Could'ves, should'ves and first-round lessons

The Sabres were able to turn on their great team speed and balanced scoring attack whenever it was really necessary and it kept them at more than arm's length from the Islanders throughout. That said, all the remaining playoff teams are better than the Islanders, so Buffalo needs to be more focused moving forward.

Tough love warms the ice: Like coaches everywhere, Vancouver's Alain Vigneault knows he has to strike a balance between calling out and building up his players. So it was a bit of a surprise to hear him continue on the offensive about his team's lackluster effort against Dallas in Game 6 more than a day after the game. Usually that's when a coach's tone changes.

The strategy didn't seem to work all that well at the outset of Game 7 because the Stars controlled the opening 20 minutes, but the Canucks came out breathing fire in the second period and took over en route to advancing to the second round. We can only imagine what Vigneault told his troops between periods. Maybe it was something soothing like, "Sedin boys, we would appreciate you starting to do your thing on the power play and then letting Luongo do the rest." Worked like a charm.

Nothing wrong with a pet pest: Jaromir Jagr, Michael Nylander, Brendan Shanahan and Henrik Lundqvist lived up to their reputations as stars for the Rangers, and were key contributors to New York's sweep of Atlanta. But the reason they were able to play their game so well was that the Thrashers were unable to counter with theirs.

Give a lot of credit to Sean Avery. New York's agitator extraordinaire was at his grating best and responsible for getting under the skin of Ilya Kovalchuk, Marian Hossa and Tkachuk enough to seriously throw them off. Avery might be the NHL's biggest pain in the ass, but he feels great these days to the Rangers.

Labels matter little: The Ducks dropped the word "Mighty" from the name, but you'd be hard-pressed to convince Minnesota not to describe them that way. Anaheim was that dominant in sending the Wild packing after only five games.

The notion that the Ducks were built for the playoffs was pretty clear, mainly because of the team's overall defensive play that made Minnesota's high-scoring forwards look as ineffectual as the kids in the movie that Anaheim turned into real life. The Ducks are big, strong and mean and they have too many weapons to shut down offensively. If they stay healthy, they'll be very difficult to stop.