As discussed on the NHL on TSN Panel on Monday night:
You have to love the way the Ottawa Senators played on Monday, head coach Paul MacLean said after the game that he liked everything except the outcome.
Here is the problem you run into with the New York Rangers, that is how they play and how they got first in the Eastern Conference. There are many nights when Henrik Lundqvist is the difference.
The Rangers are the masters of winning the 1-0 or 2-1 game and allowing their goaltender to bring it home for them.
You can sit there and say 'we did a great job' but at the end your season is over, that's how effective the Rangers are at shutting you down.
NHL will review Nick Backstrom's end of game match penalty
Nick Backstrom of the Washington Capitals received a match penalty and the other element that is interesting is that the game was effectively over.
Rich Peverley and Alexander Ovechkin got tied up on the boards and they exchanged some stick fouls but nothing major.
Backstrom then comes up to get engaged, Peverley gets his stick up and Backstrom gives him a cross-check into the visor and the head area.
Can I tell you that he's going to be suspended? I can tell you that he got a match penalty and he's been suspended indefinitely pending a review by the National Hockey League.
Based on the earlier non-suspension to Shea Weber, I could easily say no harm no foul no suspension, that's why Weber wasn't suspended.
However this was a stick foul and the climate has been running extremely hot of late. Because a match penalty was assessed on the ice and because it was a stick foul, your guess is as good as mine.
Canucks more likely than Penguins to come back from 3-0 deficit
I would say the Vancouver Canucks have a better chance of coming back from being down 3-0 than the Penguins. The Canucks haven't been that far off the Los Angeles Kings.
Even though they're in a disastrous situation, their playing style has not been disastrously bad, but they have to get their best players going. A team that can score a lot of goals in the Canucks has been coming up short in that department.
But the games have been tight and the margin between victory and defeat has been very slim, they just have to try and find a way to get on the right side of it.
As for the Penguins, the big problem they're going to run into is they're going to start running out of bodies; they're going to lose some players.
Craig Adams is the first guy out of the lineup after his instigator penalty in the last five minutes – an automatic one-game suspension. You've got Arron Asham's hearing on Tuesday; he's going to get suspended.
James Neal: I think he probably could have gotten away with the hit on Sean Couturier but it's tough to get away with the second one on the same shift for all intents and purposes. I think there's a chance that Neal could be suspended.
At the worst possible time, the Penguins are going to lose three significant players from their lineup.
