What can you say about last night's 8-2 Detroit round two clincher over the Avs?
Obviously, Johan Franzen dominated, with a hat trick and nine goals in the series.
Obviously, everyone agrees it's time for Peter Forsberg to hang up his skates (and not take them down again to return to the NHL).
Obviously, the sweep/rout pretty much killed the Detroit-Colorado rivalry.
Obviously, the Avs have a lot of decisions to make about next season's roster.
Of course the Wings weren't the only Detroit team clinching a playoff round with a blowout. The Pistons also did it.
In New York, the Rangers lived to play another game, blanking Pittsburgh 3-0. Say what you will about Jaromir Jagr, but there are very few players in the NHL who can decide they want their team to win and then pretty much go ahead and make it happen. This was the Penguins first playoff lost, but is it too little too late? History says yes but one variable is that Pittsburgh goalie Marc-Andrew Fleury has been pretty awful. Pittsburgh's round two record is more a tribute to the inept play of the Rangers and a Pittsburgh defense that swarms their own goalie. Fleury loves to leave rebounds in the crease and he seems pretty easy to beat glove-hand high. He's often out of position and when he scrambles, he tends to hit the ice very early. He's also part of the growing legion of NHL goalies who love playing the puck when one of his own defensemen and one of his opponent's defensemen are about to fight for the puck behind his net. He's looked very beatable to me. Not that we've seen it happen very often in the playoffs.

I don't quite understand the Canadiens goalie situation. Last night, they started backup Jaroslav Halak over rookie Carey Price, presumably their future franchise goalie. Price has struggled in the playoffs, but he's also had some great moments. In other words, he's played like you would expect the average rookie goaltender to play in high-stakes games.
One would assume a rookie goalie, especially one playing in a fishbowl like Montreal and one whose last name isn't Dryden or Roy, to have some growing pains in the playoffs. But if you've decided a rookie is going to be your franchise goalie, as the Habs seems to have decided, you need to let him work his way out of trouble.
It all makes Montreal's trade deadline move of goalie Cristobal Huet to the Caps for a second-round pick all the more confusing. Why not hold onto the more experienced Huet so you have more of a safety net? Why not let Price experience the playoffs without everything on his shoulders? Why not give the team two serious goalie options?
It seems the Habs won't have to deal with the goalie situation much longer, though. The Flyers, who can't hold a lead, somehow have a 3-1 series lead.
For now.
Also, Flyers goalie Marty Biron grew up a huge, face-painting, season-ticket-holding Quebec Nordiques fan. So he's really looking forward to knocking Montreal out of the playoffs. And I guess it's a good thing Colorado won't advance to the next round. I get the feeling Biron would just let Sakic score at will.
Also, San Jose stayed alive in the playoffs one more day. I love Ron Wilson's new strategy: play flawless hockey and capitalize on every mistake you can. I'm curious if that's sustainable over the next three games.
Speaking of San Jose, PJ at Sharkspage has had some beautiful shots of the San Jose side of the series. PJ also had a really nice interview with Victor Chi, formerly the Sharks beat writer for the San Jose Mercury News and now with Sportingnews.com. Among the many things Chi touches on is just how hard it is to play in the Western Conference, given ridiculous travel requirements.

Mike Babcock was the first coach I ever heard use the term puck management. I heard it when he was coaching the Ducks. The idea behind Babcock's idea of puck management was controlling the puck. That can be puck possession, or smart plays, like dump-ins.
More and more coaches talk about puck management, but they seem to mean it as a shorthand for either holding the puck or shooting the puck. But nothing else.
Two of last night's games illustrated that.
Over in New York, the Rangers controlled the puck, spending extended periods in the Pittsburgh zone, and getting off 39 shots and scoring three times. Pittsburgh put up just 17 shots but converted on five of them. Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist wasn't super sharp, but none of the five goals were horrible. Pittsburgh just made the most of their chances, without really managing the puck. The trick is, when they did manage the puck (which I guess makes the linesman middle management), they managed it well. Jaromir Jagr actually pointed this out before the game:

When you look at Pittsburgh, they don't shoot the puck...They make cross-ice passes, making four guys tired and then somebody is going to be open.

"It's not about just shoot the puck on the net, especially in the first 20 seconds. If you do that when guys are fresh, it's easy for [penalty killers] to get the rebound. [After] you make them tired by passing it around, then it makes more sense to shoot."

The Rangers didn't do much of that. They stuck to that half-court style that works against static teams like the Devils but gets killed by fast teams like the Penguins. And sure enough, the Rangers got killed.
The Rangers are down 3-0 in the series because coach Tom Renney refuses to give up on his puck management philosophy. If someone gives him some kind of primer on puck transitioning (WHO MOVED MY PUCK? WHAT COLOR IS YOUR PUCK-ACHUTE?), maybe the Rangers will avoid a sweep.
Over in Dallas, it was a shockingly similar story. The Sharks went down in overtime when Dallas got the puck moving east-to-west (and north to the point), rather than just planting their feet and shooting. It's funny that the Stars would win like that, too, given their reputation for defensive, north-south hockey.
Also, in case there's any confusion, puck management is just a ridiculous name. It sounds like an Excel formula.
Also, to the surprise of no one, the Avs lost last night. Peter Forsberg was back but Ryan Smyth wasn't. Paul Stastny is the latest injury. If Colorado does somehow get a game five, they'll probably dress eight players.
How weird will it be if there are three second-round sweeps?
Also, this is pretty funny: 5 Reasons why Non-hockey Fans should Start Watching the NHL Playoffs. Read it for no other reason than the Versus cracks. Although Versus has been improving. At least they're not just rebroadcasting the TSN feeds for their second games of back-to-backs.

The role of defense in the playoffs is such an interesting thing. The Devils, with no offense to speak of, left in the first round of the playoffs when their defense wasn't enough to keep them in games. The Ducks, with a huge offense, left in the first round when their defense failed them and their offense couldn't compensate. Last night, against Montreal, the Flyers, without a horribly impressive offense, won pretty much on defense alone. After jumping to a 3-0 lead, the Flyers held on to win 3-2. The one hole in Montreal's game this season has been their streakiness. It's easy to blame Habs goalie Carey Price, who was pulled after just three goals, but an offense like Montreal's should have been able to handle the Flyers, a team that can easily lose focus for 20-25 minutes a night.
Over in Dallas, actually quite a bit of a hockey town, hockey is getting even bigger. The Dallas Morning News even has five tips for sounding like a hockey expert. I would add "Good things happen when you put the puck on net" as another. I think I've heard it around 260 times so far this season. How come NBA announcers never say that about basketballs? How come baseball announcers don't say "Good things happen when you hit the ball over the wall"?

I honestly thought the Penguins would go down in the second round very easily. I figured the cakewalk through Ottawa had set unrealistic expectations for the team and I thought the Rangers matched up better, both in terms of experience and grit.
Pittsburgh's game one win seemed like more of a fluke than anything else. But yesterday's win over the Rangers was actually very impressive. They did a great job of keeping the Rangers to the boards. The Rangers don't have a lot of speed, and what little speed they had was useless.
Obviously, we can talk about the special treatment Sidney Crosby gets, and that NBC devoted at least 40 minutes to refuting the very thought of it, in what has to be one of the most embarrassing media-apologizing-for-treatment-of-an-athlete spectacles I've ever seen. But honestly, it really hasn't been that big of an issue. The game one penalty against New York Ranger Marty Straka, who had the audacity not to get out of Crosby's way toward the end of the game, was awful timing, but no worse than blowing a three goal lead.
If the Rangers want to get past the Penguins, they're going to have to change things up. I'd start by dropping Brendan Shanahan down a line or two. Scott Gomez needs some speed on his wing. Larry Brooks agrees with me.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Seth Rorabaugh has a great game two wrap-up post, though.
Also, Terry Frei has a nice column explaining what everyone but the Colorado Avalanche seemed to know months ago: Peter Forsberg is more high-risk than high-reward.
Adrian Dater has a nice post on how Forsberg went down right before game one.

Not that I disagree with NBC's minute-by-minute assurances that Sidney Crosby doesn't dive. I just happened to notice Crosby's upcoming film project: