NHL

Gary Bettman almost got his dream matchup. A Stanley Cup final between The Los Angeles Kings versus the New York Rangers would have had all the storylines to produce one of the highest rated finals in recent memory. Two of the biggest markets in the National Hockey League. One an Original Six team that finished first in its conference, poised to return to the Stanley Cup finals after an eighteen-year absence. The other an improbable 8-seed, the first to ever knock off the top three seeds in its respective conference. Kings v. Rangers had all the glamour and intrigue to battle the NBA playoffs for popularity, until Lou Lamoriello and Martin Brodeur struck again.

It wasn’t easy in the first two rounds.  Only the No. 8 seed next to the Ottawa Senators’ name in the playoff bracket would make you think they weren’t capable of giving the Rangers a series.  The Sens came hard, and the Rangers skated away with a gritty seventh game win at the Garden.  The second round was a matchup with the seventh-seeded Washington Capitals, a new look team with a defensive mindset that didn’t exactly match up with their personnel.  Still, the Capitals brought the Rangers to another decisive seventh game, which the Blueshirts would skate away with on their home ice.  No, it certainly wasn’t a breeze getting through the first two rounds.

The Rangers emerged victorious in a hard fought 7 games series with Ottawa, and now find themselves moving on to round 2 to face the Washington Capitals.  

With an unprecedented 8 suspensions (so far) in the first round of the playoffs, Brendan Shanahan, the NHL head of discipline, has been incredibly busy. The wrath of Shanahan has been frequent and highly varied in severity so far, but is the NHL setting the right precedent by linking the length of suspensions so strongly to an injury occurring on the play?

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