NHL playoffs 2013 updates: Leafs, Ducks cruise; Capitals, Kings squeak by

Nine years later, van Riemsdyk’s come a long way. The second overall pick in the NHL draft in 2007, a playoff veteran at just age 24, and suddenly, a Boston Bruin postseason killer. It was JvR’s beautiful spinning insurance goal Saturday night that put Toronto ahead and into the win column, sealing up their first playoff win since he was in middle school.

“Grabovski had a lot of speed going through the neutral zone,” van Riemsdyk, who turned 24 on Saturday, explained. “I think he kind of drew two guys to him and I was able to slip in behind and he made a great pass to me. However he tried to shoot it, I wiffed and then was able to luckily enough slide it in. I’ll take it.”

Saturday was a good day to warm up some hot cocoa, curl up on the couch and then spit out your drink and exclaim loudly and profanely. The playoff action was exciting end-to-end, controversial and downright brutal at times. And we’ve documented it all here for you in GIFs.

Also, if you were drinking hot cocoa while watching hockey then I’m glad you spit it out. Shame.

The rest of the game belonged to Quick. He made some brilliant stops down the stretch, and the Kings are now back in the series thanks to him.

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Here’s evidence:

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It all started with a shot... and then chaos.

I would not want to be a goaltender in this series. Also, not pictured: two players doing everything short of tackling each other ten feet away from the play. What a game.

Ouch. Jackman dropped to one knee and called a trainer over, motioning that he was having trouble breathing. Luckily he skated off to the bench and seemed to recover, but not before throwing the refs a dirty look for missing the call.

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It was a sin-bin parade, as both teams racked up a combined 52 penalty minutes. And yet, they both were completely ineffective on the power play, going a combined 2-for-12. However, the special-teams goals for the Ducks were also their biggest.

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He just couldn’t resist.

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The goal gave Toronto the win and a 1-1 series tie.

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Introducing the “fake between the legs” spinorama shot!

Toronto won 4-2 and tied the series at 1-1.

Toronto’s GM Dave Nonis wasn’t pleased.

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Here it is:

Yeesh. Abdelkader was given a five-minute major for charging and a game misconduct.

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Apparently he’s a fantastic playmaker! Who knew?

It’s the playoffs, so you’d expect hard hitting and physicality to be the norm.

Huh. Okay then.

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One of the most inspirational stories to come out of the Boston Marathon bombings was that of Jeff Bauman. Bauman was waiting for his girlfriend to finish her race at the finish line when the bombs went off, resulting in the loss of both of his legs below the knee.

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“I just seen he looked on the one side of the guy, and shot the other side,” Green said of the winner. “Just got lucky.”

For a player that has had mixed playoff success in the past, due to injuries or other factors, this is certainly a chance for him to make a significant contribution in the current Capitals’ run. Green now has eight playoff goals, but none bigger than the one today.

That is supposed to be a delay of game penalty, but the referees either missed that it cleared the glass or thought it deflected as Alzner batted it with one hand on his stick. Or maybe, according to the NHL, it only deflected off Alzner’s stick (probably influenced by him having one hand on his stick when it happened):

That was bad news for the Rangers. McDonagh is generally considered their best defenseman and logs 2:41 of shorthanded ice time per game.

Benching Souray is a surprising move by Bruce Boudreau, who leaned heavily on the veteran defenseman early in the season. Souray had seven goals and 10 assists in 44 games this season, helping anchor the Ducks’ power play, but his play dipped as the season went on.

Sbisa has been sidelined with a lower body injury, but his return should give the Ducks more mobility on the blue line. He is a good skater, which Boudreau is betting will give the Ducks a big enough upgrade to mitigate the loss of Souray’s point shot.

After losing nine consecutive games to the Los Angeles Kings, including a four-game sweep in the second round of last year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs, the St. Louis Blues are making “Beat L.A.” their mantra so far, and achieving it successfully. The Blues have gotten two consecutive 2-1 wins over the Kings. They now have a 2-0 lead in their Western Conference Quarterfinal series after a big comeback victory on Thursday night.

It didn’t start out well. The Blues took four minor penalties in the first 10 minutes of Game 2. They killed off the first two penalties, but the Kings got a 5-on-3 mid-way through the first period. Dustin Brown finally cashed in on the 5-on-3 at 9:55 of the first and made it 1-0 Los Angeles. St. Louis never took another penalty for the rest of that game after committing four in 10 minutes.

No words heard there from Oleksy, but his body language sold a “Ouch! I’m hit! I’m hit!” message that the referees bought.

The Capitals outshot the Rangers 12-7 on the period. They lead the series 1-0.

The Detroit Red Wings won Game 2 of their Western Conference Quarterfinal series with the Anaheim Ducks. If you went to bed at around Midnight ET on Thursday night, you probably suspected they would. But you would’ve missed a huge scare put into Detroit that nearly put their season on the brink.

The Red Wings scored twice in the first 4:20 in Game 2, as a wicked Justin Abdelkader wrist shot beat Jonas Hiller at 48 seconds. A Damian Brunner wrister off a turnover made it 2-0 early. The Wings added another at 1:04 of the second when Johan Franzen tipped in a Brunner shot to make it 3-0 after a little over 21 minutes of play. The Ducks found a way into the game when Saku Koivu put home a Teemu Selanne rebound to make it 3-1.

The Rangers lineup will get a bit heftier in Game 2 of their Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series with the Washington Capitals.

Forwards Brian Boyle and Derek Dorsett will draw in for New York in Game 2 of the series, while Chris Kreider and Kris Newbury will be healthy scratches. Boyle was centering a line with Darrell Powe and Aaron Asham in pre-game warmups, while Dorsett was on a line with Taylor Pyatt and fellow Marian Gaborik-trade acquisition Derrick Brassard.

Aside from the New York Islanders, no team looked less ready to be in the post-season than the Toronto Maple Leafs. Despite an early goal, their performance in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series with the Boston Bruins was poor at best. That said, the Islanders came back and won their Game 2 on the road, so perhaps some of that magic is in the card for the Leafs in Game 2 at TD Garden.

Things started well enough on Wednesday night. In fact, you couldn’t have written a better script to open up a series. Patrice Bergeron took a tripping penalty at 1:38, and 16 seconds later the Leafs found the back of the net. Cody Franson had a couple of decent chances, then drew Zdeno Chara away from James Van Riemsdyk, who got the puck with a lot of net to put an easy tap-in home to make it 1-0 Leafs. Toronto had the start they wanted.