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Todd Cordell

I'm going to cheat a little bit and go with one takeaway per conference.

I probably shouldn't have slept on the San Jose Sharks. Even without Joe Thornton, they dominated the Edmonton Oilers in their own building. I still stand by my Oilers pick, but the series is going to be really difficult for them, especially if Todd McLellan doesn't play the matchup game and allows Pete DeBoer to get the Vlasic pairing out against McDavid almost every shift (he did that in Game 1).

As for the East, the Sens missed a golden opportunity in Game 1. They played host to a Bruins team missing David Krejci, Torey Krug, and Brandon Carlo. In other words, a team without its No. 2 center, No. 1 defenseman and another top-4 guy for good measure. The Sens still lost said game. Now the Bruins have home ice advantage and some of their injured players are inching closer to returning. I like the Bruins to advance regardless but the Sens will be in a world of trouble if they don't win the next game.

Peter Tessier

The biggest takeaway is that goal scoring is going to come at a premium. In 8 games over two nights, only 3 games had more than 4 goals scored and by more than 4 I mean 5 total.

There were 2 shutouts and 2 games where only 3 total goals were scored. Why? As we saw last night in the Leafs vs Canada's team this is as boring a style of hockey as ever, even if there are more than 3 total goals being scored. Maybe for the first time ever, we're seeing systems and tactics executed in such a precise way that it's becoming so obvious that fun is being sucked out of hockey.

Now there was offence and goaltending performances from Jake Allen, Talbot, and Elliot, who all saw more than 40 shots. But if the trend from the first 2 nights holds, offence will be at a premium and that can make for some exciting hockey but also tough to view hockey too.

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