“Out with the old guard and in with the new.” Certainly an apt way to describe the picture in the Western side of the Stanley Cup Playoff Bracket as the Detroit Red Wings, Chicago Blackhawks, San Jose Sharks, and defending conference champion Vancouver Canucks all exited stage left in the first round.

Now the St. Louis Blues, Nashville Predators, Phoenix Coyotes, and Los Angeles Kings will vie for the right to be the new Western representative in the Stanley Cup Final. Who will prevail in the conference semifinals? Let’s first look at the Blues-Kings matchup.

OTTAWA -- What a difference a year makes. At this time last year, Brian Elliott was struggling with consistency whil e playing in goal for an underachieving team.
You couldn’t say the Ottawa Senators were going nowhere. They were already there.
In the few games that the team did manage to win, Elliott was, more often than not, the difference.

I recently caught up with this Blues star at the NHL All-Star game and instead of talking to him about his impressive outing at the skills competition I talked to him about one of my favorite subjects and passions, dog and cat rescue. I have three adopted dogs and two adopted cats at home and I’m trained for search and rescue because I want to help these loveable creatures and I quickly saw that David has that same passion.