Game 2 between the Vancouver Canucks and the Dallas Stars just concluded with Marty Turco getting his first career playoff shutout, pushing all 35 of the Canucks’ shots aside. Turco still remains winless among NHL Playoff Game One’s. The final score in tonight’s clash was 2-0 in favor of the the sixth-seeded Stars.

Roberto Luongo was just as good as we have expected him to be all season, stopping 25 of 27 shots, but it’s pretty hard to win a hockey game when the rest of your team can’t put one in the back of the other team’s net. The Dallas Stars clearly stormed in the GM Place with a great sense of purpose, having suffered through nearly six hours of hockey and putting over 70 shots on net just two nights ago, only to lose in quadruple overtime. This is going to be one brutal series as the two clubs continue their mental and physical chess match. The Canucks will find themselves back on the ice against the Stars in Dallas on Sunday for game 3.

Naturally, as the Canucks didn’t get any goals, my playoff pool picks who are a part of that team didn’t get any points. Let’s hope I pick up the slack with the rest of my squad, especially the crew in Pittsburgh, Ottawa, and the rest of the East.

The other Western Conference playoff game was between the Nashville Predators and the San Jose Sharks, and just like what happened in Vancouver, the loser of game one came out on top with the Predators tying the series 1-1. There was no shutout in Nashville, though, with the final score ringing up as 5-2. Leading man Joe Thornton of the Sharks came up with one big goose egg.

The Anaheim-Minnesota game is still going on right now with the score tied at 1-1, about half way through the 2nd period. I still predict that Anaheim will come out of this series completely unscathed, quite possibly picking up the sweep. Just like in game one, J-S Giguere is taking the night off with Ilya Bryzgalov filling in with the goaltending duties. He did a fine job in the first game, so I don’t foresee any difficulties with the rest of the night in game two.

Four more games are scheduled for tomorrow. And so the 2007 NHL playoffs continue…