Pavel Bure era.
And as Lexinom said, currency exchange rates play a huge role in the NHL's business model, too. In the midst of that flurry of new or relocated teams in large U.S. markets in the last two decades (Phoenix, Dallas, Atlanta, the two Florida teams, Anaheim, Carolina, etc.), it's hard to believe that Saskatoon (with a population of about 200,000+ people) was a serious contender for an expansion franchise or a relocated franchise (the St. Louis Blues were in play at the time) as recently as the late 1980s!
I don’t know if you have to have a tradition of winning it all, but you definitely need to not have a tradition of losing, and a tradition of contending would be nice. I’ll contrast San Jose and Calgary, Calgary should be a strong hockey market, but the Flames went on a serious skid and they had to close the upper deck so the team could resume selling out games; San Jose shouldn’t be a strong hockey market and the Sharks have never won it all, but they’re always competitive and strong and frequently go deep in the playoffs and their stadium is always capacity and always loud.
Some teams are kind of immune, but they’ve also been around a while. Cubs fans now take pride in their losing history, but we should remember that by the time this “curse” started the team had been around almost 40 years and had won a couple of Series. And meanwhile they tend to remain in contention just long enough to build hope in the fan base most seasons. They actually tend to have good regular seasons, with an overall over 500 record, it’s the post season where the team collapses.
Well established teams can survive skips. The Cubs continue to prove it, the Packers have proved it. But you’ve got to be established, you have to have the loyal fan base. And some teams hit the skids and show they don’t have as loyal a fan base as they thought. You don’t necessarily have to win championships to build that fan base, but you’ve got to at least be competitive. Just look at what happened with the football Cards in their run to the SB, that first playoff game needed the league to push out the sellout line to not get blacked out, then they were on the road for the divisional round but got to be back home for the conference game that sold out with extra seats in hours. Then they had higher attendance for the next season, and did well, and good attendance again for last season. Of course they reverted to form last season, we’ll see what happens to the fan base now.
It takes more than just attendance to keep a team going. Attendance is the visible measure of their popularity, but the money has to be spent away from the arena too. The changing finances of the league exacerbated the problem for sure. I do think if they’d have managed to get past the first round a few times they might have stayed. I remember in the mid-90s one of the owners said that every home playoff game was worth a million dollars net, so even over and above the additional fan excitement of a team being in contention just getting 2 to 4 more home games made it very profitable to get past the first round.
I’m pro Canadian teams and glad Winnipeg is getting one back. But if they don’t actually start contending I don’t think the team will do any better there than the did in Atlanta. Zero playoff game wins in 13 years just isn’t going to get the fans reaching into their wallets.
It’s down to two. I think Vancouver has the edge.
Bruins Win! Great game by both teams and a major battle for the first and only goal.
Stanley Cup final set, Vancouver v Boston, #1 v #3 seed for Lord Stanley’s Cup.
Very evenly matched teams. I have to go with the Nucks,
based on the scientific observation that the B’s goal celebration theme
music is lame.
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