NHL Playoffs. How Did I get here?

I am usually not the one who like to bragg or speak out of my a$$, but if Senators and Devils lose their respective game 7 games, I can proudly say that I would be 8:0 in my first round playoff predictions. And that is not an easy feat to accomplish. So lets go Rangers and Panthers.
But lets reflect on the 1st round series and see how teams got where they are.

Nashville Preds fresh of their newly packaged free gift from Russia with Love in the form of Alexander Radulov somewhat easily dispatched always favorite and dependable Red Wings in 5. Yes the games were close, but the final series Score was not. So kudos to the Preds. Howards was not bad, but common we are talking about Rinne Vs Howard match-up. Please tell me you did not expect the series to end in any other way.

Eight seeded LA Kings once again punched holes in Vancouver defense and goaltending delegating Baby Lou to back up role (even though he did not really played so bad) and basically making goaltender controversy in Nuck land a well advertised reality. Cory Schneider Window to take over as number 1 is wide open. And it would not be surprising to see Luongo leave. The team who sneaked in to the playoffs and struggled to score all season long easily handles (Down One Sedin) Nucks and moves one. Once again displaying that goal-tending wins in the playoffs (unless of course we are talking about Pens Flyers series, but we will get to them later). Jonathan Quick is a real deal, but you already knew that.

San Jose Sharks should really stop believing that they have a goalie. Niemi did win the cup for the Hawks, but is he really any good? I don't think so. And talking about goalies, we do have to give credit to the Blues to seeing something in the worst goalie in NHL last year in Brian Elliot and making him the best goalie in NHL and the playoff Hero so far. So if You asked me before the season I would not bet a dollar on Elliot. But most of us thought before the season that Sharks were a good team as well. So Blues move on.

my second favorite team (since I visit them so often on business trips) Phoenix Coyotes did not have issues (despite million overtimes) against a good Chicago team. Once again goalies win. So Mike Smith was not good enough for the Lightning, but oh boy did he make everybody in PHX forget Mr. Universe (once again more on Bryz later).

On to the eastern side:
The consensus Cup favorite Penguins got their doors blown off by the Flyers. And the flyers beat them at their own game. They just simply outworked and outscored them. Would the Flyers have been able to do it if the Flower was ON, most likely not, but Fleury was not ON and Flyers after changing direction in the off-season and shipping Richards and Carter out and investing in what they saw their solution in goal where able to outperform the Pens superstars.
Paul Holmgren has balls. Big ones. So this is the series where goal-tending did not matter. Well it did matter as long as somebody would make save. Just one save wins a game. Seriously though the best series by far. Non Stop action and lots of hate between the teams.

And the other series, I somehow felt that though Boston is the better team they just do not matchup well against Washington's talent. they just simply dont. And though I like and respect Tim Thomas a lot. I know what Holtby can do. Yes he is raw and gives up a lot of rebounds (that will go away as he adjusts to the speed of NHL), but he is the type of goalie who can steal a series, which he did last night. (reminds me of Quick a lot)

My beloved and heavily favored Rangers needed a narrow road victory just to force game 7. Crazy stuff indeed.

And I am sure a lot of stuff happening in the Devils - Panthers series, but let be honest here, who is watching? or who really cares?

At he first glance a lot of the results in the first round do not make sense, but of course they do to us who have passion for hockey and can read between the lines. We just need to figure out which lines to read between. And that is the most difficult part.

Once again. Lets Go Rangers and Panthers.
Cheers to the great Playoffs.