The Stanley Cup Finals start tonight... blah blah you already know that. Bruins, Canucks. Who you got? 

We'll use this as the discussion thread for this evening. For full game coverage, check out SBNation.com's StoryStream. I'll be manning the ship over there tonight. 

8 p.m., NBC, CBC, etc. 

The Philadelphia Flyers won't be winning the Eastern Conference this season, and that harsh reality will come completely true tonight when one team wins Game 7 and ignores that trophy that Mike Richards had the balls to pick up one year ago. 

One team has to win, and it comes down to two teams that stir up a lot of emotion around these parts: the Boston Bruins or the Tampa Bay Lightning. So it's worth asking, who do we want to win?

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This is the final part in a series of articles looking back at what we can learn from Geoff's effort to chart zone entries in the playoffs. In this part, we move from the team totals to the individual contributions, looking to see what we can learn about who moved the play forwards, how they did it, and how successful they were.

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This is part 3 in a series where we look over the zone entries data collected to date and assess what we can learn from it. In part 1, we looked at the team-level totals for entries and shots per entry to see which teams were winning the play in each zone. In part 2, we looked at how often teams controlled the puck as they entered the zone rather than dumping it in, and how the results of the two entry types compared.

In this part, we wrap up the team-level analysis with special teams data and a quick look at faceoffs.

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During the playoffs, Geoff started tracking zone entries for us. This is part 2 in a series where we look back at the body of data collected to date and assess what we can learn from it. In part 1, we looked at the team-level totals for entries and shots per entry to see which teams were winning the play in each zone.

In this part, we look at how the team brought the puck into the zone and what impact that had on the results. 

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During the playoffs, Geoff diligently tracked zone entries, noting who brought the puck into the offensive zone and by what means. After his first game, we looked at what we could do with this information, and after his second game we looked at which results varied from game to game and compared Philadelphia to Buffalo.

Then we quieted down on it for a while, wanting to collect a bigger sample set and have more of a sense for which aspects were reproducible before reading too much into it. Unfortunately, our sample set won't get any bigger until next year, so it's time to take a look at the 8 games we have (4 vs Buffalo and 4 vs Boston) and see what we can learn from this data. This is part one of that review.

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This is part three in a series in which we do an eye-test analysis of the defensive issues the Flyers had in the playoffs. We're going through the dangerous shots the Flyers faced, breaking down the plays, and assigning blame to the players who didn't carry out their defensive responsibilities. This lets us see how much of the struggles was due to the skaters, the goalies, or the coaching staff.

In this article we look at game three against Buffalo; here are links to the previous analysis of Game 1 and Game 2. Game 3 was a 4-2 victory in which some might say Boucher stole a win -- until a late empty-netter, the Flyers had clung to a 3-2 lead through the whole third period despite being outshot 37-24 in the game and 11-3 in the third period, earning Boucher star of the game honors.

After the jump, we look at how Buffalo's scoring chances came about.

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This is the second part of our look at how the most threatening chances emerged in game 3 against Buffalo. This article started here and continues here.

Let's start the second chance of the night by talking about what happened before the video starts. With 10:19 left in the period, Laviolette sends the fourth line out for their fourth shift of the night -- as many as Richards or Giroux and more than Briere to this point. With 10:08 left in the period, Buffalo's shot gets covered and the Flyers are looking at a defensive zone draw. Meszaros and Carle have just finished their shift and need to be replaced.

It's on the road, so we don't know who Buffalo will put out there. So to play it safe, the Flyers decide to put a solid pairing behind the fourth line for the defensive zone draw -- they go with...erm...O'Donnell and Syvret. Tell me that doesn't sound like a recipe for an interesting shift.

Buffalo wins the face-off, gets a quick shot on goal, and there's another stoppage. Laviolette realizes that he needs a better defense out there, so he pulls Carcillo and puts in...erm...Briere. Ah Laviolette, you mad genius.

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