Mark Spector

Mark Spector is a columnist for sportsnet.ca

The Canadiens have knocked off the Capitals and the champion Penguins may soon follow suit.

Jaroslav Halak and the Montreal Canadiens knocked off the Presidents' Trophy winners while counting just 38 shots on net over the final six periods of the series.

It is an upset reminiscent of 2006, when the Edmonton Oilers reverted to an all-out trap to slow down Detroit.

We’re not sure the playoffs are a better place this morning, with the highly entertaining Washington Capitals packing their gear and the shot-blocking Habs game-planning on how now to grind the Pittsburgh Penguins to a halt. But everyone loves a No. 8 seed -- and we do too.

Pittsburgh has played the maximum nine rounds over the past three post-seasons. They’re ripe, and the Canadiens are hot. We’ll take the Habs in seven.

He’d Make The Trade Again

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Wouldn’t it be a great celebration of Canadian hockey this June if both Tyler Seguin and Taylor Hall were being drafted by Canadian clubs?

Two Canadians, the best two prospects in the entire class of 2010. And both of them destined to be franchise players for Canadian organizations, meeting on Hockey Night in Canada for years and years to come.

But instead, the Oilers will draft Seguin, and Hall will go south to Boston.

Nice work, Brian Burke. The only bright side is no GM will ever surrender such a price -- two firsts and a second -- for a player ever again, after watching what happened to the Maple Leafs this season.

Lost In Boston

Meanwhile, Boston GM Pete Chiarelli has his Bruins in the second round, he’s getting Marc Savard back, and has another franchise player on the way in a couple of months. That is some brilliant general managing.

If Canada gets that level of work from Mark Carney -- who is the brilliant Governor of the Bank Canada, Chiarelli’s former college roommate and best man, and this columnist’s goaltender for the first seven or eight years of minor hockey (go glove hand) -- our country will be in fine shape. Better, to be sure, than the Maple Leafs.

Dish Sopes

Likely storyline out of Vancouver-Chicago series:

By the time Brent Sopel blocks his 20th shot in the series, sometime during Game 3, Canucks fans will be wondering: "Why did we get rid of that guy again?"

In August of ’05, the Canucks traded Sopel to the New York Islanders for a second-round pick. They later flipped that pick to Anaheim in a deal that saw defencemen Keith Carney and Juha Alen become Canucks.

Carney didn’t work out in Vancouver, playing 18 games down the stretch in ’06. He split after the Canucks missed the playoffs. Meanwhile, Alen never played another game in North America. The 6-foot-3, 218-pound rearguard was last seen filling the net in Austria, where he counted six goals this past season for Szekeshfehervar Alba Volan HC.

With Willie Mitchell out, Sopel would be a welcome addition on that Vancouver blueline right about now. Who knew?

Music City and the Swamp

It seems strange that two of the National Hockey League’s best organizations are in the same boat, never able to get out of Round 1.

Both New Jersey and Nashville draft well, patiently develop their players in the minors for the most part, and annually are two of the more difficult opponents in their respective conferences. They both have savvy, experienced GMs in Lou Lamoriello and David Poile and just to break the mold, Jersey hires a new coach almost every year while Barry Trotz is the only head coach in Predators franchise history.

There are a lot of fan bases -- Edmonton, Toronto, Florida, Tampa and Atlanta, to name a few -- who would trade their management teams straight across with Nashville or New Jersey. Yet those two teams never have the playoff success you would think they deserve.

We have no clue why.

Pick ‘Em

OK, we went 5-3 in the first round. Not great.

In Round 2 we’ve got:

Chicago in 7

Detroit in 6.

Philly in 6.

Montreal in 7.