Jets news:
Globe and Mail: Canada’s NHL teams should be better. Perhaps they didn’t feel it was appropriate to win until the Jets were back in Winnipeg.
Jets official site: Plays of the Year – Round 1 Match 5. Nice saves for both Mason and Pavelec, but our nod goes to the young gun in this head to head.
Winnipeg Free Press: Canada’s NHL teams don’t make the grade. As I asked the other day, will Jets fans tolerate a St. Louis Blues style rebuild? According to what St. Louis Post-Dispatch beat writer Jeremy Rutherford told us last week on the Illegal Curve Hockey Show on TSN Radio 1290, this took approximately 6-7 years. Can you wait that long for the Jets to build their prospect pool and become a contender?
Affiliate news – St. John’s IceCaps:
The Telegram: Focused on finishing off the Crunch. Game 4 of the best of 5 series goes tonight in St. John’s at the Mile One Centre. The Caps will be looking to get another boost from the whiteout wearing crowd as they play before the 40th straight sellout in that hockey mad town.
The Post-Standard: Crunch put season on line. Right now Syracuse can only focus on winning tonight. They cannot worry about the need to win 2 more games to close out the series. They have proven in the last few months that they can survive adversity, and they are going to need to prove same as they play in front of a hostile St. John’s home crowd.
Stanley Cup news:
Note: The 2nd Round gets underway tonight with the Predators visiting the Coyotes for the first ever 2nd round game in Arizona. Here are the other playoff match-ups.
The Tennessean: Preds, Coyotes show depth of NHL. The Preds go into the series well rested (they have been off since they eliminated the Red Wings last Friday) while the Coyotes were pretty banged up following their series with the Blackhawks. Despite having home ice advantage, many have given the edge to the Nashville Predators in this series, although something tells me Phoenix coach Dave Tippett has no problem being the underdog.
The Tennessean: Pekka Rinne leads NHL playoff run. This Nashville team is definitely built from the goalie out and they will need Rinne to continue to be at the top of his game to beat a similarly defensive minded Phoenix team.
Arizona Republic: Mike Smith turns little potential into big results. Always interesting to read about a player told he “isn’t good enough” overcoming that type of talk to get to the biggest hockey stage in North America.
Arizona Republic: Looking to reach another level. The Coyotes are going to need some serious contributions from their entire roster if they hope to beat this Predators team. The good news for both teams is at least one of them will reach the Conference Finals for the first time in team history.
Illegal Curve: Stanley Cup Nightly recap. If you missed any of the stories from last night’s NHL action we have you covered.
