Sunday, April 29, 2007

Friday April 27

Both games on Friday night were eventful for Former Islanders. Let us a take a look:
  • Martin Straka opened the scoring in the New York Rangers' 3-2 road loss against the Buffalo Sabres. The powerplay tally, at 10:08 of the first period, was Straka's first goal of the playoffs and 5th point in 6 games. The score ended a 9 game postseason goalless dating to May 22, 2001 when his then Pittsburgh Penguins fell in 5 games to the New Jersey Devils in the Eastern Conference Finals.
  • Tim Connolly was credited with a powerplay assist on Buffalo's first goal. The assist was his fourth of the playoffs in 7 games but only his second on the man advantage. With the win the Sabres grabbed a 2-0 series lead.
  • Roberto Luongo bounced back from his poor outing in Game 1 to steer his team to a 2-1 double overtime thriller in Anaheim. The Vancouver Canucks evened the series against the Ducks at one game a piece. Luongo stopped 43 of the 44 shots thrown at him including 13 in OT to pick up his 5th win in 9 playoff games. His goals against average is an impressive 1.58 while his save percentage is an spectacular .946. If Vancouver hopes to upset Anaheim it is on his shoulders to get them there.
  • Trevor Linden was, yet again, involved in a game winning play for Vancouver. He assisted on Jeff Cowan's goal 7:49 into the second overtime. Linden is a playoff performer and this postseason is no exception. Linden has 2 goals and 4 assists in 9 games but it is the timeliness of his play that has been most impressive. He has either scored or assisted on 4 of Vancouver's 5 game winning goals in this push towards the Cup.

In no time we will recap the Saturday night games. Thank you for clicking onto FIW and stay tuned as the playoff action keeps getting more and more intense.

No comments: