The second week of April is here and for all the crazy NHL fans out there that means one thing and one thing only. The 2012 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs<\/strong> are here. Grow your beard, remove the word \u2018gutless\u2019 from your vocabulary and get ready to strap in as 16 teams compete for the prized trophy of Lord Stanley\u2019s cup.<\/p>\n Los Angeles Kings vs. The Vancouver Canucks won their second consecutive Presidents Trophy and have won home ice advantage through the entire 2012 NHL Stanley Cup playoffs. They have arguably the best goalie tandem in the league with Roberto Luongo and Cory Schneider. That being said, the Los Angeles Kings have, arguably, the best goalie in the league right now. Jonathon Quick has been playing in playoff games for what it seems about 50 or so plus game. With many of the Kings wins coming from 1-0, 2-1 wins and any loses they had were mostly 0-1 games in the other teams favor. If Quick can shut the door and the Kings scoring studs of Richards, Kopitar and Carter (if healthy) start putting in the goals which they are very capable of doing, the Canucks could be hitting the golf course much earlier then scheduled.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014-<\/p>\n San Jose Sharks vs. The St. Louis Blues had an incredible season run and finished on top of the Central division and a second place finish in the western conference. With an unbelievable goalie tandem in Jaroslav Halak and Brian Elliot, some say they are in a better goalie situation then the western favorites the Vancouver Canucks. Every night their solid goaltending, which combined for 15 shutouts during the regular season, will give the Blues a chance to win. The San Jose Sharks goaltending has been inconsistent as well as their play all season long. On the outside looking in to the playoffs for most of the season, their playoff fate came down to the last couple games. Although the Sharks have made the second season 7 consecutive years, they have nothing to show for it except many disappointing early exits. This year could be no different unless they solve the Blues and Ken Hitchcock\u2019s tight defensive ways.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014-<\/p>\n Chicago Blackhawks vs. Once again the Phoenix Coyotes have made the playoffs but this year could be different. First off and most importantly, they are not matched up against the Detroit Red Wings. The Coyotes were eliminated in 7 games by Detroit 2 years ago and swept by the Wings last year in 4 straight games. A new opponent, home ice advantage and the stellar play of goalie Mike Smith could give the edge the Coyotes are looking for. The Chicago Blackhawks would love to make the second round as they lost a 7 game overtime nail biter versus the Canucks last year. There are some question marks around the 2010 Stanley Cup Champs though as they may be without their captain Jonathon Toews who still has lingering concussion like symptoms but has been rumored to be back in time for the post season. Even without captain serious, the Hawks have enough scoring punch to make this a long series. Goalie Corey Crawford has come on as of late but about a month ago, the goalie situation in the windy city was already the reason for the suspected early playoff elimination.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014-<\/p>\n Detroit Red Wings vs. It hasn\u2019t happened too often in the Detroit Red Wings 21 straight playoff appearances but it has happened this year. The Wings will be entering the post season as the underdogs. Well not really, but according to the standings they will be. Their opponent, the Nashville Predators, finished one point ahead of the Red Wings with a season total of 103 and also edged out the battle for home ice advantage by that same one point. Underdog may be the wrong word but saying beating the Predators is definitely not the right word either. Pekke Rinne lead all goalies in the regular season with 43 wins and will be looking for 4 more against the high powered Wings. The Preds also surprisingly added Alexander Radulov at the end of the season which adds even more fire power to the already #1 ranked powerplay in the league. This series will most likely go the distance.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014-<\/p>\n The 2012 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs gets under way this Wednesday, April 11th, 2012 starting at 8pm EST. One team in only 16 wins away from glory but 15 teams are only 4 loses away from another short, Stanley Cup-less season. Who will hoist the cup this year?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 2012 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs \u2013 Western Conference Quarterfinals The second week of April is here and for all the crazy NHL fans out there that means one thing and one thing only. The 2012 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs are here. Grow your beard, remove the word \u2018gutless\u2019 from your vocabulary and get ready to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":754,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27],"class_list":["post-5","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-2012-nhl-stanley-cup-playoffs","tag-chicago-blackhawks","tag-detroit-red-wings","tag-los-angeles-kings","tag-nashville-predators","tag-nhl-western-conference-quarterfinals","tag-phoenix-coyotes","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-st-louis-blues","tag-vancouver-canucks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/thecouplecommasclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/thecouplecommasclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/thecouplecommasclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/thecouplecommasclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/754"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/thecouplecommasclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/thecouplecommasclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/thecouplecommasclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions\/77"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/thecouplecommasclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/thecouplecommasclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/thecouplecommasclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Let\u2019s check out the 2012 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs \u2013 Western Conference Quarterfinals Preview<\/h2>\n
Vancouver Canucks<\/strong><\/p>\n
St. Louis Blues<\/strong><\/p>\n
Phoenix Coyotes<\/strong><\/p>\n
Nashville Predators<\/strong><\/p>\n2012 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs \u2013 Western Conference Quarterfinals Schedule<\/h3>\n