NHL Playoff Schedule Released: Quest For Stanley Cup Begins Wednesday

The 2011 Stanley Cup champions begin their title defense at home in Beantown as the No. 2 seed, and welcome the No. 7 Capitals to town. It’s a bit of a role reversal for the two teams: Boston made its improbable run to the Cup as a No. 5 seed in 2011, while the Caps have underachieved in the playoffs after earning the No. 1 seed in the East in 2010 and 2011.

No. 8 Ottawa Senators at No. 1 New York Rangers

7 p.m. ET -- Game 1, Eastern Conference Quarterfinals | Series tied, 0-0

National TV: NHL Network US, CBC, RDS | Local TV: MSG

It’s NHL playoff time, and that means it’s also prediction time. We’ve assembled a team of Super Experts to chime in with their thoughts on the 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs, and they selected winners for each of the eight Conference Quarterfinal series.

Our panel includes:

The full schedule:

No. 5 Philadelphia Flyers at No. 4 Pittsburgh Penguins

7:30 p.m. ET -- Game 1, Eastern Conference Quarterfinals | Series tied, 0-0

National TV: NBCSN, TSN, RDS | Local TV: CSN Philly, ROOT Pittsburgh

I’m a pretty big baseball fan, and while I certainly get excited for Opening Day in Major League Baseball, the first pitch of each season doesn’t mean that I’m necessarily ready for summer beers and the sounds of bats striking baseballs over the radio on a 70 degree evening.

Quite the opposite, actually. When baseball first appears over the horizon, it only means one thing: The Stanley Cup Playoffs are close, and it’s time for the two most exciting months on the sports calendar.

We don’t know who will advance, but we do know that it’ll be an unbelievable series. Here’s the full schedule:

For more on the Penguins, check in with Pensburgh and SB Nation Pittsburgh. For more on the Flyers, check in with Broad Street Hockey and SB Nation Philly.

Here’s the full series schedule:

For more on the Predators, check in with On the Forecheck. For more on the Red Wings, check out Winging It In Motown and SB Nation Detroit.

Here’s the full series schedule:

For more on the Devils, check in with SB Nation New York and In Lou We Trust. For more on the Panthers, check in with Litter Box Cats.

For more on the Coyotes, check in with Five For Howling and SB Nation Arizona. For more on the Blackhawks, check in with Second City Hockey and SB Nation Chicago.

But they are indeed the worthy favorites heading into the first round series, and in the season series against the Sharks, St. Louis won every single game. Here’s a look at the series schedule.

For full St. Louis Blues coverage, check in with SB Nation St. Louis and St. Louis Game Time. For full San Jose Sharks coverage, check in with SB Nation Bay Area, Fear The Fin and Battle of California.

Washington is loaded with talent, but hasn’t been able to put it all together after a strong 7-0 start to the season in October. A month later, head coach Bruce Boudreau was replaced by franchise legend Dale Hunter, who’s had a rocky go of things at the helm in the nation’s capital.

Nevertheless, the Caps could be a tough challenge for the Bruins, although there’s no doubt that Boston enters the series as favorites to advance to the Eastern Conference Semifinals. Here’s the full series schedule:

For complete coverage of the Vancouver Canucks, stop by Nucks Misconduct. For complete coverage of the Los Angeles Kings, check in with SB Nation Los Angeles and Kings blog Jewels From The Crown.

The Senators, meanwhile, shocked the NHL world by advancing to the postseason this year under new head coach Paul MacLean. Can they upset the best team in the conference? Only time will tell.

Here’s the full series schedule:

The NHL announced the schedule for the 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs on Sunday afternoon.

The postseason will begin on Wednesday, April 11 with three games. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia will open up their Eastern Conference series at 7:30 p.m. ET while out West, the No. 4 vs. No. 5 series between Nashville and Detroit kicks off at 8 p.m. ET. Los Angeles and Vancouver get underway in Game 1 Wednesday at 10:30 p.m. ET.

The 2012 NHL Playoffs are set following Saturday’s action. 15 games were played on the season’s final day, and in some cases it took until the very last second ticked off the clock before we learned exactly who would play who in the Conference Quarterfinal round, but at long last, we finally know.

Here’s a full look at the eight different match-ups that will kick off the 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Stick with our StoryStream for full coverage of Saturday’s complete day of NHL action.

Naturally, Vitale was a target early, but he beat Zolnierczyk in convincing fashion:

Saturday’s game can’t affect the playoff seeding -- No. 4 seed Pittsburgh will host No. 5 seed Philly when the NHL Playoffs begin this week, so consider today’s contest merely a few practice rounds before the big bout. These teams have potentially seven more games in the next two weeks to beat each other to death and/or advance to the second round.

By losing the shootout, Detroit locked themselves into the No. 5 seed. It also means that the Nashville Predators clinched the No. 5 seed, making their game Saturday evening vs. Colorado completely meaningless.

Chicago, meanwhile, will go home and watch from their couch as the mayhem unfolds Saturday night between Phoenix, San Jose and Los Angeles. The winner of the Pacific Division will host the Blackhawks in Round 1.

Only three of the eight Eastern Conference playoff positions are still to be determined on the final day of the NHL season.In the Western Conference, there’s a whole lot more up for grabs. In fact, there’s not one single position that’s been determined out West, so let’s just run through this team-by-team.

St. Louis (107 pts, 44 ROW): The Blues have clinched at least the No. 2 seed, but fell out of contention for the Presidents’ Trophy with their loss to Phoenix Friday night. They need a Vancouver loss and a win of their own over Dallas to have a chance at the No. 1 seed. St. Louis holds the tiebreaker if the teams end up tied.

It’s the final day of the 2011-12 NHL regular season, and while all eight participants in the Eastern Conference playoffs have punched their tickets to the ball, they still don’t know the order in which they’ll be seated at their tables.

That’s what Saturday in the NHL is all about. All 30 teams in the league are in action -- it’s just the fourth time in history that’s happened -- and a good number of them will be jockeying for position when they hit the ice. Here’s what we already know in the East:

Fortunately for our viewing pleasure, the Phoenix vs. Minnesota game will conclude well before the San Jose vs. Los Angeles game, so we’ll know about midway through the game exactly what the Sharks and Kings are playing for. Should Phoenix lose, that game will decide the Pacific crown, as the two teams are deadlocked at 94 points entering Saturday’s action.

With the loss, the St. Louis Blues lost their shot at the Presidents’ Trophy and the No. 1 overall seed in the league, but they can still grab the top seed in the Western Conference with a victory vs. Dallas and a Vancouver loss to the Edmonton Oilers.

If Phoenix loses in regulation to the Blues, they’ll lose any hopes of winning the division, creating a one-game battle for the Pacific crown between the Sharks and Kings on Saturday night.

The NHL standings system has long awarded the top three playoff seeds in each conference to the division title winners. Seldom has that honor been so dubious as it is for this year’s Southeast and Pacific Division winners, none of whom will be known until the final day of the regular season.

But the Southeast and Pacific’s futility is the Atlantic and Central’s bane: While the lesser divisions won’t feature even one team with 100 points, the Atlantic and Central Divisions will send as many as four each to the postseason. Thanks to the NHL playoff seeding system that gives the first three spots to division winners, that means the first round in each conference will feature fourth vs. fifth seeds bludgeoning each other in bloody intra-divisional battles.

The match between the two division rivals was already set to be highly anticipated. The officiating upped the ante, playing a major role in how the game panned out. About halfway through the game, it was as if the officials were looking to trade calls, missing many legitimate infractions. They would then have a few moments where they decided to make their presence felt before fading away again, to put it gently. The officials’ presence was certainly noticeable in the third period, when both teams traded four straight power play goals, two by each team. The final set of calls in regulation that resulted in a 5-on-3 man advantage for L.A. tied the game up.

Evidence exists to prove that Clowe was, in fact, on the bench, and stuck his stick on the ice to poke the puck away:

“It’s not fun, but we did it to ourselves well before this game,” the netminder said. “We didn’t put ourselves in a strong position to make playoffs so we had to chase. Not a good feeling. Pretty embarrassing.”

Philadelphia swept all four games over Buffalo this season, giving them their fifth season sweep over Buffalo and first since 2008-09.

The only problem? He did it from the bench.

In a tie game with everything on the line as it was, the error by the officials is pretty egregious. You can see the linesman at the far blueline in the video above, and while his view of the puck may have been partially obscured by bodies in play, there’s no way he couldn’t have seen Clowe reaching over the boards like that. It’s a two-minute minor if he’s caught doing this, which actually seems a bit lenient.