Wednesday's Daily Dosage - Burrows, Crawford, Stafford...

Alexandre Burrows went from goat to hero last night as after putting his team shorthanded in OT he came out of the box and shortly thereafter ended the series with his second goal of the game.  Something clicked for him last night as he led the team with seven shots after only registering nine through the first six games of the series.

Not sure how much you can read into it for forecasting purposes but I was very impressed with Corey Crawford's playoff performance as he was huge last night and finishes the playoffs with a 2.21 & .927 while frustrating the league's top scoring team during the regular season.

This probably isn't the impact that the Bruin were hoping Tomas Kaberle was going to have when they gave up some futures to the Leafs... the Bruins are 0 for 19 on the PP in the playoffs and Kaberle is essentially a 3rd pairing dman at even strength (he only played 17 minutes last night).

Drew Stafford easily led the Sabres in shots in the playoffs with 33 but after a season where the puck seemed to have eyes for him (he shot 17.3% during the regular season), he could only manage one playoff goal (3.0% s%).  I like the fact that he's shooting the puck a lot more this season but I expect his goal scoring to regress next year. 

A little redemption last night for Roberto Luongo as he stopped 31 of 32 shots in the OT victory... maybe getting past the Hawks is all he'll need to settle down, we'll see, but I'd still be nervous if I was relying on him.

Jonathan Toews with an absolutely clutch goal last night, shorthanded with under two minutes left to send it to OT... but at the end of the day he was a bit of a no-show in the series with just 1+3=4 & minus-4.  Likely this will just motivate him more to come back even stronger next season.

My old nemesis, the enigma that is Troy Brouwer, concluded the playoffs with no points and only 10 shots in seven games... I'm done with him.

Claude Giroux with his third straight game with 2A last night and he's tied for the playoff scoring lead with 1+8=9 through seven games... this continues his fantastic breakout season where he finished tied for 11th in league scoring with 76 points.

James van Riemsdyk with another goal on five shots last night... that's goals in three straight games and he leads the league in shots with 43 so far in the playoffs. 

Brian Boucher was solid for Philly stopping 26 of 28 shots but only 14 of those came in the first two periods so it was a fairly easy night for him.  After the Flyers goaltending circus in this series, Boucher finishes with a solid 4-1 record and 2.10 & .934 numbers. 

Ryan Miller was good but not great in this series as he gave up 3+ goals in five of the seven games, slightly offset by his two shutouts.  Can't be too hard on him though as he was facing 35.4 shots/60mins.

Brad Boyes finally scored last night, his first goal in 18 games... unfortunately it came late in the 3rd period with the Sabres already down 5-1.  I thought his value was at rock-bottom after last season and was convinced he'd have a comeback season but it didn't quite go that way as his streaks seem to be getting more dramatic and they're more cold than hot.

Earlier in the series we were talking about how much ice-time Chris Butler was seeing and how encouraging that was... well it fell to 13 minutes last night whereas Andrej Sekera returned and played 21 minutes.  Other than Tyler Myers Coach Ruff doesn't seem smitten with his collection of young dmen as he tends to rotate them in and out of the doghouse, something to keep in mind for next year and this will probably apply to Marc-Andre Gragnani next year as well.