Are the habs unstoppable?

The Flyers victory over the Bruins on Friday night made this blogger very happy. My BFF (best Flyers fan) and I sent simultaneous text messages at 9:33 p.m. with identical reactions: OMFG!! The Flyers will advance to the Eastern Conference finals beginning this evening when they face the Montreal Canadiens.

The Flyers ended the regular season as a number 7 seed - unsure if they would even make it to the playoffs until they beat the New York Rangers in the last game of the season. The Canadiens were the number 8 seed in the Eastern Conference, but don't let that fool you. In the first two rounds they have defeated two of the most daunting opponents in the east (and perhaps the entire NHL): the Capitals - who finished the season with the best record in the league; and the defending Stanley Cup champs, the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Conventional wisdom would predict that after facing the crafty offense of the Capitals and the Penguins, Montreal should have no problem shutting down the Flyers. The secret weapon for Montreal has been some remarkable goaltending from Jaroslav Halak. If Halak stays on this streak, the Flyers are going to have big trouble getting past him. This series is going to come down to goaltending.

While they Flyers don't have a star goalie for the playoffs this year, they certainly have a well-rested netminder. Their last series had the Flyers returning from an 0-3 deficit to Boston thanks to the effort of not just one goalie, but two. Brian Boucher was between the pipes up until an injury in game five against Boston. Relieved by Michael Leighton to finish out the 7-game series, the Flyers were still able to take down Boston and advance to the conference finals. Leighton has only played in three games during the playoffs this year, but has had a solid performance in all three.

Goaltending has been a problem for the Flyers all season, but so far they have been able to hold their own through the first two rounds of the playoffs. Tonight with Leighton in net, they will face a goaltender on a hot streak. I'm still cheering for Philly, but it's all going to come down to Halak. The regular season shows the Flyers and the Canadiens to be a pretty fair match-up (both teams finished the season with 88 total points; the Flyers beat the Canadiens in 2 out of 3 regular season match-ups.)

I don't think Montreal is unstoppable, but this is going to be a very hard-fought series. Nothing has come easy to either team this far in the post-season. We will see how far Halak can take his hot streak, and just how rested and ready to go Leighton is for this round. The semi-finals for both conferences should be great match-ups. The top two teams in the west will compete against the winner of the bottom two playoff teams in the east. No matter who you are cheering for, we will see some incredible hockey in the next few weeks.