As the NHL’s post-season rolls closer and closer to its finale, it looks like the San Jose Sharks and Montreal Canadiens could find themselves on the outside looking in. Both teams are one game away from elimination after action on Saturday and both teams have barely shown up to play thus far.

That’s not to say that their opponents don’t deserve any credit, of course. The Chicago Blackhawks and Philadelphia Flyers have played some excellent hockey over the last few days, but the Habs and Sharks haven’t exactly been clicking on all cylinders.

The Blackhawks find themselves in the surprising position of being able to sweep the Sharks on Sunday afternoon. Dustin Byfuglien was the hero of the day for Chicago fans after potting the overtime winner on Friday to give the Blackhawks a 3-0 series lead. To say that the Sharks have had trouble containing him and his teammates would be an understatement, as Captain Serious Jonathan Toews has lead his team as well as any young captain ever has.

Chicago’s Antti Niemi has been spectacular in goal, too, making 44 saves in Friday’s game to help his team to victory. He’s been able to get a fairly good look at the puck throughout the series due to responsible and physical play from his defencemen.

The Sharks will now try to find some strength in the story of the Flyers and their comeback from a 3-0 series deficit, but it’s highly unlikely that we’ll see two of those historic turnarounds in one season’s playoffs.

The Flyers, meanwhile, have been successful in handling the attack of the Montreal club. They’ve also received incredible goaltending from Michael Leighton and have managed to take advantage of some bad luck from the Canadiens, including a skate issue with Josh Gorges that led to a Claude Giroux goal during Saturday’s contest.

The Flyers took a commanding 3-1 series lead thanks to Saturday’s 3-0 win and managed to keep the Habs off of the scoreboard for the third time in the series.

Of course, the Canadiens and their fans will be relying on the fact that they’ve gone 5-0 when facing elimination in the post-season thus far. Statistically they stand a better chance at coming out of this than the Sharks do, but they’re facing a tough and hungry Flyers team and they’re in tough offensively.

It’s probably a little early to start gearing up for a Blackhawks vs. Flyers Stanley Cup Final, but I don’t think it’s that unlikely.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

Montreal Canadiens defenceman Andrei Markov won’t be able bail his team out of trouble any time soon. The club announced on Wednesday that he underwent successful knee surgery, which is the good news. The bad news for Habs fans is that one of the team’s top defenders will be missing six months of action.

Markov did take a light practice skate last week, but it turned out that he suffered a tear of the anterior cruciate ligament of his right knee.

Markov suffered the injury in a collision with Matt Cooke of the Pittsburgh Penguins during an April 30 playoff game.

The defenceman hasn’t had the best of seasons for the Canadiens, going through quite a bit of bad luck throughout the regular season only to have it continue in the post-season. Markov suffered a cut tendon on his left foot in the very first game of the year and was out of action until December 19. He made it back in time to join the Russian team for the Olympics.

Perhaps predictably, the peanut gallery of many sports websites features commentary about Markov’s injury prone nature and how he lacks heart (see the CBC Sports article on this injury for proof). While it’s never surprising to see hockey fans bail on players and teams at the slightest hint of adversity, the critique of Markov is pretty hollow.

In any event, the Habs will and do miss Markov’s presence on the blueline. He is an elite player in the National Hockey League and most Habs fans will have to agree that the timing on this could not have been worse.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

The Montreal Canadiens looked slightly better in their Tuesday night effort against the Philadelphia Flyers, but they were still unable to crack Michael Leighton and wound up being shut out again 3-0 to go down two games in the series.

As of now, the Eastern Conference Final looks like a shockingly one-sided series.

Leighton made 30 saves in Tuesday’s effort and became only the second goalie in Flyers history to notch two back-to-back shutout performances. Only Bernie Parent has had back-to-back shutouts for the Flyers and when he blanked the Maple Leafs in 1975, Philly went on to win the Cup.

Leighton’s put the Flyers two wins away from heading to the Stanley Cup Final, but the series now moves to Montreal and the Habs should be raring to go in front of their home fans. It’s still an uphill climb, but they’ve got a big chance to make a go of it on Thursday.

Strangely, the Canadiens are actually 0-5 in the post-season when the manage to outshoot their opponents.

Another problem for the Habs lies with special teams. They’ve really struggled against the Flyers’ power play, with Danny Briere and Simon Gagne both scoring goals on the man advantage on Tuesday.

The main problem for the Canadiens will be confidence going into Game 3. They’ll need to prove early that they can still put the puck in the net, even if Leighton is playing like a man possessed. With the Flyers goalie seeing every shot well, the Habs know that they’re main order of business has to be that old cliche: traffic to the net.

All the old hockey cliches in the world won’t be able to help the Canadiens if they can’t scrape together a few goals, however, and that has to be first and foremost on the minds of the coaching staff as they prepare for the next game.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

Here is your Eastern Conference Final matchup:

Philadelphia Flyers vs. Montreal Canadiens: It is a series that could not be a more direct contrast to the series in the Western Conference Finals. Out West, the two top seeds are meeting in a decisive series. Out East, however, it’s the two lowest seeds and that makes the Flyers the lowest seed in NHL history to have home ice advantage in the post-season. Mere rankings alone make the Habs the underdogs in the series, but some analysts consider them to be heavy favourites going in.

The season head-to-head record is 2-2 and both finished the regular season with 88 points. The Flyers finished 41-35-6, while the Canadiens left off their regular season with a 39-33-10 record. The Flyers haven’t been to the Stanley Cup Finals since 1997, while the Habs haven’t been there since their 1993 Cup victory. Philly hasn’t seen a Cup since 1975.

The Flyers are the more physical team here, although the Canadiens should give them fits in the shot-blocking department. Nobody has blocked more shots than the Habs in this post-season. In fact, nobody’s even close to Montreal in blocking shots. The Flyers also have the weaker goaltender, going with Michael Leighton in lieu of the injured Brian Boucher. The Habs are, of course, riding the Jaroslav Halak train and will hope to do so right to the end of the line. The Flyers lack the offensive punch of Montreal’s previous two victims, too, and they could struggle putting the puck past them on the PP.

My Prediction: Canadiens in 7.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

Well ladies and gents, the time has come for the Conference Finals. We’ve got some unexpected matchups this year and we certainly know that this year won’t be a repeat of the last two years with Detroit vs. Pittsburgh Stanley Cup Final matchups. It’s been a post-season filled with comebacks and improbable performances, that’s for sure. The Western Conference round-up is perhaps not as surprising as the Eastern Conference round-up, but that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be any less interesting.

Here is your Western Conference Final matchup:

San Jose Sharks vs. Chicago Blackhawks: The San Jose Sharks have finally made it past the first two rounds of the post-season and are looking like a team in position to win it all this year, but they’ve got to get by the young and fast Blackhawks squad first. After knocking off the Canucks, the Chicago club is looking tough and rough but they’ll have their work cut out for them against the Sharks. The Sharks are a bigger team for the most part, but the Blackhawks do know how to get traffic to the net and will give Nabokov more than his fair share of headaches.

Of course, the Western Conference Finals will involve the top two seeds in the Conference and could be considered to be going exactly as planned. Through the preceding two rounds and 36 games, it almost looks like this was destined to happen. The Sharks will have to shake off the past demons, while the Blackhawks will have to prove they’re mature and developed enough to hang in the upper echelon of the league.

For the Sharks, the “two Joes” have really come to play as of late. Both Joe Pavelski and Joe Thornton have found their respective games in recent days and will be tough for the Hawks to handle. On the other hand, moving big Dustin Byfuglien and handling the Chicago assault offensively will be something Rob Blake and Co. will have to dig in deep for. At the end of the day, however, the Sharks have an edge physically and mentally.

My Prediction: Sharks in 6.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

Some among us always believed in the power of the Philadelphia Flyers. On Friday night, those people were rewarded as the Flyers took a Game 7 victory over the Boston Bruins to complete a comeback in the series after being down by three games.

Perhaps even more amazingly, the Flyers came back from a 3-0 deficit in the game itself. They found themselves in the hole after the first period, but pounded back into the game and grabbed the eventual victory.

For the Bruins, they become just the third team in the NHL to lose a series after winning the first three games.

“We got a little carried away from our game plan and lost our composure,” Bruins captain Zdeno Chara said.

Flyers goalie Michael Leighton was remarkable in helping Philadelphia pull back into the series, but his task was far from an easy one. He had to replace an injured Brian Boucher and was starting just his second playoff game in the series’ seventh game. After letting in the first three goals of the game, Leighton was able to close the door for the rest of the way and his team pulled off what many thought was impossible.

Simon Gagne scored the winner, a power play goal. The Bruins took an unfortunate and untimely penalty with 8:50 left in the game and the Flyers capitalized on the confusion.

It seems now that the “History Will Be Made” advertising campaigns promoted by the league during this year’s post-season are more than appropriate. The Flyers join a pretty small club with this series victory.

Says TSN, “The only other teams to win a series after trailing 3-0 were the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs, who beat Detroit, and the 1975 New York Islanders, who eliminated Pittsburgh. The other 159 teams that won the first three games in a series all won them.”

While it’s certainly an exhilarating experience for the Flyers, the team has to look ahead to the next round. They’ll face off against another improbable comeback-oriented team in the Montreal Canadiens and it’s gearing up to be one hell of a series. Both teams have pulled off the unexpected during these playoffs and both teams will be hungry, to say the least.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

With the Pittsburgh Penguins favoured by many to take the Cup once again, the Montreal Canadiens proved the better team as they finished the defending champs off in a thrilling seven game series. The series concluded with a 5-2 victory from the Habs on Wednesday night.

The Canadiens have proven to be the most exciting team to watch in the entire post-season thus far. First they took out the President’s Trophy-winning Washington Capitals in seven games and now they’ve put away last year’s victors in another captivating full series that saw a heroic performance from Jaroslav Halak in goal that will go down in history.

Part of the reason for the success of the Habs against the Penguins was the containment of Sidney Crosby. Crosby was mostly playing against Montreal’s Hal Gill for the series and when the big defender was on him, Sid the Kid was kept quiet.

“I’m not going to sit here and complain about playing Stanley Cup finals and Olympic gold-medal games,” Crosby said. “That’s a good problem to have and you have to deal with it. There are times when it is a grind and you have to deal with it. By no means is that any excuse or any reason for anything. I would never blame that on anything. Those are great things to be a part of and you have to find a way to still produce and be successful.”

The game marked the last game of Pittsburgh Penguins hockey to be played in the Mellon Arena, too.

But for Montrealers, it was all about the victory and all about moving on to the next round. The celebration in Montreal was spectacular, but there’s still a sense of the destiny of this year’s Habs being unfinished. The Canadiens have proved surprising so far, at least for those who didn’t know this was going to happen all along, but the road ahead is still long.

“We have some special guys on this team,” Mike Cammalleri said. “It’s been a lot of fun to be part of … but we’re only halfway there.”

It’s worth noting that many analysts wrote the Habs off entirely in this post-season. The team came into the playoffs in the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference and was expected by many to be a mere warm-up for the Capitals, but they used their small size and speed against the Washington team and pulled off the victory.

They put the same plan to work against the Penguins and isolated the star players with solid defensive play. With Halak to rely on in key moments, the Canadiens were then able to chip away offensively and worked the games down low. The plan didn’t always work, but when it did the Habs were effective at putting the puck in play and popping in a few important, decisive goals.

So now Montreal (and all of us) will have to wait to see what happens when the Philadelphia Flyers face off against the Boston Bruins for a historic game seven of another kind altogether.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

The Chicago Blackhawks took six games to defeat the Vancouver Canucks, but for many it looked like the final results were never in doubt.

Discipline was the name of the game for the series, but the Canucks came up short and often looked like an unhinged, uncontrolled hockey club - especially at home. The team seemed to feed off of negative crowd energy that came after some questionable calls from the officiating and that sort of unbridled, undisciplined energy stuck with the Canucks during every home game.

The only time Vancouver really looked like a cohesive unit in the series was during the games in Chicago. The Canucks opened the series up with a decisive win and played well in the series’ second game, which was a Chicago win. Once the playoff series moved back home, however, it was a different team.

The Blackhawks played well in almost every department and, even with a slightly shaky goaltender, were able to stick it to the Canucks. They played a strong psychological game, too, getting the Canucks off their game with plenty of physical play and lots of chirping after whistles. The Canucks nearly always came out of the scrums with penalties and the Chicago club nearly always made them pay.

A lot can be said about the play of Roberto Luongo in the series. He wasn’t always spectacular, but he did play well against a Chicago onslaught. With Dustin Byfuglien frequently in the crease providing a big screen, Luongo was lucky to see the puck as well as he did. He spent a lot of the series fighting the puck and the rebounds, but this was largely due to a defensive group that often looked lacklustre.

In the sixth and final game of the series, the same mental errors and breakdowns led to the Blackhawks victory. The skill of the young Chicago club was simply too much for the Canucks to face off against, especially when the Vancouver team wasn’t doing itself any mental favours.

At the end of the day, the series was an enjoyable one. It was physical, controversial and fast-paced. The Blackhawks proved a lot to Vancouver fans for the second year in a row (on the same date, too), but something tells me that this ugly feud is far from over.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

Led by a brilliant performance by Mike Cammalleri, the Montreal Canadiens have forced a seventh game against the Pittsburgh Penguins by defeating them 4-3 on Monday night.

This means that the Penguins will have to try to close out the series at home on Wednesday night, but it also means that the Habs have put the Penguins up against the wall and have drastically changed their fortunes. If they can pull off a series win against the Penguins, the Canadiens will have defeated the defending Cup champions and will have knocked off the President’s Trophy winners all within this year’s post-season.

Defenceman Jaroslav Spacek was back in the line-up on Monday night and he contributed with a goal. Maxim Lapierre was there with the game-winner.

The Canadiens entered the playoffs as the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference, but they’ve more than proved their mettle by taking each of their series’ so far into the seventh game. Thanks to stellar goaltending by Jaroslav Halak and a general team effort that includes loads of shot-blocking and solid defensive play, the Habs actually look like they have a chance to seal the deal against the Penguins.

In fact, I’m not so sure that the Canadiens should be considered the underdogs anymore.

Sure, they’re missing the presence of Hal Gill. Gill was able to shut down Sidney Crosby for a lot of the series and his absence on Monday allowed Sid to score a goal to end his six-game scoring slump.

The crowd of 21,273 was behind their Habs from the get-go, even chanting and cheering throughout an entire television time-out after Cammalleri tied the game in the second period. The fans were truly part of the game, giving the home team an advantage as they worked to close it out.

With Halak playing like a man possessed and the rest of the team providing solid support, it looks like the Habs can accomplish the series win going into Wednesday night’s Game 7. Sure, they’ll have to deal with a rowdy Pittsburgh crowd and a fired-up Penguins club, but they may have done just enough to rattle Crosby and Co. to pull off what many thought was the impossible.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

In a wild game that saw the Flyers hold off elimination by defeating the Boston Bruins in overtime, Simon Gagne turned out to be the hero. The forward could not have planned a more timely return to the Flyers’ lineup, playing for the first time since he broke his toe in the fourth game of his team’s opening round series against the Devils.

As amazing as Gagne’s return was (and as suspect as the game winner turned out to be), it was Mark Recchi who was the real story of the game.

Recchi scored the Bruins’ first and last goals. He was responsible for sending the game to overtime with a heroic effort with just over 30 seconds to go in the contest.

Brian Boucher was solid in goal for the Flyers, facing a total of 37 shots on goal. The Bruins’ Tuukka Rask was no slouch, making 29 saves in the effort.

The Flyers will now have to hope that they can keep the momentum from the win going. They’ll certainly get an emotional lift from Gagne’s performance going into the fifth game of the series, but they’ve got an awful lot of work to do if they expect to climb back in the series.

While the Red Wings certainly staved off elimination in decisive fashion against the Sharks, the Flyers often looked shaky and made some strange line decisions in the key moments of Friday night’s game.

Game 5 goes Monday night in Boston, so Philly does have some time to rest up and contemplate their next moves. It’ll be a tough crowd, however, and the deck is stacked against them.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.