Dispatching the Preds: Blackhawks Win Series 4-2

Honestly, I'm so glad to be done with this series.  That's not a knock on Nashville.  Actually, I think its more of a compliment to them.  We knew going into the series that the Predators that they were going to frustrate the Hawks, but I don't think anyone really understood the extent to which that would happen.

The Preds played a very disciplined series.  They played their system to near perfection.  Looking at the games they won, you'll notice that they won those games with the forecheck.  The Hawks defense was frustrated and turned a lot of pucks over.  I don't think there's any way Brian Campbell would have came back early if the Hawks weren't in such desperate need of his breakout skills.

Pekka Rinne played a pretty great series and its hard to find too many goals that you can fault him for.  The deflection off Kane at center ice on a dump in was unfortunate for him and kinda flukey.  This won't be the last time he drives Hawks fans towards the deep end.

The Hawks turned the tide of the series when they started getting bodies towards the net.  Kane's tying goal in game 5? Rebound goal.  They'll need to keep driving to the net if they have hopes of beating the Canucks.

We're still waiting on full confirmation of what the schedule for round 2 is going to look like, but we expect it to start on Friday (as has been rumored).  If you're on twitter, you should start following @BenchedWhale for all the info you'll ever need regarding the Canucks.  We encourage some smack talk and a good, heated rivalry, but as Jim Carr said in Slapshot, "Please remember to keep it within the boundaries of good taste."