Ray77

I can just hear any opposing team playing a little Blue Oyster Cult - MORE COWBELL! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUO_5EALZoM

Yeah, I'm not sure if they will either. However, I agree with MafiaMan - unfortunately, they will go hard after Vanek.

33...will be 34 next season. His birthday is July 17th. I'm not sure what kind of contract he's looking for, but I'm not sure that you'd want to sign him long-term.

In a live chat on ESPN, Barry Melrose dropped Minnesota as a possible destination for Ryan Miller. Thoughts? The Wild have $22.7M in cap space going into next year so they'll have room to pick up some players. Thomas Vanek obviously is one of the bigger names being talked about going to Minnesota. I think that would be a mistake. Unless they can get him on the cheap (which they won't) I would not sign Vanek. For what it'll cost to sign each player, I'd take Matt Moulson over Vanek. I think we might be seeing the future of Vanek play out this year - a 3rd liner from here on out. I know Therrien has said don't read too much into where he's practicing or what line he's playing on, blah blah blah... Montreal is in the Western Conference finals and they need big time players to play and produce. If he was 1st/2nd line material, he'd be playing on the 1st or 2nd line and there wouldn't be any discussion about what line he's practicing with. Edit: Montreal is in the Eastern Conference finals. I can't remember what grade I got in Geography...

Minneapolis was awarded the 2018 Super Bowl. Minneapolis to host 2018 Super Bowl

Them's fightin' words!

I think Goon's analogy was spot on!

I think he'd rather watch paint dry.

Touche!

Haven't watched much of the game tonight, but the kid must be playing OK. Have the Rangers gotten much on him? Pet peeve alert - if you're going to wear a visor, wear the Fing visor. Yes, I'm talking to you Carl Hagelin (and you, Niklas Kronwall).

I say....Light Em Up! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B55XbHYJmU0

Unbelievable story. I had known about this, but not all of the details. Be careful watching this at work. If you don't want someone walking up behind you unexpectedly and you looking like a wussy all teary-eyed, you might want to wait until you get home tonight to watch. Between this and the passing of Martin St. Louis' mom, I certainly wouldn't mind the Rangers taking down the Western teams! E:60: Dominic Moore: Coming Home

In a 7 game series, I'd take Chi or LA over either the NYR or Canadiens, even as you say the NYR were 3-1 against them during the regular season. However, if either of the 2 remaining teams from the East are going to win it all, I'd MUCH rather have it be the Rangers!

Yes, I understand the head to head results. Chicago finished with 107 points and LA finished with 100 points. NYR finished with a respectable 96 points, however they would have just barely made the playoffs in the West as the #8 seed. I think most people will concede that the West was a tougher conference this year with teams like Colorado, St. Louis, Chicago, Anaheim, San Jose and LA. Each conference certainly has their duds but the Metro division, where the majority of the NYR games were played, was filled with the Islanders, Carolina, NJ and Washington. I'm not "hating" on the Rangers. If they win it, good for them. They will need Lundquist to absolutely stand on his head and steal a couple of games. I just feel that the 2 remaining teams in the West are much better teams than the 2 remaining teams in the East.

This definitely gives the Rangers a huge advantage, and I had originally picked the Canadiens to beat the Rangers, but now that's all out the window. The Rangers will win this series now. And no, I don't think that was a dirty play by Kreider. Whoever wins the Western Conference will win the Cup. My money's on a Chicago repeat.

But will they need to now with the emergence of John Gibson? What about San Jose?

Looks like it's not just the Bruins that are meanies to the poor Canadiens. Now Chris Kreider and those big mean bullies in NY are getting in on the action. Carey Price uncertain for Game 2

I might have to get me one of these!

This article says that Bylsma "kept his job for the time being". It sounds like the status of Bylsma will be evaluated. Queue the circus music in Pittsburgh... Penguins fire GM Ray Shero

Sounds like the Penguins fired Shero, but not Bylsma.

Sad. Although I have no inside info on this, I wonder if Coach Archibald was tough on some poor kid and mommy and daddy complained. If that's the case, what a sad state of affairs.

Exactly. I wonder who Pittsburgh is looking at bringing in as the new GM and coach? Davek - any inside info? Or maybe we should be asking gfhockey?

Crosby isn't what he used to be - so let's fire our coach and GM. I really don't care what they do as I'm not a Penguins fan...in fact, this might be a good thing for the rest of the East! If I were a Penguins fan I wouldn't think it's a good move.

I don't understand this at all. One of the best players in the world scores 1 goal in 2 rounds (13 games) of the playoffs and that's somehow Bylsma and Shero's fault?

That would be excellent! So turning the page to the Conference Finals - who wins Game 7 between LA and Anaheim, and who wins the Conference Finals in the East/West? Here are my predictions (along with rambling thoughts): LA/Anaheim Game 7 - I want to take LA, however Anaheim is at home. Then again Boston and Pittsburgh were also both at home for Game 7 in their respective series and look what happened. Heck, I'm taking LA. Eastern Conference Finals - I'm at a loss. I think these are probably 2 similar teams and it's going to come down to goaltending. Lundquist is obviously a great goalie, however Price impressed me last round. He was calm, cool and collected - definitely a different Carey Price this year. Head to head NY was 1-1-0-1 against Montreal. In these 3 games, there were 4 TOTAL goals scored! Montreal won 2-0 in NY, NY won 1-0 in Montreal and then Montreal won 1-0 in OT in Montreal. I'm guessing Montreal will have some momentum and confidence after last series and, of course, everyone disrespects Montreal as well, so they can still play that card. I'm not wondering if the Rangers will run out of a bit of steam. I think they had some inspiration/motivation with the passing of Martin St. Louis's mom, but you wonder if that will end up taking something out of them in the long run. As much as I hate to say it, I'm taking Montreal in this series. Possibly a 7-gamer and a lot of very low scoring games. Western Conference Finals - This is going to be another great series. I have LA winning tomorrow night, so that means this will be LA/Chicago. Crawford is playing great, Chicago has great leadership, scoring, defense, etc. LA isn't too shabby themselves, but I'll take Chicago in this one. Stanley Cup Final - it doesn't matter who wins Game 7 in the LA/Anaheim series, and it doesn't matter who wins the Western or Eastern Conference Finals. Any of the 3 teams from the West will beat either Montreal or the Rangers. I guess based on my picks above that means Chicago repeats.