We could be breaking out the brooms for all four NHL and NBA conference finals. The Denver Nuggets finished off the LeBron-LeLakers and the Miami Heat will eventually put the Celtics out of their misery on the hardcourt side of things.
Neither series of the conference final NBA bubble rematches has been close. That’s in huge contrast to the final four on ice. All four Stanley Cup semifinals of sorts have gone to a fourth period. It’s been even, with Vegas and Florida finding the back of the net twice a piece and two wins away from the finals. For large portions of each series, the teams down 0-2, Dallas and Carolina, have had the better of play and can feel hard-done that they didn’t take either of the first pair of contests against their current foe. While all hope should be lost for the Celtics, the Hurricanes and Stars shouldn’t be counted on for a tee time in a week or so just yet.
Sergei Bobrovsky has been the difference maker for Florida
In the case of Florida-Carolina, the difference maker is Sergei Bobrovsky. Without the Panthers’ goaltender standing on his head, both games in Raleigh are won by the home team. Carolina has the better roster on paper. There’s a physical defense, tenacious offense, and a solid goaltender in Antti Raanta. All of it has been negated by Bobrovsky. Matthew Tkachuk might’ve scored both game-winners of the Eastern Conference Finals thus far, but he’s been mostly quiet in regulation since the end of the series win over Boston. Outside of the Game 1 marathon between Carolina and Florida, a total of four minutes, 36 seconds of overtime has been played in NHL conference finals, with Tkachuk’s Game 2 winner taking the longest — 1:51 into Saturday’s overtime. The sudden-death nature of the NHL’s overtime has allowed the balance to tip ever so slightly in the Golden Knights and Panthers’ directions, while on the ice, it’s nearly even between all teams. In The Association, nothing has been close to even.
It’ll never happen, but the figurative towel being thrown in for Los Angeles or Boston basically already happened in both series in the Game 2 fourth-quarter effort for the Nuggets and whatever Game 3 was for Boston. In a Western Conference where lower seeds were filled with the longer-tenured stars, the ol’ No. 1 seed will walk to the NBA Finals. The best team since the Play-In Tournament in the East has been the Heat, despite barely making it into the postseason. Any tag as the No. 8 seed categorically misrepresents how Miami has played over the last month. Both Joe Mazzulla and Darvin Ham gave motivational press conference quotes about their teams having enough fight to win four in a row. Who actually believed that claptrap? What from those seven losses between the Lakers or Celtics actually inspires any kind of faith in consecutive victories?
Contrast that fight with how Dallas and Carolina have displayed. In Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals, the Stars had the crowd in Vegas essentially silent for 50 minutes. And Game 1 was the same for Carolina, with that fan base engaged for seven full periods. Winning four of five at this stage of the postseason is tough, but not impossible. Only four teams in NHL history have come back from a 3-0 hole, making Monday’s game in Sunrise critical for the Hurricanes and Tuesday’s contest a must-win on home ice for the Stars. At least Carolina and Dallas have a chance to advance, unlike the Lakers and Celtics.