stanley cup finals

The Blackhawks Are Halfway There

By our math, it’s been more than a month since the Flyers played a good hockey team, which is hard to do when you enter the playoffs as the seventh seed and advance to the finals. (We’ll even use a loose definition of “a good hockey team” and say that any team with more wins than the freaking seven seed qualifies.) And this weekend, they held their own against Chicago, which isn’t just a good team, but a great team — but they lost two tight games anyway. Philly should want nothing to do with what happened Saturday, when the two teams combined for eleven goals and Michael Leighton got pulled. (If you’re just joining us, Leighton is the Flyers goalie these days. It’s sometimes hard to keep track.) But yesterday was a little more their style: low scoring — both Chicago goals came 28 seconds apart — with a rink that tilted in their favor late in the game. But despite a wild finish, Chicago will head to Philadelphia up 2–0, even though neither Jonathan Toews nor Patrick Kane has registered a point in the series.

The Blackhawks Are Halfway There