It seems to have taken forever, but the playoffs are finally here!
That’s right, in the time it took the Tampa Bay Lightning to start and finish their first round, the Syracuse Crunch have been sitting around, waiting for the fun stuff to begin. Syracuse finished the season with the top seed in the North Division (and second overall in the Eastern Conference), so they will start their opening round series at home against the fourth-seeded Cleveland Monsters.
It took right up until the last game of the season - and a bit of help from the Rochester Americans - for the Monsters to make it into the playoffs, while the Crunch have been in for about a month, but were fighting for a top seed.