Playoff hockey.

There just isn’t anything like it. We are into the conference finals and as usual with playoff hockey, there have been surprises; surprises that include the fact that the Philadelphia Flyers are still alive.

Not only are they still alive, but they are alive and kicking while they are up 2-0 in their Eastern Conference Finals series with the Montreal Canadiens. The Flyers came out of nowhere.

They barely made the playoffs, seeing as they had to play an extra regular season game against the New York Rangers to see who the last team in the playoffs would be, and they won that game in a shootout.

Since then, the Flyers knocked the New Jersey Devils out of the playoffs in just five games.

After going down 3-0 in the next series against the Boston Bruins, the Flyers rallied to win the last four games and make it to the conference finals. Since then, they have not looked back.

Their opponents, the Canadiens, have been on and off in the playoffs as both of the prior series’ went to all seven games.

In the Western Conference, we are left with the number-one seeded San Jose Sharks and the number-two seeded Chicago Blackhawks.

The Hawks’ are red hot right now behind rookie goaltender Antti Niemi.

They are 16-5 in their last 21 games including Niemi being player of the game in nine of those games.

Sports analysts around the country agreed that the Hawks Stanley Cup hopes were on the shoulders of the rookie Niemi.

He was supposed to be the weak link in the roster and has since turned those comments away.

They shut the Nashville Predators and the Vancouver Canucks down in six games and are off to a great start against San Jose in the conference finals.

They took both of the first two games in San Jose and look to sweep in Chicago to move them to the Stanley Cup Finals.

The Sharks look to bounce back in Chicago behind goaltender Evgeni Nabokov who won 44 games during the regular season while only losing 16. There is speculation that he can’t win clutch games after his performance in last year’s playoffs. Nabokov had amazing regular-season statistics; his play early on in the conference finals suggests he remains a goalie who cannot win the big game.

I’m predicting the Blackhawks against the Flyers in the Stanley Cup Finals, and as a Hawks fan, I like that match-up. I look forward to seeing Niemi, Jonathan Toews, Patrick Sharp, Patrick Kane, and the rest of the team hoist Lord Stanley’s Cup and hearing about what they do with it for the next year.

Rob Warren can be reached at 581-7942 or at