2009 NHL Conference Final Schedule

Well, this is it! The Final Four of the NHL and personally, I am pumped up for it. Over in the west we've got the conference final of the Red Wings and the Blackhawks, a re-match of this year's Winter Classic, and over in the East, it's the Crosby and the Pens taking on the Carolina Hurricanes who have had a flare or 2 for the dramatics this post-season. And unlike before where it was the U.S. and Versus that had the inconsistency at the announcer position, this time it is Canada because the 1st 2 games of each series is on TSN but then they get moved to CBC for the rest of the series. So without further ado, here is your schedule, although I may have to re-check my sources as this looks a lot like the NBC Conference Quarterfinal schedule looks like. (all times eastern) (announcers courtesy of Puck the Media)

Eastern Conference Finals

#4 Pittsburgh Penguins vs. #6 Carolina Hurricanes
Game 1: Penguins 3-2
Game 2: Penguins 7-4
Game 3: Penguins 6-2
Game 4: Penguins 4-1
Pittsburgh wins the series 4-0

Western Conference Finals

#2 Detroit Red Wings vs. #4 Chicago Blackhawks
Game 1: Red Wings 5-2
Game 2: Red Wings 3-2 F/OT
Game 3: Blackhawks 4-3 F/OT
Game 4: Red Wings 6-1
Game 5: Red Wings 2-1 F/OT
Detroit wins the series 4-1.

Good lord, that's drawn out! More so than the NHL has done in the past from what I can recall, that's for sure. And while I read that they have a date set in stone for the start of the Stanley Cup finals, you would think that they would not stretch it out this much. It's not like everything was 4 or 5-game series where it was necessary to stretch everything out to make that deadline, either. Just poor planning and poor scheduling, that's for sure.

I"ll add more announcing information as it becomes available which hopefully will be in the next few hours, but alas, one can never know for sure. And while most of this has all but been confirmed (Cole and Millen for the East series on CBC and Hughson and Simpson doing the West series and Edzo being paired up with Doc and Reaugh being paired with Beninati), I have yet to read such confirmation, so until I do so, this is what you've got. Hopefully I'll have the confirmations within the next couple hours.