Playoff Update: NHL East Finals

(Guest posted by JFein from Fire Andy Reid Now!)

The NHL Eastern Conference Finals are underway and the Pittsburgh Penguins are looking pretty much unstoppable as they are hell bent on making it back to the Stanley Cup Finals. They lead the Hurricanes 2-0 in the series but the Carolina Hurricanes have certainly been playing them close throughout and it will indeed be interesting to see what happens once we get to the RBC Center in Raliegh. That being said let's take a look at why the Penguins have a series lead.

The Re-Emergence Of Evgeni Malkin: In the Caps-Penguins series and battle of Ovechkin and Crosby, Evgeni Malkin was truly the forgotten about player. Not only was he not talked about much leading up to the series, but once the series started, he showed little as to why he should be talked about. But over the past few games, he has really come out of that shell and now is one of the playoff leaders in several key stats. Of course, last night's hat trick did a lot to help that, but still, you get my point.

Sidney Crosby Maybe A Crybaby, But The Kid Can Play Hockey Last night, for the 6th time this post-season, Cindy Sidney Crosby scored the first goal of the game this post-season, which is a playoff record. And couple that with the fact that Evgeni Malkin scored last night, and that is pretty much an unbeatable combo. And while it is perhaps more or less a coincidence and each goal is only weighed as just that, one goal, when Crosby and Malkin both score in a game, the Penguins just do not lose hockey games. Oh, and someone please tell Joe "I Have Bad Short-Term Memory" Beninati, that before last week, the last Penguin to get a playoff hat trick was Crosby a few weeks ago in that historic Game 2 of the Eastern Semis where both Crosby and Ovechkin got a hat trick, not some dude back in 1999.

Aspeaking Of The Awful Joe Beninati: I could go on and on about how awful he is as an announcer and how his ties that seem to consist of loud shades of dark colors are flat out dreadful, but I'll just let this quote from last night illustrate his awfulness better than a long rant ever can: "That endzone look that we showed, it is baseball season after all, that one was a screw ball."

Goaltending: The goalies have been key factors in this series for sure. Marc-Andre Fleury has been spectacular, despite letting in 4 goals last night, he made some big time saves to keep the Canes goal total to 4 and in Game 1 he single-handedly prevented the Hurricanes from tying the game with 30 seconds left in the game. And on the other side of the fence, Cam Ward could begin to be tiring out. Heading into last night, Ward was 12-2 in games following a playoff loss. Well, he lost last night and he gave up 6 goals in the process (the 7th was an empty netter). The Hurricanes have been riding the back of Cam Ward for the last couple months like there is no tomorrow and one has to wonder if the young keeper is beginning to tire out. If that is the case, and Ward's play only digresses from here, the Pens could have no problem sweeping the series in 4. If Ward can wake up and start playing fantastic again, then watch out, we may have a series here, for even though Fleury has been clutch in key moments in the 3rd period this series, the Canes have showed that they can score on him, so if Ward can outplay Fleury, especially in the early going, then there may not even be an opportunity for Fleury to be clutch as the game could already be out of reach for the Penguins by that point.