ASK A NERD
Five Questions About the NHL Playoffs
By Grantland Staff at
We had some questions about the NHL playoffs, and because we only have like three friends who are actually watching every game of said playoffs (and they are probably pretty sick of our e-mails by now), we turned to Grantland's resident hockey fan, Katie Baker. Please take it away, Katie:
The Canucks and the Penguins could be eliminated with losses Wednesday. Which collapse do you find more surprising?
The Penguins. It's not that I necessarily assumed they would win — I thought it would be a back-and-forth slog of a series and Philly definitely had a chance — but I was NOT expecting them to just completely unravel. Evgeni Malkin, who scored 50 goals this season, has been almost invisible. Marc-Andre Fleury has melted down — the best stat I read was from TSN's Scott Cullen, who said if Fleury had even a .900 save percentage (which isn't even good by playoff standards) it would have been good for nine fewer goals against Pittsburgh in three games. It's just gotten so ugly so fast, and I don't think anyone saw it coming.












