Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Stanley Cup Playoffs: Wings, Caps, Penguins, Canucks, Predators Take Series Openers

The Stanley Cup Playoffs commenced on Wednesday night with five games.


Eastern Conference:


At Washington:


Alexander Semin scored the game winner at 18:24 of the first overtime period as the Washington Capitals took the opening game of their best-of-seven conference quarterfinal series with the New York Rangers 2-1 at home.


At Pittsburgh:


Alexei Kovalev and Arron Asham each scored a goal 18 seconds apart in the third period and Marc-Andre Fleury stopped all 40 shots as the Pittsburgh Penguins blanked the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning 3-0 in game one of their opening-round series.


Western Conference:


At Detroit:


Second-period goals from Pavel Datsyuk, Johan Franzen, and Brian Rafalski (PP) helped carried the Detroit Red Wings to a 4-2 series-opening home win over the Phoenix Coyotes.  Jimmy Howard stopped 26 of 28 Phoenix shots.


At Vancouver, British Columbia:


Christopher Higgins and Jannik Hansen each scored a goal in the first period and Roberto Luongo stopped all 32 shots as the Vancouver Canucks got the measure of the defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks 2-0 in the opening game of their opening-round series before the home fans.


At Anaheim, California:


Mike Fisher scored twice and assisted once, while Pekka Rinne made 27 saves as the Nashville Predators dominated the Anaheim Ducks 4-1 on the road in their first-round series opener.

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