What a start

The first night of the NHL playoffs are in the books, and what a night it was. Your friendly neighbourhood newspaper can fill you in on most of the details, but let me add my two cents on the two periods of action I saw.

Ottawa v Pittsburgh, period one. Caught this one before going into work. The Sens looked every bit the team they were at the regular season. That's got to worry Penguin fans because as good as their young guns are, the Sens are a deeper and better team. Marc-Andre Fleury was shaky in the first period, which is probably expected, but I suspect he will get better as the series goes on.
All in all, I still stand by my Senators pick.

Dallas v Vancouver, period seven. I watched this one at work. I'd finished off the rest of my pages, but still had to wait for the result of the game. By the time the seventh period rolled around both teams were very tired and it showed. Shifts were kept very short. The funniest sight was seeing the players skate back down the ice after an icing call. The 10 skaters went as a pack, as slowly as possible to the other end of the rink. The tempo was very slow and there weren't really many scoring
chances. That being said, MartyTurco looked particularly tired. He was fighting the puck all period and was lucky to keep it out of the net for as long as he did. Luongo, on the other hand, still looked fresh despite seeing 76 shots.
What does this mean in the grand scheme of the series? To be honest I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a few more extra sessions before this one is over.

At one point during period seven, Harry Neale mused about shootouts. He said by that point pretty much every player and probably most fans would have welcomed a shootout just to bring an end to the game. He's got a point, in the sense that by that point the teams were so tired the hockey was ugly.
Now I don't agree with Neale's proposal, but I'm wondering what you think. Should the NHL consider a shootout, or four-on-four overtime, in the playoffs?

Shootout

After the lockout the NHL decided to implement the shootout in the regular season to break ties. From what I can determine this was done for two reasons:

A) For some reason, which I still have yet to comprehend, tie games had become vilified in some hockey circles. The shootout would end them for good.

B) To make the game more exciting.

Personally I have no strong feeling either way about the shootout. Although I've never seen anything wrong with a regular season tie, I do appreciate the edge-of-your-seat thrill associated with the shootout.

Today's game might change my mind. The New York Islanders clinched a playoff spot by winning a shootout over the New Jersey Devils and the Toronto Maple Leafs were eliminated from post-season contention. Now don't get me wrong, anything that hurts the Maple Leafs is a good thing in my books, but it does seem like a silly way to determine the last playoff spot.

Shootout detractors point to the fact that hockey is a team game, while a shootout is a battle of individual skills. I tend to agree with this, but always felt that since regular season games weren't as important it was OK. Today's game proved that isn't always the case.

I don't think the NHL should abolish the shootout, it still is very exciting. But I think the points system should be changed. Make a regulation worth three points, an overtime or shootout win worth two and an overtime/shootout loss worth one. That would give teams even more incentive to settle things playing real hockey.

In pool related news, the entry invitations have been sent out. If you somehow stumble on this site and haven't yet gotten one let me know in the comments.