Preds   4

Flames 2

We start of the playoffs with a bit of a shocker as Nashville takes game 1 on the road. Despite making the playoffs likely due to half of the conference selling off and/or retooling this perrennial contender showed off their playoff prowess jumping all over the heavily favored Flames early and often and exited the first period up 3-0. Calgary played a pretty decent game in this one and actually outshot the Preds 37-33 but the lack of any scoring until the third period was clearly their undoing. With this game showing the Preds are able to play with this Flame group it appears this may be a long hotly contested series! Preds up 1-0

Kings    3 OT

Vegas   2

Someone call a cop, there has been a theft! All anyone needs to know about this game is GM Rumpel is a genious....ask him, he'll tell ya! Raanta stopped 51 of 53 shots against with the Kings only managing 21. Everything about this game belonged to Vegas except the final score and despite the fact the Kings won the game there are some serious issues to correct if they are going to get out of this round. With the ice tilted so much you can expect fatigue and injuries to come calling so expect to see some changes for game 2! Kings up 1-0

Jets    2

Stars  4

Although it pains me immensely to say this, GM Kato has a strong squad and was clearly the better team in this one! After a rather uneventful first period the hometown Stars took control of the game in the second and poured it on in the third enroute to a 46-20 shot advantage and a convincing win. Don't know what "the Doc" has up his sleeve but there better be something as his Jets were clearly outclassed in this one and will need more than just his goalie to show up if he wants to compete with this Stars group! Dallas up 1-0

Hawks   5

Aves      4

Not quite sure WTF is going on here! GM Yee has had more then his share of success over the years and has a very good group put together while Co-commish Shuck has gathered a very solid group as well so scoring shouldn't shock anyone. What is shocking however is the complete lack of goaltending displayed by the 2 starting goalies in this one! A goalie with an .840 Save% won this 1 whereas any of the other goalies that started this evening and lost all had a better %....i'd say something needs to change for both of these squads as that clearly won't get it done going forward. The difference in this game proved to be the PP as the Hawks netted 2 goals on 4 attempts while the Aves went 0 for 4 on theirs. Both teams will look to improve their team defense for game 2 and like several other series looks like it could go on for awhile. Hawks up 1-0