My favorite time of year NHL playoffs, pair that with the always exciting NBA post-season and every day from here to June we will have interesting tidbits to talk about in sports every night, so now a return of my favorite thing to write on this blog, The Night Before. Hoping to have two of these out every weekend and one out during the week. Hope you all enjoy!
NHL The Night Before
Carolina Hurricanes New York Islanders game 1: The Canes win game 1 3-1. This looks like it could be a pretty interesting series. Semyon Varlamov got beat on a strange goal to the top shelf when he went down too early to the butterfly position on his pads early in period one but was very solid the rest of the way stopping 23 shots. Frederick Andersen, the Hurricanes goalie, played out of his mind stopping all but one of 34 shots fired on net.
New Canes addition Evgeny Kuznetsov bought another level of scoring and the Canes grabbed the win. The Hurricanes have had post season skeptics, including myself, but this game one performance shows they are not a team to be trifled with in the Eastern conference.
Boston Bruins Toronto Maple Leafs game 1: Hard to have a worse start than the Leafs did here. No urgency, no physicality until the third period, and 12 turnovers for the Leafs. This series is going to be a battle, after being out hit by nearly 20 in the first period the game finished with 50 hits per side.
It will be an extremely physical series but potentially a short one. Not only did Leafs star and highly paid veteran William Nylander not even dress for the game but the big dawgs of Auston Matthew, Mitch Marner, and John Tavares made no impact in this game. The Leafs have the highest salary cap in the league and yet their core will not perform in the playoffs. It looks like it will be another wait til next year in the six.
Meanwhile, the Bruins look dangerous, if Jake Debrusk (who scored 2 goals in game one) is going to produce like this in the playoffs then look out. We could be writing in the night before about the Bruins well into May if this is how they play. Jeremy Swayman, the goalie, also dominated in game 1 stopping 35 shots. The Bruins, they are marching.
NBA Quick Hits
- Donovan Mitchell remains an elite playoff performer. The Magic are so young, that inexperience could hurt them in this series.
- Anthony Edwards vs KD is going to be must watch TV night in and night out. Edwards is a guy built for playoff basketball and he made himself known in game 1. Also, crazy what Rudy Gobert looks like when you put wing defenders around him.
- The Nova Knicks, Jalen Brunson had an off night and Tyrese Maxey went off but the Knicks are a deep team. Three players with 20 plus points and two players with 11 plus. The Knicks pass the first test at the garden.
- Nikola Jokic is an unreal basketball player. Even if LeBr0n and Anthony Davis play their a games this entire series, the Lakers won’t keep up with the Nuggets. Denver in 5.
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