Must-see TV

With the Super Bowl and March Madness having come and gone, some people like to think of this as a down time of year for sports. As you might expect, I think those people are idiots.

I always look forward to playoff time in the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League. Seeing players give it their all with their respective seasons on the line reminds you of how the games were meant to be played. Players aren't worried about holdouts or contract negotiations - they just want to be the best at what they do.

But I do have one problem with the NBA playoffs - the league and the networks that broadcast their games are so goddamned greedy that they draw out the first round of the playoffs for three weeks in an attempt to have every game available for maximum exposure.

It should be against the law to ask me to tune in for nearly a month to a series like the New Jersey Nets versus the Indiana Pacers. I tried to watch parts of two different games in this series and both times I gave up after five minutes and turned over the remote to my wife (who happily changed it to a gardening show or something equally mind numbing).

In fact I will go one step further and say that for my money only two first round match-ups were worth tuning into - the Phoenix Suns versus the Los Angeles Lakers and the Cleveland Cavaliers versus the Washington Wizards. The other six series were either one-sided or just painful to watch.

And speaking of the Lakers, shortly after game three, news broke that police were investigating a reported sexual assault by forward Kwame Brown. Even though I live on the East Coast, and therefore was nowhere near where the alleged crime took place, I can tell you with confidence that Kwame is innocent. Having watched him for years in Washington, I can tell you that if Brown went to make a play, history shows he wouldn't have been able to connect. He's not exactly a guy able to come through in the clutch.

So with the NBA playoffs being a disappointment for the most part, I've been spending my free time watching the NHL. Now I understand that hockey lost its place at the grown-up's table. Coming into this season the last two topics casual sports fans heard about the NHL were a) the lockout and 2) a civil lawsuit filed against Vancouver Canucks forward Todd Burtuzzi for assaulting Colorado Avs forward Steve Moore from behind during a game. These are not what we call "ringing endorsements" for the game.

But let me tell you, these playoffs have been spectacular. Anyone watching the NBA playoffs can typically guess who will win each series. I mean, for the last two years it's been pretty much a given that the San Antonio Spurs and the Detroit Pistons are the two best teams in the league. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn't believe those two will be squaring off in the NBA Finals when it's all said and done.

It's like watching a movie when someone's already spoiled the ending for you. But that's not the case in hockey. It's so wide open that even after the first round the experts aren't sure who will be left standing when the closing credits roll.

Before the opening round of the playoffs, hockey analyst Barry Melrose appeared on SportsCenter and said with extreme confidence (which is hard to do with a mullet) "The Dallas Stars will win the Stanley Cup this season." They didn't even make it to round two.

Analyst Darren Pang, also a regular with ESPN, only correctly predicted four out of the eight first-round series. Melrose and Pang get paid healthy salaries to watch every minute of hockey they can, and their best guesses weren't even close. And I'm not taking a shot at hockey experts or even making fun of the Stars, I'm simply using them as examples to show how wildly unpredictable the NHL playoffs are.

The top four teams in the Western Conference when the 2006 regular season ended were (in order) the Detroit Red Wings, Dallas Stars, Calgary Flames and Nashville Predators. Each of these teams finished the regular season with more than 100 points, and the Red Wings won the President's Trophy, for being the team with the most points at the end of the regular season (124 points). And yet, all four teams were eliminated in the first round.

In the NHL playoffs, one player can make a difference. While people are falling over themselves to blow Cavs forward LeBron James in his first trip to the NBA postseason, everyone's missing a string of truly spectacular performances by Anaheim Ducks rookie goalie Ilya Bryzgalov.

In six playoff games, Bryzgalov has gone 4 - 1 with three consecutive shutouts and a goals against average of 0.52. He hasn't allowed a goal in 229 minutes, 42 seconds, which is the longest ever by an NHL rookie in the postseason. Only one other NHL rookie has earned three straight shutouts, and that was Toronto's Frank McCool, who did it against Detroit back in 1945.

And don't think the NHL is like professional soccer, where a shutout happens every other game. Teams like the Buffalo Sabres (4.5 goals per game in the post season) and the Ottawa Senators (4.6 points per game) are scoring goals by the boatload.

One game a team puts up eight goals in an offensive explosion and the next a goalie "stands on his head" to single-handedly will his team to a shutout victory. There is no script or predictable storylines – just an action-packed adventure that will have you sitting on the edge of your seat.

Brian Murphy is a creature of habit who cannot stop listening to Ben Harper's "Both Sides of the Gun" and Pearl Jam's self-titled album. Contact him at murf@the5holes.com.