by Joe Lami

Montreal 3 vs. Ottawa 1: Its going to be tough for Ottawa to come back the Senators got a little bit lucky on Wednesday night where they got the 1-0 win. Ottawa goalie Craig Anderson whose been righting the ship all year helped get the shutout over the Habs. You can bet that on Friday night the Habs go back to the Bell Centre their not going to get shut out again.

It’s too hard of a building to play in and with 22,000 cheering for the Habs this ones going past five games Montreal should get the win on Friday night.

Tampa Bay 2 vs. Detroit 2: Thursday night’s game had Tampa Bay winning 3-2 coming back after the Red Wings had a 2-0 lead going into the third period. The Lighting stormed back and was able to tie the game and then get the game winner in overtime with the great play of Tyler Johnson. He’s going to be the difference maker with four goals already in the series.

The Red Wings have to worry if they can come back after a monsterous collapse in the third period. The Wings were getting ready to go up 3-1 all of sudden the series is tied going back to Tampa.

NY Rangers 3 Pittsburgh 1: The Rangers with the lead in this series is par for the course it’s a matter of time as the Rangers should be facing off against the Habs in the Eastern Conference the way it works out this year. With the bracket the Rangers up 3-1 its not expected that there should be any more trouble the rest of the way.

The Penguins have had a little bit of trouble and that was kind of expected with the injury to Kenny Malkin he hasn’t been 100 percent when he has played. The Rangers have one of the best defensive teams and one of the best goalies in Henrik Lundvquist getting ready to try to close the series on the Pens on Friday night.

Washington 3 vs. NY Islanders 2: The Caps absolutely destroyed the Islanders 5-1 on Thursday night getting a huge win at MCI Center in DC to take a 3-2 series lead. Now this series is headed back to the old barn in Uniondale New York and can the old barn do the magic for the Islanders. It was such a huge loss for the Islanders as the Caps offense of Evegeni Kuznetsov and Karl Alzner scored the first two big goals of the game.

The Caps just lit up the Islanders, the Islanders got on the board at 5:48 in the first period for the first goal of the game scored by the Isles scored by Josh Baily. Five unanswered goals were later scored by the Caps. The Caps have all of the momentum trying to finish this series out later this weekend.

Calgary 3 Vancouver 2: The Flames want to seal the deal with just one more game to try and do it after the Canucks held onto to win game five on Thursday night 2-1. The Canucks Daniel Sedan scored his second goal of the playoffs for the gamer at 1:47 of the third period to get the Canucks within one game of tying up this series.

The Flames would be better off if they can get a chance to finish off the Canucks. This series has been really physical you really got to respect how these two teams have been playing as rivals. The fact is the Flames Michael Ferland can keep it up with his physical play. You just have to worry now that this series is going deep and it’s headed for game six.

Anaheim 4 vs. Winnipeg 0: The Ducks swept this series but by no circumstances did the Ducks dominate the Jets. The Ducks looked more dominate in game four than anything else The Ducks in this series was a great third period team in the regular season and that really showed in the playoffs that they were able to come back three different times trailing in the third period.

The Ducks Ryan Kessler had a great game four scoring two of the three goals for Anaheim. I predicted the Ducks to get past the Jets with no problem the Ducks are too good of a team. But it would have been great for the Jets to at least celebrate one home win. My prediction at the beginning of the playoffs that it would be Anaheim in five.

Chicago 3 Nashville 2: The Predators won game five in fashion with a three goal win 5-2 over the Chicago Blackhawks. To begin with this was not a surprise this was going to be a very good series. We knew this going into Chicago and the Preds played a better game when it mattered. This series has seen two overtimes both of which the Hawks already won.

Two nights ago in game four your looking at a game that went into triple overtime before the Hawks Brent Seabrook was able to find the slapper from the point and shot past Nashville goalie Pekka Rinne this game finished at 1:00 AM Chicago time. The fact is game four was a draining game. This series going in was expected to be one of the best with the Preds having an outstanding season.

St.Louis 2 vs. Minnesota 2: The Blues absolutely dominated the Wild on Wednesday night in game four 6-1. The Blues had won the second game at St.Louis 4-1 to tie it up at 1-1 at Scotttrade Center. These two teams match up again on Friday night and it’s going to be a very important game because the Blues can get the win.

The Wild can come back from that 6-1 loss and win on opposing ice and be extremely impressive on Friday in St.Louis.

Joe Lami will be reviewing the Stanley Cup Playoffs each week listen to his podcast below right here on http://www.sportsradioservice.com