Nation Playoff Sim – Round Two Recap and Third Round Schedule

4 years ago

This has been a long learning process for me. I have been learning EA sports pitfalls and issues (see me having to re-simulate the entire first round of the playoffs once already) but I have also had the honour and pleasure of learning what you, the people I am doing this for, enjoy to see/read. In the past I was doing an almost daily recap of the series as they rolled on, and maybe that worked in the first round but it seemed like overkill for the rest so now that the Oilers have moved on (or in the event they had been eliminated) I think it’s a great time to recap the entire second round with some details and give you the roadmap for how the third round will be schedule and who will be there.

First things first, you can take a look here to see how we got to the matchups we got in round 2.

West

STL 4 – NSH 2

COL 1 – DAL 4

VGK 3 – CGY 4

EDM 4 – VAN 1

East

BOS 1 – NYI 4

WSH 4 – CAR 1

TBL 4 – TOR 2

PHI 4 – PIT 3

In case you want to take some time to delve deeper into my quarantine psychosis, the links for all the recaps are here:

Now to get to the actual series and how they all went down. Let’s start with the “vegetables” and the two Eastern Conference series.

EAST

Atlantic 2 Seed – @Tampa Bay Lightning vs Wild Card 2 Seed – @New York Islanders:

Game 1 — 2-0 NYI Wins

Goals: NYI – Nelson, Komarov / TBL – None

Game 2 — 2-1 TBL Wins

Goals: TBL – Kucherov, Point / NYI – Eberle

Game 3 — 6-3 TBL Wins

Goals: TBL – Killorn, Sergachev, Maroon, Johnson, McDonagh, Paquette / NYI – Beauvillier, Pageau, Greene

Game 4 — 4-2 NYI Wins

Goals: NYI – Boychuk, Beauvillier, Toews, Lee / TBL – Paquette, Kucherov

Game 5 — 4-3 OT TBL Wins

Goals: TBL – Johnson, Kucherov, Paquette, Sergachev / NYI – Eberle, Nelson, Pageau

Game 6 — 2-0 NYI Wins

Goals: NYI – Komarov, Nelson / TBL – None

Game 7 — 3-2 OT NYI Wins

Goals: NYI – Brassard, Lee, Eberle / TBL – Paquette, Killorn

The Wrap:

Shocked and in awe. That’s honestly all I can write. A back and forth series but the Tampa Bay Lightning had a chance to close out the series twice and instead it’s Mr. Clutch himself, @Jordan Eberle with the game winning/series clinching/overtime goal of his life to put Barry Trotz and the New York Islanders…

THE NEW YORK ISLANDERS ADVANCE, WINNING THE SERIES 4-3

Metropolitan 1 Seed – Washington Capitals vs Metropolitan 2 Seed – @Philadelphia Flyers:

Game 1 — 4-1 WSH Wins
Goals: WSH – Carlson, Kovalchuk, Ovechkin, Kovalchuk / PHI – Aube-Kubel

Game 2 — 6-5 OT PHI Wins

Goals: PHI – Couturier, Braun, Voracek, Giroux, Couturier, Hayes / WSH – Hagelin, Kovalchuk, Jensen, Oshie, Oshie

Game 3 — 2-1 WSH Wins

Goals: WSH – Vrana, Wilson / PHI – Braun

Game 4 — 2-0 WSH Wins

Goals: WSH – Vrana, Eller / PHI – None

Game 5 — 3-2 OT PHI Wins

Goals: PHI – Van Riemsdyk, Myers, Giroux / WSH – Jensen, Kuznetsov

Game 6 — 5-2 PHI Wins

Goals: PHI – Voracek, Niskanen, Giroux, Couturier, Konecny / WSH – Kovalchuk, Vrana

Game 7 — 2-1 WSH Wins

Goals: WSH – Wilson, Ovechkin / PHI – Pitlick

The Wrap:

The Capitals nearly blow the 3-1 series lead. Every game that Washington won, Brayden Holtby was a part of the three star selections. Of course it comes down to @Alex Ovechkin ending it in the first seconds of double OT and so…

THE WASHINGTON CAPITALS ADVANCE, WINNING THE SERIES 4-2

And so with that it will be a Eastern Conference Finals of Washington vs New York.

WEST

Pacific 2 Seed – Edmonton Oilers vs Wild Card 2 – @Calgary Flames:

Game 1 — 1-0 EDM Wins

Goals: EDM – Sheahan / CGY – None

Game 2 — 4-3 CGY Wins

Goals: CGY – Lucic, Backlund, Backlund, Mangiapane / EDM – McDavid, Bear, McDavid

Game 3 — 3-2 OT EDM Wins

Goals: EDM – Yamamoto, McDavid, Nurse / CGY – Ryan, Tkachuk

Game 4 — 4-2 CGY Wins

Goals: CGY – Backlund, Gaudreau, Backlund, Giordano / EDM – McDavid, Kassian

Game 5 — 5-0 EDM Wins

Goals: EDM – McDavid, Yamamoto, Nygard, McDavid, Yamamoto / CGY – None

Game 6 — 2-1 EDM Wins

Goals: EDM – McDavid, Kassian / CGY – Lucic

The Wrap:

If this series had gone differently, we would be (begrudgingly) singing the praises of @David Rittich. He had some monster performances including 59 saves in Game One and 56 saves in Game Four. The Oilers have had @Connor McDavid wake up at just the right moment and he and Leon Draisaitl find themselves at the top of the stats board for the playoffs. As a result…

THE EDMONTON OILERS ADVANCE, WINNING THE SERIES 4-2

Central 1 Seed – St. Louis Blues vs Central 3 Seed – @Dallas Stars:

Game 1 — 2-1 STL Wins
Goals: STL – O’Reilly, Kyrou / DAL – Gurianov

Game 2 — 5-3 STL Wins

Goals: STL – Perron, Perron, Perron, Schenn, Sundqvist / DAL – Benn, Lindell, Heiskanen

Game 3 — 4-0 DAL Wins

Goals: DAL – Dickinson, Lindell, Seguin, Faksa / STL – None

Game 4 — 3-2 DAL Wins

Goals: DAL – Radulov, Cogliano, Benn / STL – Faulk, Scandella

Game 5 — 4-2 DAL Wins

Goals: DAL – Pavelski, Pavelski, Seguin, Heiskanen / STL – Scandella, Thomas

Game 6 — 4-1 DAL Wins

Goals: DAL – Perry, Benn, Seguin, Lindell / STL – Steen

The Wrap:

Not going to lie, seeing the Blues win games one and two on home ice, I kind of wrote off the Stars, but the combination of goaltending from @Ben Bishop and then the spread of offense from all of their lines, made it such that they would never lose another game in this series…

THE DALLAS STARS ADVANCE, WINNING THE SERIES 4-2

And so with that it will be a Western Conference Finals of Edmonton and Dallas.

Where the series ended up:

West

STL 2 – DAL 4

EDM 4 – CGY 2

East

TBL 3 – NYI 4

WSH 4 – PHI 3

Stats:

Points Leaders —

Goal Scoring Leaders —

Team Stats —

Round Three Schedule:

You will notice we are going to be seeing a little different flavour this round. New to this series is a midday game on a weekday. The 2:30pm MT will lead you into #NationHappyHour at 4:30pm MT and I want to make sure we have a chance to show this world to the most people we can.

If you made it this far:

Thank you for reading. Let me know in the comments below if there is anything else you’d like to see go into these. Let me know in the comments below which game outcome made you smile, which one made you mad and anything else.

Thank you for reading and tune in on Wednesday night at 7PM MT for Game One of the Oilers/Stars series.

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