Lauren Theisen

Simply observing the regular season would have given you a heads-up that Avalanche-Wild in the second round would make a spine-tingling playoff series. But how could anyone have imagined what transpired in Game 1? A night that started like a disappointing Avs blowout quickly turned into one of the craziest goalfests in NHL history, with Colorado eventually overwhelming Minnesota by a final score of 9-6.

Meet the new round, same as the old round. The first two games of the Carolina Hurricanes' series with the Flyers have looked eerily similar to the Canes' first two against the Senators to start the playoffs. In Game 1, the top seed in the East thoroughly dominated their enemies in a shutout win. In Game 2, the underdog had their chances to

The Buffalo Sabres were a great road team this year. Only the Avalanche won more games away from home, and in the first round of the playoffs the Sabres took all three games they played in Boston by a combined score of 13-3. But Montreal, as the city proved in Game 3 of its second-round win over the Sabres, is a little bit different than your average NHL road trip.

I still can't help but associate Montreal goalie Jakub Dobes with a game I went to in New Jersey in November. It was an OT win for the Devils, and the first loss of the season for a 24-year-old netminder who'd only made 15 starts for the Habs the previous year. He took it hard. Talking to media in the postgame, he seemed devastated in a way that better fit a Game 7 defeat, putting all the blame on himself for a loss he took very personally.

When I first read that Daniel Radcliffe would be doing Every Brilliant Thing on Broadway, I didn’t think it would work. It’s not that I was worried about Radcliffe, who besides his film and TV career has established himself as a bona fide stage entertainer. I was worried about everybody else in the theater, because…

The Carolina Hurricanes have long known what they've been missing: a dynamite top-line presence (or two) who could force a breakthrough with sheer skill when the team's fundamentally sound play wasn't doing enough to give them an advantage late in the postseason. The underlying engine of the Canes was running without a hitch—this is their eighth straight year with a playoff series win. But in order to beat the very best of the best in the second- and third rounds, which they have yet to do in the Rod Brind'Amour era, there was no way around the fact that the Canes needed more talent.

I'm generally loathe to make the same pun that all the other media outlets are running with , but the Colorado Avalanche's current situation makes it irresistible. So here goes: Dude, where's Makar?

The Canadiens are being outplayed by the Hurricanes. You can see it in the shot differential, where the Canes held a 38-13 advantage in Game 3. You could see it just by watching, as the Habs struggled again and again to move the puck up the ice without ceding possession to a ruthless Carolina defense. And you can see it—barely—in the conclusion: 3-2 Canes in overtime, to take a 2-1 series lead.

I know that every Presidents' Trophy winner has lost in the playoffs before the Cup Final in each of the last 13 seasons, and that the Colorado Avalanche advancing even this far made them more successful than your average No. 1 seed. I get that Cale Makar was too injured to play for the first two games, and that Nathan MacKinnon didn't finish the series anywhere near 100 percent. I'll even concede that there was a certain amount of hot goalie woo-woo with Carter Hart in net for Vegas.

Let this completely neutral observer start by saying it would have been more appropriate if UCLA had won this game. Nothing against Dave McKenna's beloved Texas Tech ; the Bruins just had the coolest highlight.