The Stanley Cup playdowns started tonight and it will be hockey every night for the next two months. It was also the time to get Pool sheets into various pools, including the one I run, the Ed Jovanovski Memorial Stanley Cup Pool.
Ed Jovanovski is not dead. It's just that any team with him on it has failed abysmally throughout this century. It's death to the hope of winning, to have Jovo on your pool team. Ergo, the title.
Turning to the prognostications. At the start of the year, I basically figured Pittsburgh and Philly to occupy the top two spots. I though Jersey and Ottawa would slide below the Pennsylvania duo, with Washington winning that weak division in between. The last three spots would be held down by the Rangers, Buffalo and one of Tampa Bay or Carolina. Conspicuous by their absence in my predicted list of playoff teams was Montreal, my favourite team. And the 2007-2008 Eastern Conference champions.
So take what I say with a proverbial grain of salt.
We all know my pet approach to picking pools. Champion your B choice while pointing how good the real object of your affection is. It would do me proud to see les Habitants once more in their natural position atop the hockey world. So I'm picking Pittsburgh to win the East.
The Penguins started out just perfectly tonight. Good performances by Gary Roberts and goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and no over-reliance on Sidney Crosby. The way I see it, Pittsburgh rolls Ottawa and then has a slightly tougher tussle with the Rangers in round two. Montreal sends Boston back to the Eastern seaboard and awaits the survivor of the Washington-Philly series. Justice would see Washington getting Alexander Ovechkin a prolonged spring sprint, but I think the Flyers mug the Capitals en route to coming up against a team quite capable of playing bully hockey. It's the pounding that Montreal will take at the hands of the Broadstreet Bullies that will give the Penguins the edge in the Eastern final.
The West promises four entertaining series again this year. Calgary has already put a higher-seed notch on the belt, having downed San Jose opening night. That matches Colorado's overtime win over higher-seeded Minnesota. In fact, I expect Colorado to continue its upsetting ways, while San Jose has the wake-up call it needed to get going. It's the first regulation time loss by the Sharks in 21 contests.
In the other two series, the favoured Anaheim Ducks (defending Cup champions) and the Detroit Red Wings (regular season champs), will get tested but will get through. The second round will see the two teams' results diverge. The Ducks can't score enough to beat San Jose. But Detroit rides an adequate Dominik Hasek by the plucky Colorado Avalanche.
The West final comes down to goaltending, and it's there that Hasek comes asunder and bows to the season-long brilliance that has been Evgeni Nabokov. He hasn't been statistically great, but he's won all season long.
In the Stanley Cup itself, Pittsburgh will relearn the lessons of Ottawa from last year. The West is best. The 2008 Stanley Cup will be hoisted by the San Jose Sharks in a relatively easy victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins.
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