Bob Duff

Could it be better?

Maybe a little bit.

An Alexander Ovechkin-Sidney Crosby-Evgeni Malkin threesome in the second round would have left every National Hockey League executive salivating.

Regardless, the drool must still be forming in many mouths at the NHL’s head office among those whose main goal is to sell the game to the United States audience.

The second-round matchups in the Stanley Cup playoffs are intriguing on all four fronts.

Look around. The small markets are gone, teeing it up on the golf course until next fall.

No more Nashville. No more hillbilly jokes. Calgary flamed out, eliminating the fear of spring snowstorms and of explaining to Americans exactly where Calgary is located.

New Jersey and Minnesota and the uninteresting, defensive brand of hockey both teams thrive on won’t be missed by those who believe hockey is supposed to be a fast-paced, exciting sport.

Ditto for the Anaheim Ducks. Naturally, the league probably didn’t want its reigning Cup champions to exit so unceremoniously, but having a Ducks team on top that was built first, foremost and always around smothering defense wasn’t all it was quacked up to be.

Besides, there’s plenty left to talk about.

Storylines? You want storylines?

How about Crosby debuting on Broadway against the Blueshirts?

How about Jaromir Jagr leading the New York Rangers to Pittsburgh to duel the Penguins, the team with which he made his reputation and won both of his Stanley Cups?

How about the Detroit Red Wings versus the Colorado Avalanche in a renewal of what was the NHL’s most heated, and often, bloodiest rivalry?

The one Canadian team left in the hunt is the Canadian team, the legendary Montreal Canadiens, they of the fire-wagon brand of hockey. The Habs have won 24 Cups, more than any other team and are so rich in tradition that they won their first one in 1916, a year before the NHL was born.

Heck, the NHL thinks so much of Montreal that they name their awards after former Canadiens legends such as Georges Vezina and Maurice (Rocket) Richard. A team so steeped in history that all four of its coaches — head coach Guy Carbonneau and assistants Doug Jarvis, Roland Melanson and Kirk Muller — are ex-Montreal players.

"I think having guys that played here in Montreal that went through the pressure, that won championships here ... the players can come to us for advice," Carbonneau said.

And who do the Canadiens get as their opponents?

The evil empire that is the Philadelphia Flyers.

Amazingly, these two rivals, who did for the NHL in the 1970s what Detroit and Colorado did in the 1990s, haven’t clashed in a playoff series since 1989. The Flyers brought back a little of that Broad Street Bullies feel this season under coach John Stevens, leading the NHL in suspensions. In typical Philadelphia fashion, the Flyers are a big, heavy-hitting team with power hitters like Derian Hatcher, Randy Jones and Scott Hartnell that sough to punish Ovechkin and the Capitals in Round 1.

They’ll look to do the same against the smaller, speedier Habs, led by high-end skill players such as Alexei Kovalev and Saku Koivu in what figures to be a lowercase version of the famous 1976 Cup finals between the two clubs. That spring, the two-time defending Cup champion Flyers, who ruled over the NHL with an intimidating fist led by Bobby Clarke and Dave (The Hammer) Schultz, succumbed in four straight games to a Montreal team that was built around up-tempo, attacking hockey, featuring the likes of Guy Lafleur, Steve Shutt and Jacques Lemaire.

Many feel the Habs, who owned the Cup for four straight starting with that rout of the Flyers, saved the NHL from a terrible fate had Philadelphia not been brought to its knees. Philly hasn’t won a title since the loss to Montreal in 1976, dropping its last five final series.

Video   How far can the Avalanche go? April 20: Mike Emrick and Eddie Olczyk talk about Colorado's chances in the NHL Playoffs after beating Minnesota in the first round.

There wasn’t another nuclear showdown of that level in the NHL until 20 years later, when the Wings and Avs literally collided, becoming the NHL’s version of must-see TV. They were the two best teams in the league and suddenly were situated in the same conference after the Nordiques left Quebec in 1995 and relocated to Denver.

Amazingly, the face that launched the rivalry remains a Red Wing. Kris Draper, who suffered facial fractures when drilled from behind into the boards by Colorado agitator Claude Lemieux, during Game 6 of the Western Conference finals. The Avalanche won that series and won the Cup.

The next spring, after a late-season game which saw Detroit’s Darren McCarty pummel Lemieux, Detroit won the Cup, its first of two in a row, after eliminating the Avs in a six-game conference final series. The Wings also bested Colorado in a seven-game Western Conference finals in 2002 en route to their most recent Cup.

"You can’t downplay it," Detroit defenseman Chris Chelios said of the rivalry. "Everyone is looking forward to it, especially the fans in this series. It’s a great rivalry.

"The fact they have (Adam) Foote and (Peter) Forsberg from the past and we’ve added Mac (McCarty) from that era that everyone is talking about, should be an exciting series ... I imagine as the series goes on, it’s going to get very intense."