The top seed in the East has struggled through two seven game series against the eighth and seventh seeds, while the bottom seed in the West has dispatched the top two seeds in nine total games; welcome to the 2012 NHL Playoffs! 1. I had Phoenix Coyotes’ goalie Mike Smith leading the Conn Smythe race after the second round. He had faced the second-most shots among all goalies after two rounds, 399 in 11 games (36.3 shots per game); Washington’s Braden Holtby faced 447 in 14 games (more like 15 if you count the three-OT game), while Henrik Lundqvist faced 396 in 14 games. Conversely, the third-place guy on my Conn Smythe (Jonathan Quick of L.A. of course) list faced 274 shots in nine games (30.4 per game). 2. All it took was one game for my second-place guy to jump Smith into the Conn Smythe lead, though, as Dustin Brown scored another game-winning-goal. His seven goals lead all active playoff participants; of those seven, two are short-handed, three are game-winners, and five are go-ahead goals. On top of that, Brown is plus-11, has more points than any non-Flyer with 13, has 45 hits in 10 games and has been the playoffs’ best forward thus far. 3. Brown has also captained his team to a ridiculous 6-0 road record so far in the playoffs, and the team is 9-1 overall. The Kings have speed, tenacity, balance, goaltending and the best fore-check in the playoffs. After peppering 48 shots through a very good Coyotes defense, they look like the Stanley Cup favorites right now. They are just about doubling the scoring of their opponents (3.1 per game for, 1.6 against), and their 5-on-5 differential (1.45) is better than everyone but New Jersey (1.85). 4. Speaking of New Jersey, they are allowing a playoff-low 27.4 shots per game and of the four remaining teams only the Kings score more per game (3.0). Their opponent is by far the lowest scoring team left (2.07 per game) and has to be the most tired of the bunch after playing back-to-back Game 7s. I think that fatigue will catch up to them; especially their group of defensemen, as the Devils’ fore-check is one of their strong suits. 5. It is interesting to note that the Western Conference boasts the almost-unanimous top-three in the Conn Smythe race (some variation of Brown, Smith and Quick). The two Eastern squads are clearly winning on the strength of team rather than individual performances. If you had to pick a stand-out player for each Eastern team, it would have to be Henrik Lundqvist for New York (1.68 GAA, .937 SV%) and Ilya Kovalchuk for New Jersey (12 points in 11 games, 24:13 of ice time per game; seven points in four games vs. Philadelphia in Round 2). Nick is RealGM’s NHL Feature Writer. You can reach him by email nick.obergan@realgm.com or on twitter @NickObergan