Note from self: This post was written prior to this morning's Rangers-Capitals game (which I've recorded, but not watched yet) so if there's no mention below of any 90 save or 15 goals against performances, that's why...

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Goaltenders are weird. Similar to a box of chocolates as described by Forrest Gump, you never know what you're going to get (as exhibit A, I give you former Caps goalie Jim Carey).

This being the case, fans of this season's playoff teams have to simply hope their guy gets hot (or in the case of the Hurricanes a few years ago... hope their guy gets pulled and his replacement gets hot). The question that then arises is who is most likely to get hot and carry their team to the promised land (that being the Cup Championship for those not digging the metaphor).

Let's take a look see (on a 1-3 scale with 3 being most likely to reach "hotness" status):

Western Conference

San Jose Sharks: Evgeni Nabokov - 2. Good goalie, has never proved it at crunch time.

Detroit Red Wings: Chris Osgood - 2. Has been good enough to win a Cup before.

Vancouver Canucks: Roberto Luongo - 3. Me thinks he one of only two truly elite goalies.

Chicago Blackhawks: Nikolai Khabibulin - 2. Similar to Osgood, he's done it before.

Calgary Flames: Mikka Kiprusoff -2. Has been elite in the past, not so much the last two years.

Columbus Blue Jackets: Steve Mason - 2. I love his performance this season, but it's just one regular season.

St. Louis Blues: Chris Mason - 2. Would be tempted to give him a 1, but has played well the first two games.

Anaheim Ducks: Jonas Hiller - 2. Parallels to Steve Mason... excellent season, but relatively new on the scene.

Eastern Conference

Boston Bruins: Tim Thomas - 2. A great story and super fun to watch. Still new to the top tier, though.

Washington Capitals: Jose Theodore - 1. Yes, he previously won a Hart Trophy as league MVP, but certainly doesn't look like that guy this season (or this postseason as I wrote about the other day).

New Jersey Devils: Martin Brodeur - 3. Yep, he and Luongo are the only guys I see at this top level of potential greatness.

Pittsburgh Penguins: Marc-Andre Fleury - 2. Very solid. Should help him that he made it all the way to the Finals last season.

Philadelphia Flyers: Martin Biron - 1.5. He gets a fair amount of flak, but did get the Flyers to the Eastern Conference Finals last season. That said, I stand by my writing that he should have had Bill Guerin's OT goal in game two.

Carolina Hurricanes: Cam Ward - 2.5. Has taken his team all the way to the Stanley Cup before.

New York Rangers: Henrik Lundqvist - 2.5. Great potential. Has carried his team at times.

Montreal Canadiens: Carey Price - 1.5. I keep hearing about how great he should be... haven't seen it much this season.

Note: this post is copied from my blog at http://ahockeyguy.blogspot.com/... you know, more readers here.

Well, a couple of games in and a bit more is being worked out. Here's what was played today...

Pittsburgh-Philadelphia

Game two seemed quite a bit less one-sided with the Flyers and Pens pretty tightly matched. Same result, though... a Pittsburgh victory which now puts them up two games to none. Two thoughts I had watching this game:

1. I wish Bill Guerin was as good for the Sharks as he seems to be with the Pens. Two goals (including the OT game winner) and an assist in a 3-2 victory is pretty solid.

2. I thought Pittsburgh would be way chagrined after going offside entering the offensive zone during their OT 5-3 given how gassed (and injured) the Flyers were. Guerin then scoring on the next play I'm sure took the sting of that chagrin... just a touch.

3. Martin Biron played a good game in net with some 45 saves, but I suspect he would have liked to have back the OT goal. Not that every goalie doesn't want to have back every OT goal, but it went right through Biron... that whole stick on the ice thing.

Philadelphia is certainly still in the series, but I think back to the Sharks-Stars series last postseason. A team can be playing well towards the end of the series, but if they start deep in the hole, sometimes it's too deep to climb back out. The Flyers being down 2-0 are getting close to that point.

New Jersey-Carolina

Oh yeah... they did play. Wasn't televised on Versus so I didn't see it, but in the matchup of what to me are the two least interesting teams in the playoffs, Carolina won in OT to tie the series at 1-1. There ya' go...

Vancouver-St. Louis

Now that Philadelphia has shown themselves to be a solid adversary (as in being close to winning against) for Pittsburgh, that series reminds me of Vancouver-St. Louis. The Blues are a pretty good team that's sound in a lot of areas of the game, but Vancouver just seems a bit more sound in each and every area.

After a 3-0 victory today, the Canucks go up two games to zero. St. Louis will probably not back down all series, but in the end they appear to be a bit short of Vancouver.

This post taken from my blog at... http://ahockeyguy.blogspot.com/ (same story as prior FanPost... more readers here).

Well, that was a game. Having attended it, I had a few impressions of the Sharks... none of them of the "it's over, we're done" variety, but all of them I felt adding up to a game one defeat.

1. I don't see any reason why to dress Jody Shelley. I discussed this in a prior post, but not even counting Torrey Mitchell (and I don't see how you can count him until the time he actually plays a game), I see five other options I'd rather have out there. Heck, make that six if you want to throw Claude Lemieux out there for the same (very low) number of shifts as Shelley receives. Now, to rebut the argument that you need Shelley to counteract the pugilistic stylings of George Parros, I say both why? and... if you need someone to lose a fight to George Parros, why not use Brad Staubitz?

2. The Sharks breakout of their defensive zone was abysmal compared to the breakout by Anaheim. Especially at the start of the game, the Ducks were using what I'll call a home-run breakout straight up the middle of the ice to great success. The Sharks on the other hand seemed to only be effective exiting their defensive zone when they just gave the puck to Dan Boyle and had him skate with it.

3. The Sharks entry into the offensive zone was probably even worse than their defensive zone breakout. Closely related to San Jose's 0 for 6 powerplay effort, they just never seemed to be able to get set up in the Ducks end of the ice. I suppose I could make a separate point about this, but if you don't set up and then convert when you have the man advantage, there's no reason for your (less disciplined) opponent to not take liberties (and have a few calls go against them).

It's odd. I was the "happiest baby on the block" when Ron Wilson was let go... and subsequently replaced with Todd McClellan, but now the three things that bothered me from game one are all coaching related. I do think, though, that the advantage this regime has over that of Wilson's is a much greater flexibility and willingness to change things up when needed.

We'll see how it all plays, and if for a few breaks here and there the Sharks could have won game one anyways, but I really hope to see some tweaks to the lineup and on-ice tactics for game two.

Long series and I still believe San Jose to be the better team, they just have to you know... play better than their opponent.

Note from self: everything above is taken from my blog at http://ahockeyguy.blogspot.com/... just there's way more people here ;)