Good day,
we are back with a regular NHL summary after a two-week break during which we met all four advancing to the Stanley Cup semifinals.
The biggest surprise is the progress of Montreal, which got into the playoffs as the biggest outsider, but then turned the series with Toronto and now clearly eliminated Winnipeg.
Tampa Bay is once again playing as a big title candidate, and Andrei Vasilevsky – the best hockey goalkeeper today – has a lot to do with it.
The series between Boston and New York Islanders showed, among other things, that complaints against the referees are not just the prerogative of Slovakia’s matches at the World Cup.
You are reading:
- as Tomáš Tatar lost his coach’s confidence in Montreal;
- why people still doubt the power of Montreal;
- as Andrei Vasilevsky “catches his own league”;
- that Tampa Bay also benefits from the circumvention of the salary cap;
- as the NHL had no understanding for the talk of referees;
- in which the New York Islanders surpassed Boston.
1. Montreal in the semifinals, Tatar in the stands
The Athletic Magazine he estimated The chance of advancing Toronto through Montreal in the 1st round of the playoffs was 82.7 percent. When the Maple Leafs led the match 3: 1 in the series, it looked like the expected scenario and a clear end to outsiders.
Canadiens, however, only as 30th team in history The NHL reversed this state of the series and moved on. In the 2nd round, they now also eliminated Winnipeg with a 4: 0 result in matches and became the first to advance to the semifinals of the Stanley Cup.
For Montreal, this is the first participation among the top four since 2014. He reached the playoffs with the lowest number of points among all advancing – 59 – and finished the basic part with a series of five losses.
In recent days, Slovak striker Tomáš Tatar watched his team’s unexpected journey to the semifinals only from the stands. Tatar last played in the 5th game against Toronto, and since then coach Dominique Ducharme has always left him out of the lineup.
The position of a substitute for him this season is not a complete novelty.
He slammed the door. Reasons for Tatar’s stay in the stands disassembled on The Athletic Arpon Basu and Marc Antoine Godin. The Slovak was included among the players “who will help
