The Boston Bruins have eliminated the New York Rangers and will advance to face the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Eastern Conference Finals.

The Bruins knocked off the Rangers with a 3-1 victory in Saturday’s Game Five of their playoff series.

The Blueshirts were down 3-0 in the series before they picked up a win in Game Four to avoid getting swept. Some chatter began about 2010, when the Bruins dropped a 3-0 series lead to the Philadelphia Flyers and eventually lost the series. As any hockey fan knows, a reputation is easy to gain and impossible to lose.

But the Bruins closed it out on Saturday in convincing fashion, with two goals from Gregory Campbell and another from young defenceman Torey Krug. The latter had scored his fourth goal in five games in the series since being called up.

Boston will now make the third round of the playoffs for just the second time since 1992. The last time they did it was in 2011 and, as anyone in Vancouver still remembers, they went on to win the Stanley Cup.

Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask had 28 saves in the win, while his counterpart Henrik Lundqvist made 30. Despite everything the Rangers goalie tried to do, he couldn’t push his team to score when it mattered. Rask holds a .928 save percentage and a 2.22 GAA over a dozen playoff games. Lundqvist came out just a shade better statistically, with a 2.14 GAA and a .934 save percentage. King Henrik also faced the most shots of any goalie in this year’s post-season thus far (411).

“The last two games, we gave ourselves a chance to win,” Lundqvist said. “But it took us a couple of games to get there. I expected more from us. Last year, a lot of things went our way. This was a different season. We have to learn from this.”

The Bruins held the advantage in just about every other area of the ice, however, and that lead to the eventual series win. They dominated in terms of puck possession and physical play, often forcing the Rangers to make mistakes that lead to turnovers and eventual goals (just as Roman Hamrlik).

The Rangers, meanwhile, often seemed flustered. Brad Richards was benched for two games in the series, including the elimination game. It may have been the right decision, what with Richards having just a point in 10 games and looking shameful on the power play, but it certainly sent ripples through the hockey club.

Going forward, the Bruins are looking to roll four lines against the Penguins and hope that their impressive depth gives them the edge. ”We learned that two years ago, that depth comes into play,” Campbell said. “The further you go, the better the teams are and the higher the level [of play] is and the more you have to rely on everybody..Pittsburgh, they’re a heck of a team. They’re four lines deep too, and they use everybody. We have a lot of respect for them, and we’ll use everybody as well.”

“It’s going to be very tough,” Boston forward Brad Marchand said. “They’re playing incredible right now. We’ve obviously watched them against Ottawa and New York and there’s not many holes in their game, so we’re going to have to make sure we put our best game on the ice every night.”

The last of the Canadian teams have ridden off into the sunset – or perhaps been forced into the sunset by the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Penguins defeated the Ottawa Senators by a final score of 6-2 on Friday night, ending the series in five games. Three of the games in the series saw Pittsburgh win by a margin of three goals or more.

Despite the Senators ability to “play up” in the post-season thus far, they simply struggled too much against the Penguins to get the win. In the first round, Pittsburgh scored 25 goals in six games against the New York Islanders. Against the Senators, they kept the pedal to the metal and scored another 22. That gives them an absurd average of 4.5 goals per game in 11 playoff games thus far. Stopping that kind of onslaught takes some doing, to say the least.

“I think we played with a lot of speed pretty consistently,” Sidney Crosby said on NBC Sports Network. “I don’t think we had too many lulls in our game. I think we might have had a couple shifts when they got momentum, but I don’t think we allowed them to get too much too often.”

The problem for the Penguins was supposed to be Senators goalie Craig Anderson, but he let in 20 goals in five games and was yanked from the cage twice in the series.

“We held them off as long as we could, but at the end of the day they were just too powerful,” Anderson said.

At the other end of the ice, Pittsburgh goalie Tomas Vokoun showed why he pulled the net away from Marc-Andre Fleury with a solid performance. ”He’s been solid,” Crosby said. “Hopefully we made it a little bit easier on him, but he definitely made some big saves, especially when we need them.”

But it really was the offense that did in the Senators. Pittsburgh has four of the top five point-getters in the playoffs thus far (Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Crosby, and Jarome Iginla) and three of the top five goal-scorers (Crosby, Pascal Dupuis, James Neal). Of the Senators, only Daniel Alfredsson recorded 10 points or more.

With the loss, Ottawa once again fails to advance past the conference semifinals. They haven’t made it past that destination since 2007 when they made it to the Stanley Cup Finals.

The Penguins, meanwhile, await either the Boston Bruins or New York Rangers.

The Vancouver Canucks have done the expected and fired head coach Alain Vigneault. Assistant coaches Rick Bowness and Newell Brown were also on the chopping block.

“We’re in a results-oriented business and if you look at the last two playoffs we’ve been in, we were the higher-seeded team but lost the first two games at home,” Canucks president and general manager Mike Gillis said. “We lost consecutive games in the last two playoff years, and there comes a point in time where the message has to change and we have to be better. And we simply didn’t get the result we expected.”

Vigneault is – or was – the Canucks’ all-time leader in coaching wins and led Vancouver to six Northwest Division titles along with two Presidents’ Trophy titles (in a row). His Canucks made it within one game of winning the Stanley Cup in 2011 but wound up being blown out 4-0 in the deciding game. The city has never recovered.business and if you look at the last two playoffs we’ve been in, we were the higher-seeded team but lost the first two games at home,” Canucks president and general manager Mike Gillis said. “We lost consecutive games in the last two playoff years, and there comes a point in time where the message has to change and we have to be better. And we simply didn’t get the result we expected.”

Vigneault’s regular season record with the Canucks is 313-170-57, but his post-season record is 33-32. That’s a problem in a sport where losing in the playoffs can erase everything that’s happened prior. Just ask Roberto Luongo.

Vancouver went through a period of significant transition under Vigneault. Prior to his arrival in 2006-2007, the Canucks were a team that traditionally either missed or fought hard to make the playoffs. Few in the city imagined that they could be Cup contenders, let alone among the league’s best hockey clubs. But in his first season as head coach, Vigneault managed to take the team to a division title and to the second round of the post-season. He won the Jack Adams Award in 2007 as the NHL’s coach of the year.

After that, however, the team missed the playoffs and general manager Dave Nonis was fired in favour of Gillis. People also called for the coach’s head, something Gillis says he never gave into. ”People wanted him fired five years ago,” the GM said. “I kept him, and we worked well together and achieved success.”

That success include more successive divisional titles, a couple more second round playoff exits and the eventual face-off against the Boston Bruins for the Stanley Cup.

“I am proud of many of the things we accomplished as a group these past seven seasons in Vancouver and only wish we were able to win the Canucks first Stanley Cup. I am a career coach and it is what I love to do. I hope to coach again in this League and will always have good memories of my time and the fans in Vancouver,” Vigneault said in a statement.

Of course, that extensive history hardly matters after what Gillis called a “terrible season” in 2012-2013. “We’re going to have to reinvent ourselves and do things differently in order to be successful. The macro look at this team is that changes have to be made,” he said.

There are other changes in the wind that seem as obvious as firing Vigneault, of course, but one now has to wonder where Vancouver goes next. There are a few coaching options on the market, from former Sabres coach Lindy Ruff (a wise choice, in my view) to Dallas Eakins to maybe even Guy Boucher.

For now, there’s still time for a fond look back. And any fond look back at Alain Vigneault has to include this.

According to reports, former goalie Patrick Roy is in line to be the next head coach of the Colorado Avalanche.

Roy’s younger brother Stephane posted a Facebook note on Monday night stating that his brother would be the next coach of the team, adding that they were finalizing the details. But that post was taken down and the younger Roy’s account was placed under lock and key.

What’s more, Stephane was interviewed on television in Montreal and said that a phone interview he did with Adrian Dater at The Denver Post had been “exaggerated.” Welcome to the wonderful world of journalism, where a story can be “true” one minute and completely different and/or blown out of proportion the next (see the recent Jarome Iginla trade to Boston, er, Pittsburgh for more examples).

By Tuesday, Dater’s interview and the Facebook post story was making the rounds and the Avalanche chose to respond by not responding. In an email to The Associated Press, the hockey club said that they “won’t comment on any speculation on this issue.”

Of course, the Avs fired former head coach Joe Sacco in late April and have since shuffled the deck in the front office as well. Josh Kroenke became the new team president and he promoted former Avalanche forward and Roy teammate Joe Sakic to the office of executive vice president of hockey operations, a post that gives him a whole lot of input in team decisions – including who the next bench boss will be.

“I love Patrick. He was probably the greatest goalie that ever played. There’s a guy who was a winner. That’s all he wanted to do. I know he’s done a tremendous job with his junior team in Quebec and for sure he’s a guy that you would consider, yeah,” Sakic recently told KKFN in Denver.

So are the Avalanche just sitting on this because Stephane Roy jumped the gun and excitedly shared the story on Facebook and with Dater over the phone? Was the younger Roy contacted by the team and told to dial it back?

These types of things happen all the time and are usually enough to send fans into a tizzy (see the recent Jarome Iginla trade to Boston, er, Pittsburgh for more examples). But the truth is that getting to the truth is often a matter of moving in half-steps.

Is Patrick Roy in line to be the next head coach of the Avalanche? Probably. It would be a smart move, as he has the competitive spirit to handle Colorado’s young nucleus of players. It would be a good first step to get him bench experience at the NHL level, too, and he’d be a nice fit with his former club.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock somewhere or get the majority of your breaking hockey news from us (in which case, we have so much to talk about), you know that Jason Spezza is due back in the Ottawa Senators’ line-up for Game Three on Sunday night. This should give the series a boost for the Sens, who’ll be hoping to dig themselves back in against the Pittsburgh Penguins after dropping the first two games of the matchup.

Spezza has missed the last four months with a herniated disc and has finally been medically cleared to play.

If you think the Senators are going to ease him gently into the line-up while being down by two games in the series, I have some beachfront property I’d like to sell you. Spezza has been practicing on the first line and will in all likelihood be paired up against the top Penguins, just like he was the last time he was in a game where the Senators met Pittsburgh. In that game in January of this year, Spezza was capable of containing both Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin and helped his club escape with a point.

“I feel good,” said Spezza. “I’ve had a good week. It’s been tough to be away from the guys, but I got a lot of good, hard work in. I hope to play tomorrow. I’m excited to have a chance to play again. I feel ready to play.”

The 29-year-old centre has been practicing all since last Sunday and there is still the outside chance that something could hit a snag at game time Sunday, but to say his presence is missed would be an understatement of epic proportions.

“He’s such a skilled playmaker that if you’re on the ice with him you know to keep your stick on the ice because he finds a way to get the puck to you,” said Zack Smith. “When you’re playing with guys like that you’re just more prone to go to the net and go to those areas and be more confident.”

Right now, the Senators are hoping for anything to get their proverbial heads above water. In five regular season games this year, Spezza had five points. More of the same production would be nice.

“Basically I’m just going to go out and work hard and be smart,” said Spezza. “I expect to play well. I wouldn’t play unless I felt I could help the team and contribute.”

Other good news for Ottawa on Sunday: Craig Anderson gets the start.

Raffi Torres has been suspended for the rest of the second round, no matter how long it goes, because of his illegal check to the head of Jarret Stoll on Tuesday night. You can see the hit here and from a reverse angle here.

The San Jose Sharks forward attended an in-person hearing at NHL offices on Thursday and the suspension was handed down after that.

Obviously this is one of the more bizarre suspensions to come around in quite some time and I’m not sure if there’s any precedent for it.

The thing is that the ban could be for anywhere between three and six games theoretically. Players have the right to dispute any suspension that is six games or longer, which this suspension very well could be depending on how the Sharks do against the Los Angeles Kings. But Torres won’t know if his ban is that long and if he even can dispute it until the ban reaches its conclusion, for better or worse for the Sharks.

We’ll call it a “floating suspension” and it’s tricky.

Whatever we decide in our own Internet discussions on the topic, the NHL’s Department of Player Safety has decided that the head was the principal point of contact in this incident. But initial contact was the shoulder, wasn’t it?

“Although we’d agree that Torres might make initial contact with Stoll’s shoulder,” Brendan Shanahan says in the video explanation, “that is a glancing blow. In fact, the head is the principal point of contact.”

The evidence is as follows: Suppose Torres connected with Stoll on the shoulder. The King would’ve been knocked towards another King, Dwight King, along the boards. But Stoll is “sent spinning” by the Torres check instead, with the Shark “sliding through his hit.” That slide-through is “characteristic of many illegal checks to the head.” Or something.

The problem here is really that Torres is such a repeat offender that it’s becoming ridiculous. Even if he did connect with the shoulder first, it appears that the NHL will look for opportunities and even lessons on bodies in motion to throw the proverbially confusing book at him.

Torres made a bad decision, but this isn’t really a dirty hit. He didn’t leave his feet, didn’t elevate, didn’t use his elbow. But one too many visits to the suspension list can’t have helped and that’s why Torres is sitting for however long he’s sitting for.

It’s time once again for our extremely popular Breaking It Down feature, this time with even more Bieber-related surprises. In the final outing for this round, it’s the Boston Bruins and the New York Rangers.

These two clubs have a rivalry that goes back to the early 1970s, a time before Facebook commenters could snidely complain about everything under the sun. In that magical, Zeppelin-infused decade, the Bruins and Rangers met three times over the course of four years in the playoffs. They last tangled in 1973, when the Blueshirts took out Boston. Since then, they’ve never met in the post-season…until now.

Goaltending

For the Rangers, it’s obviously all about Henrik Lundqvist. He took care of the Washington Capitals in the first round, closing out the series with back-to-back shutouts and a 1.65 GAA. He also had a .947 save percentage and locked the Rangers into the series when they perhaps didn’t deserve to be. King Henrik also kept his hold on Washington’s best scorer, stopping 29 of Alex Ovechkin’s 30 shots.

The Bruins, meanwhile, don’t exactly win in the goaltending department. Tuukka Rask comes in with a 2.49 GAA and a .923 save percentage, landing with a solid performance but not a governing one. He was 4-3 in the Bruin’s tough series against the Maple Leafs and was counted on to face a lot of action, just barely outduelling James Reimer in the series. He’ll have to be better against the Rangers.

Defencemen

Zdeno Chara is the gargantuan through which Boston’s blueline runs, of course. He logged over half hour of ice time in the Bruins’ last playoff game against Toronto and had eight points in the series to go with 25 shots on goal. The Rangers will have the unenviable task of containing him. A lot of the other defensive parts will depend on injuries for the Bruins, but Johnny Boychuk, Matt Bartkowski and Dougie Hamilton will probably play bigger roles with Andrew Ference and Dennis Seidenberg banged up.

The Rangers largely battle back with a shutdown pair in Dan Girardi and Ryan McDonagh. They were tagged with shutting down the Capitals’ top line and did the job admirably, containing Ovechkin. They’re still without Marc Staal, of course, but Michael Del Zotto, Anton Stralman, John Moore, and Steve Eminger. Early word is that the Rangers will split the top pair a lot to distribute veteran talent among the rest of the blueliners.

Forwards

The Rangers have struggled to achieve just the right balance of line combinations in the forward department. Rick Nash was contained by the Capitals and went without making a fuss in the series, for one thing, but he may get a boost playing with Derick Brassard and Mats Zuccarello. Carl Hagelin, Derek Stepan and Ryan Callahan are still the top line in New York, while Taylor Pyatt, Brian Boyle and Derek Dorsett are a solid checking line.

For the Bruins, it’s all about size. They’ll wear opponents down shift after shift and should look for more of the same against the Rangers. Milan Lucic was a highlight against the Maple Leafs, coming up with nine points when a lot of Boston’s forwards were kept off the scoreboard. David Krejci was also dangerous, while Brad Marchand, Tyler Seguin and Jaromir Jagr will be looking to get something cooking on Broadway.

With the Bruins having gone the distance against the Maple Leafs, they revealed some weaknesses that will need to be addressed. Having to do that against a hot goalie in Lundqvist is never an easy task in the playoffs and the Rangers’ stifling defensive group could help. If Chara and Co. can bother New York enough on the back end, they may be able to pile on King Henrik. But at this point, that looks doubtful.

It’s time once again for our intensely popular Breaking It Down feature, this time with even more spectacles. For this outing, it’s the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings.

These two teams have disliked each other since the beginning of time (or the beginning of the league) and will renew rivalries once more when Game One goes on Wednesday night. The last time they met in the playoffs was in 2009 in the Western Conference Finals. In that gargantuan test of wills, the Red Wings took the series in five games. The Blackhawks went on to win the Stanley Cup a year later, building their team into the one Detroit now sees before them.

Goaltending

The Red Wings are going with Jimmy Howard, the workhorse. He posted a 2.74 GAA and a .911 save percentage in the playoffs thus far and will need to improve against the Blackhawks. Howard faced a whopping 224 shots on goal from the Anaheim Ducks and will probably face around the same neighbourhood against Chicago.

The Blackhawks, meanwhile, have gone with Corey Crawford thus far and will probably not divert from the plan even with Ray Emery in the wings. Crawford pulled off a 1.32 GAA to go with a .950 save percentage, leaving the first round as one of the best goaltenders statistically. He only faced 139 shots over five games, mind you, and that could make a difference if the Red Wings are able to open things up offensively and create more chances.

Defencemen

Whether or not the Red Wings are able to create more chances depends largely on the prowess of the Chicago blueliners. Duncan Keith is coming off a stellar series against the Minnesota Wild and will look to dominate once again at both ends of the ice. He posted five points in five games and even came out of it with a +5 rating. Only Johnny Oduya added in some defensive firepower, while the rest of the club did the job of locking up the forwards. Niklas Hjalmarsson and Brent Seabrook should stifle the Red Wings.

For Detroit, the post-Lidstrom era means more time in the spotlight for Niklas Kronwall. He’s the top banana in Hockeytown, pairing with Jonathan Ericsson for a potent group on the blueline. Kyle Quincey and Brendan Smith are the second pairing, but they experienced a little trouble with consistency against the Ducks. Smith did post two points in the seven game series, but he finished as a -3.

Forwards

The Red Wings have a pair of the best two-way forwards in the NHL in Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg. Pretty much everything flows through them and rightly so. Zetterberg had eight points in seven games against the Ducks and will be counted on for more of the same against the Blackhawks, while Datsyuk’s top-flight creativity makes him absurdly dangerous. Toss Justin Abdelkader in the mix and you’ve got a tough top line to contend with.

The problem is that the Blackhawks have more depth and proved it when neither Jonathan Toews nor Patrick Kane showed up with goals against the Wild. They still won the series handily, thanks in large part to a more balanced attack and a stellar showing from Patrick Sharp with five goals in five games. Marian Hossa also had six points in the series, while even Bryan Bickell was good for three. Balance is key for Chicago and they can win even without their top stars putting the puck in the net.

The fact of the matter is that this is a very different Red Wings club from the dominant forces of years past. They almost missed the playoffs and they took seven games to get by the Ducks, very nearly missing their shot. It’s the 16th meeting between them and it should be a doozy, plus the realignment means we may not be seeing a Red Wings and Blackhawks series for a very long time.

It’s time once again for our astonishingly popular Breaking It Down feature, now with even more bombshells. For this round, it’s the Los Angeles Kings and the San Jose Sharks.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Battle of California you’ve all been waiting for. No, I’m not talking about the Battle of Rio San Gabriel that was fought in January of 1847 between the Mexicans and the Americans. I’m talking about the Stanley Cup playoff series between the Sharks and Kings. These two teams have been rivals for years, but this is only the second time they’ve met in the post-season. The defending champs will be hoping to take a bite out of the Sharks, but San Jose won’t go down easy.

Goaltending

The Sharks are going with the Vezina-nominated Antti Niemi, who popped out of the first round sweep of the Vancouver Canucks with a .937 save percentage and a 1.86 GAA. He had two overtime wins against the Canucks, too, moving his record to a scary 11-2 in the extra frame in the playoffs. Niemi is 29-19 in the post-season and is making waves as one of the best pure playoff goalies in the league.

Jonathan Quick didn’t start the first round all that well, but he recovered for a better-than-Antti save percentage of .944 and a GAA of 1.58. If his play against the Blues taught us anything, it’s that this is a goaltender who can bounce back from potentially destructive giveaways to steal games and give his club an opportunity to get the job done night in and night out. Sure, I could stuff more clichés in there but I think you get the point.

Defencemen

Drew Doughty leads the charge from the Kings’ blueline. He was second in ice time among all skaters in the first round and logs nearly a half hour a game. Robyn Regehr is his partner, which is ideal because he helps give Doughty the space he needs to rush up the ice. Rob Scuderi and Alec Martinez play shutdown defence, while Slava Voynov gives the Kings another offensive option from the back.

The Sharks have a more balanced defence, at least in terms of minutes, and should continue their first round tactic of spreading ice time around evenly. Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Justin Braun were counted on as the shutdown pair in the first round, logging time against the Sedin twins and effectively closing the ‘Nucks out of the offensive game. Dan Boyle has the skill to make an offensive impact, while the rest of the group is stifling.

Forwards

The depth of the Sharks is as formidable as ever, with players like Logan Couture and Joe Pavelski taking on advanced roles while Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau step back somewhat. That just adds to the Sharks’ balanced approach, allowing the club to roll several lines with lots of options. Plunking Brent Burns on the wing has given them even more to play with, especially considering the fact that he scares small children. Scott Gomez brings experience.

The Kings, meanwhile, also have options. Jeff Carter leads the offensive charge, as he had a quarter of LA’s goals in the first round. Mike Richards and Dwight King flesh out the rest of the top line, which gives the line of Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown and Justin Williams less pressure and more room to move. Dustin Penner also has the opportunity to prove himself and he’s been up to it so far, having scored the series winner in the first round.

This should be, by all accounts, one heck of a series. These teams are quite even and it’s hard to give any club the edge in any department. Analysts are by and large predicting a classic California series, with it likely going the distance. That’s not a bad call, but the Kings have the slight, slight, slight edge on the blueline. Slight.

It’s time once again for our insanely popular Breaking It Down feature, now with even more surprises. This time, it’s the Pittsburgh Penguins and Ottawa Senators.

The Penguins are coming off a gruelling series against the New York Islanders, while the Senators are coming off a physical and bizarre matchup against the Montreal Canadiens. The Penguins come in as the top seeds in the Eastern Conference, of course, while the Senators are seventh. The reason this may matter is that the Senators have thus far “played up” in the post-season, while the Penguins defeated a lower seed and had a little trouble doing it.

Goaltending

The playoffs saw Pittsburgh starter Marc-Andre Fleury actually lose his job in net to Tomas Vokoun thanks to less-than-stellar play against the Islanders. Vokoun got the starting job for Game One against the Senators, too, which means Fleury will have to work his way back into his club’s good graces if he intends to see action. One assumes he will, but right now the Penguins are probably going to ride the hot hand.

The Senators, meanwhile, have the reliable presence of Craig Anderson to work with. That’s a good thing. He put up a 1.80 GAA against the Canadiens in the first round to go with a .950 save percentage. He was easily his team’s MVP in the first round and did not allow a third period goal on 40 shots in five contests so that his Senators could score a dozen. That’s what you call “holding the fort.”

Defencemen

The offensive defenceman Erik Karlsson gets all the buzz, but he’ll have to avoid Matt Cooke’s skate if he hopes to be effective. He’s paired with Marc Methot, which gives the Senators a nice balance of size and top-end skill. Sergei Gonchar and Chris Phillips pair up to munch over 20 minutes per game, while Eric Gryba and Jared Cowen form the third pair. Mike Lundin will probably not be making any appearances, but anything can happen.

Kris Letang is the counter for Karlsson. He’ll continue his Norris-ready play for the Penguins and is Pittsburgh’s leader in ice time, logging about 27 minutes a game with Matt Niskanen. Paul Martin and Brooks Orpik form the second pair. They contributed in some weird but necessary places on the scoreboard, with Orpik scoring the series winner. Deryk Engelland and Douglas Murray form the third pair.

Forwards

Pittsburgh rolls out a big name group with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jarome Iginla, and Pascal Dupuis – four of the top seven scorers in the playoffs thus far. James Neal and Chris Kunitz also balance out the two top lines and produce points, while the team’s depth forwards flesh out where needed. Brenden Morrow, Brandon Sutter and Cooke create an effective checking line, while Joe Vitale, Craig Adams and Tyler Kennedy do the job as a fourth unit.

The Senators averaged four goals per game in their series against the Habs, good for second in playoff scoring behind the, wait for it, Pittsburgh Penguins. Daniel Alfredsson led his team with six points, while Kyle Turris and Cory Conacher fill out the top line. Milan Michalek, Mika Zibanejab and Jakob Silfverberg are the second line, while the unit of Zack Smith, Chris Neil and Matt Kassian bring energy. Erik Condra, who was good for four points, works with Colin Greening and Jean-Gabriel Pageau for the fourth.

On paper, the Penguins’ top-end skill should give them the nod. But in the playoffs, goaltending counts for an awful lot and Pittsburgh has a big question mark in that department. Anderson is the clear advantage for the Senators, giving them an edge. Couple that with their tenacity and physicality and we could be looking at an upset.