Rigamarole - A Foot In The Crease - Episode 5.35 Ft. Jesse Beamish

www.afootinthecrease.com

It really was like “bizzaro” world in the Eastern Conference during the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Two series, each producing staggering results simultaneously was enough to make you scratch your head and wonder if what you were seeing really was, in fact, happening.

After top seeds Washington, New Jersey and Buffalo were all knocked out in round one leaving the Penguins with a second round matchup against the seemingly much weaker Montreal Canadiens, the road appeared paved for a third consecutive trip to the Stanley Cup Finals for Sidney Crosby and company.

But somehow, even amidst a rotating cast of blueliners in and out of the line up throughout the series, the Canadiens managed to keep their heads above water against the power house Penguins and by the end of the series, they were actually the better all around team. Montreal deserved to win that series. The same could not be said for their round one victory over the Capitals where had the two teams switched netminders, the Habs would likely have gone down in four straight.

What seemed like a harder series to predict at the outset, the Boston Bruins appeared poised to make short work of the Philadelphia Flyers building a three games to none series lead. But then the Flyers, bolstered by the return of Simon Gagne in game four squeaked out an overtime victory and began to gain traction. Even a season ending injury to netminder Brian Boucher in game five didn’t slow them down.

Pushing the series to a seventh game while trying to become only the third team in NHL history to come back from such a deficit, the Flyers magic appeared to run out when they got down by a score of 3-0 early in that game but in the end, it was just the Bruins showing the closest a team can possibly come to winning a series without actually winning it.

Unbelievable results, yes. It almost seemed surreal. One thing is for sure though; both series will go down as stories for the ages. But hey, all that was just rigamarole.