Wild Well Behind, Flames Come From Behind

I don't know what it is about this playoff season, but the 1-0 finals are becoming quite prevalent this year. Tuesday night's victory for the Blackhawks over the Wild was the third such 1-0 victory in these playoffs and the Playoff Pool weeps for the prevention of lots of points.

The Wild are now faced with the daunting task of trying to come out from behind the 8-ball, after being put behind it in the Central Division Finals by the Blackhawks, thanks to a 30-save effort from goalie Corey Crawford, who has now hit 10 points in these playoffs, after getting off to a rocky start.

The winning goal was scored by Patrick Kane, his second bonus point of the playoffs, as he now leads all Chicago players with 13 points in the pool.

The Calgary Flames were looking to be on the same series trajectory as the Minnesota Wild, as they were down 2-0 heading back home, but their perfect home record remained intact after a dramatic finish to their Game 3, coming back from a late 3rd period deficit to tie the game and force overtime and then taking that momentum into the extra frame and potting the winner on a delayed penalty call.

A 4-3 overtime victory for the Flames now gets them back into the series, which seemed all but lost after their first two games in Anaheim, but they don't have home-ice advantage in this series, which could end up being the problem overall.

In the win, there was only one notable Flames player for the pool, as Mikael Backlund scored the overtime winner, earning him a couple points.  Karri Ramo, who replaced Jonas Hiller, got the win and has since taken over the role as the number one guy going forward.

In the loss, Ryan Getzlaf was the only pool player for the Ducks to pick up a couple of points, as he had a pair of assists.

After Tuesday night's action, we have a new leader and the top three has shifted around significantly.

Jesse P. has jumped into 1st place, now with 137 points, but his team is followed closely by Fontanna's, who has 136 points, while Sean L. currently holds the tie-break over Sairosh for 3rd place, as both teams have 135 points.  Grant S. isn't too far out, siting at 132 points and John S. is at 131.

It sounds like we'll be ending some series sooner rather than later, so it will be interesting to see what the races do when players start getting eliminated from pool teams.  I believe there are still a number of teams that could still open the Conference Finals with a full complement of 12 players at this point.