2008 Stanley Cup Playoffs Blog

Denver - This is life on hockey's death row. You're alive, but you know it won't be for much longer.

Down three games to none, with only two examples in the entire history of the league where teams overcame such a deficit, the Colorado Avalanche are just hoping the state - in this case, the Detroit Red Wings - has a little mercy at the end of it all.

The Avs are utterly, thoroughly demoralized mentally, and so banged up physically that it was more of a Lake Erie Monsters practice Wednesday than anything. Handfuls of regulars sat out practice, while recent Black Ace callups from the AHL Monsters ran around the rink.

The Rangers won't just be attempting to defy history Thursday night. They'll have to do it without at least one and potentially three key forwards. And they'll be without one, sparkplug forward Sean Avery, for as long as they manage to survive.

Avery suffered a lacerated spleen in the first period of last night's 5-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Garden. Though Avery played the remainder of the game, the symptoms he complained of prompted team doctors to take him to St. Vincent's hospital, where he was admitted after a CT scan revealed the injury.

Though he is expected to make a full recovery from the injury, which won't require surgery, Avery will miss the remainder of the playoffs.

PHILADELPHIA - There are only a handful of people who know for sure who will start in the Montreal Canadiens net Wednesday night in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, but there’s an entire city - if not a nation - who would be shocked to see anyone other than Carey Price.

Canadiens head coach Guy Carbonneau maintained his vow of silence with reporters this morning as to whether it will be Price or Jaroslav Halak, and he says he hasn’t even told the other players on the team.

“I don’t know, I swear,” Guillaume Latendresse said with a devilish grin today.

Carbonneau discussed the decision with his coaching staff and other members of the organization, and then he held individual conversations with both goaltenders today once the decision was made.

Denver – It should be played on a loop at hockey camps all this summer. Any two hockey players out there who want to be in the NHL some day should get the tape of the Detroit Red Wings' fourth goal in Game 3 on Monday against the Colorado Avalanche.

They should put the tape in the machine, watch and learn. What happened on the tape won the Red Wings another game against the Avs, putting them up 3-0 in the Western Conference semifinals.

DALLAS - The Dallas Stars have come within one game of reaching the Conference Finals for the first time since 2000, defeating San Jose 2-1 in overtime Tuesday to take a 3-0 lead in their best-of-seven Western Conference semifinal.

The two teams meet again tonight in rare back-to-back playoff games.

"We’re finding ways to win hockey games right now," said Stars captain Brenden Morrow, who set screens on both goals, including a Mattias Norstrom wrister at the 4:37 mark of overtime.

Perhaps the greatest European-born player in NHL history staged a command performance tonight in the Garden. But Jaromir Jagr's night-long dominance was trumped by the lethal efficiency of one of the gifted youngsters who might one day stake a claim to that title.

Evgeni Malkin lasered home two power-play slappers and set up two other goals with deft playmaking. And when combined with Marc-Andre Fleury's superlative goaltending, that was enough to enable the Pittsburgh Penguins to steal Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, 5-3, and take a three-game-to-none lead over Jagr and the New York Rangers.

VOORHEES, N.J. – Though Montreal Canadiens head coach Guy Carbonneau was playing coy Tuesday about who would be his starting netminder in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinal, the Philadelphia Flyers are not only expecting to see Carey Price in net, but they’re expecting an entirely different Price to show up.

The Flyers, to a man, say most of the “bad” goals Price has allowed in the series were out of his hands. A shot off a shin pad here, a screen shot there.

But those goals – and there have been too many just to chalk it up to bad bounces – have had an effect on Price, and the Flyers recognize it. But by no means do they expect Price to simply give up.

SAN JOSE - The Dallas Stars are fast becoming the upset darlings of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

It's a role they seem to relish. For the second consecutive round, Dallas has started up 2-0 in a series by winning both games on the road.

Dallas overcame a 2-1 deficit to start the third period Sunday night and took a 5-2 victory in Game 2 of its Western Conference semifinal series with the Sharks.

"We clawed ourselves back in," Stars coach Dave Tippett said. "We got a break on the early goal and we kept pushing. I thought we pushed right to the end. We needed a strong [third] period to win the game, and our guys came up with one."

Denver - Joel Quenneville may be tired of talking about it, but injuries again were the big story coming out of his Colorado Avalanche's morning skate today.

A day after saying Ryan Smyth was likely to play in Tuesday night's Game 3 with the Detroit Red Wings, Quenneville this morning revealed that, no, Smyth won't play because of a foot injury.

It's just the latest huge blow to an Avs team that seems cursed in this series, after getting all the medical breaks in the first round against Minnesota.

Tom Renney has spent the two days since his team skated off the Mellon Arena ice Sunday afternoon imploring them to get up close and personal with Pittsburgh goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury.

After a series in which the Rangers spent nearly as much time in the opposing crease as Martin Brodeur, few Broadway Blueshirts have been spotted anywhere near the young Pittsburgh goalie - Sean Avery's final 17 seconds spent on the lip of the blue paint and his post-buzzer slash exchange with Fleury hardly counts.

So imagine Renney's surprise when he was told after today's morning skate that Penguins coach Michel Therrien complained to referees between periods of Sunday's game about the Rangers' interfering with Fleury.