Day 1 Results

[JiriHrdina]

Day 1
1 LIGHTNING 5 LEAFS 1
2 HURRICANES 1 THRASHERS 4
3 PANTHERS 5 SABRES 7
4 PENGUINS 8 CAPITALS 5

[Sylvanfan]

Crazy, Ray Emery and Dany Sabourin thrust into action heroically lead their teams to come back victories. The SIM she is a cooky one.

[Knut]

Damnit....

Brodeur with a shaky game one.

Got to definitley juggle the lines for game 2.

[looooob]

well this is shaping up to be an interesting series....more later

Patrice Bergeron injured at 10:46 of the 1st Period
Jamie Langenbrunner ejected at 10:46 of the 1st Period
Branko Radivojevic injured at 03:07 of the 3rd Period
Joffrey Lupul ejected at 03:07 of the 3rd Period
Danny Sabourin enters game at 06:42 of 3rd period
Johan Holmqvist enters game at 10:54 of 3rd period
Kyle Wellwood injured at 16:28 of the 3rd Period
Patrik Elias scores a hat trick

[CMPunk]

Go Lightning!!!!

[droopydrew19]

New Season... Fear the power of.....

[OILFAN #81]

THRASHERS START THE PLAYOFFS WITH A 4-1 WIN OVER CAROLINA, TAKE 1-0 SERIES LEAD
(AP - Atlanta)

Coming into the playoffs, the Atlanta Thrashers were seen as favorites in their first round series with the Carolina Hurricanes. The Hurricanes reached the finals a year ago, however this year's team has vastly changed. Carolina boasts the CPHL's top line on paper in Zetterberg-Thornton-Iginla, has a good player in Jeff Carter up front, a solid goaltender in Pascal Leclaire and a veteran defenseman in Jason Smith. After that though, Atlanta was unsure what they were up against prior to game 1. Atlanta finally got to see what they were up against on Tuesday night posting a 4-1 win over Carolina in game 1 of the Gretzky Conference Quarterfinals to take a 1-0 series lead.

Atlanta dominated the game early scoring four first period goals and outshot the Hurricanes 17-8 in the 1st period. The offense came early from four different goal scorers. Markus Naslund, Roman Hamrlik, Robert Nilsson and Brett Clark each scored in the 1st period to give the Thrashers a commanding 4-0 lead after 1 period. Atlanta never looked back as they outshot Carolina 19-12 the rest of the way (36-20 for the game) and coasted to a 4-1 victory. Goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin had his shutout spoiled in the 3rd period as Carolina got a late SH goal from Henrik Zetterberg with 3:14 remaining.

"It's nice to get the playoffs going and get that ever important first win. You don't want to be in a situation down 1-0 when you have home ice as that puts immense pressure on you in game 2. We are happy with the win and feel we played a real solid game. We came out firing in the 1st period as we knew we could put pressure on Carolina early if we could get that 1st goal. We didn't want to stop after 1 and continued with a very solid 1st period. We got efforts from everyone tonight and our special teams were clicking. None of that matters though if we can't repeat it in game 2. We have a chance to take a big lead in this series and we can't let that opportunity slip away. Carolina has a real strong 1st line and we have to be just as effective on them in game 2 as we were tonight to be successful." - Atlanta GM Sutaria

Game Notes: Brett Clark (1 G, 2 A), Robert Nilsson (1G, 1 A), and Roman Hamrlik (1 G) were named the 3 stars of the game. Atlanta's PP went 2 for 8 while Carolina's PP went 0 for 4. Carolina did get the SH goal scored by Zetterberg. Atlanta C Andy McDonald was injured late in the 3rd period on a hit from Vladimir Sobotka. McDonald is day to day and is questionable for game 2.

[Goffie]

Massive ofensive output tonight! AO was huge with a hat trick and Markov played his best game all year with 4 points, Spezza added 3 helpers. All around good effort hopefully the ofense keeps rolling and we get better D.

[looooob]

SABRES DRAW FIRST BLOOD
Sabourin bails out team, Elias with hat trick in game one.

Interestingly one of the decisions that Sabre GM Looooob and coach Ron Wilson agonized over before game one was something seemingly minor, but ultimately critical--namely whether Wade Dubie or Dany Sabourin would back up JS Giguere in the event of a meltdown.

Well a meltdown happened as Giguere allowed 5 goals by the early 3rd, and incredibly Dany Sabourin turned aside all 11 shots he faced to earn victory over Florida in game one. The Sabres rallied to the arrival of Sabourin with 3 goals by Elias, Wolski and Parrish in a 4 minute span in the 3rd to garner the win in what was a physical affair. The Sabres lost 2 key forwards Jamie Langenbrunner and Joffrey Lupul to expulsion as the team doled out the hurt to the Panthers.

Patrik Elias keyed the way for the Sabres with 3 goals and 1 assist. Mike Green was the 3rd star with a 2 point performance. Former Sabre Rob Niedermayer was the 2nd star for Florida. Other players with multipoint games for Buffalo included Vaclav Prospal (4 points), Dustin Penner (2 points) and newcomer Radek Bonk (2 points).

5 goals against is a key concern for Buffalo. There are 2 solid defence forwards Steves Yelle and Begin available in the pressbox should the shoddy defensive play continue.

Thanks to the 'Yotes GM for submitting our lines at the last minute

[HelloHockeyFans]

Oh wow, Tampa with a big Game 1 win to start the series

[looooob]

Best part about the Lightning game?

Period 1
1. LIGHTNING, ERIKSSON 1 (WEIGHT, THEODORE), 16:15

[flambers]

Lots of injuries in day 1, could be interesting... SIM always has an upset... wonder which top team will fall....

[Hanna Sniper]

Thanks for doing those lines for me Grant, report coming soon... need to get settled in first...


damn thrashers, someone should measure Khabibuli's pads

[nyrcrisfer]

Leafs beat by Lightning, 5-1 in Game 1.

Well not a good way to start a series. We weren't playing too great to close out the season and it doesn't look like the time off helped much.

Lundqvist got a lot of rest down the stretch, but he allowed 5 goals on 33 shots in this one. Can't blame anything on him though because the whole team was bad. We were outshot 34-24 and weren't the better team in any of the 3 periods. Hopefully game 2 goes a little better.