Round 1 of the hockey playoffs have finished, and I am sad to report that of my first round predictions, I was 2-2 in the East but 4-0 in the West. It’s usually tough to pick against the underdogs, but I correctly picked the Avs and the Stars to pull through the seeding. But then I screwed up NJ and didn’t pick Flyers so that’s a wash.

Looking forward to round 2, in the East it’s MTL vs PHI and PIT vs NYR. I saw most of the Montreal games and sometimes they look like they are on the ball, but sometimes they just look like they lack work ethic. I noticed that MTL played a very Russian style of hockey, with skill plays and finesse; and surprisingly it worked against Boston’s more American style (hitting & grinding). It looks like that success will carry through against the Flyers since they are a similar rough & tumble type team, but you know what, I’m going to pick the Flyers in this one. Briere’s been lighting up the lamp and it’s not like Cristobal Huet is a bad goaltender (we’ll see if the Cary Price upgrade was worth it).

I also saw all of the Pittsburgh games (had to watch Ottawa lose), but due to CBC’s preference for Canadian teams, didn’t see any of the NYR games. The Penguins are the team I’m rooting for so I’ll pick them. They’ve proven that they can get goals past a hot goaltender so they’ll have to do the same thing against Lundqvist. I’m still worried that Pittsburgh’s no-name defense (aside from Gonchar) is going to fall apart…

Surprisingly, I saw a lot of the West games too. The Sharks made it past Calgary even though they were not firing on all cylinders and I think they just have too much skill for the Stars. I saw a couple of Avs games too, and it was pretty depressing. Well not the play, but the jersey’s; why do so many of the West teams have to play in depressing forest colors? Anyways, the Avs team is a generation too late, but seeing Forsberg deke out various defensemen in the game 6 clincher leads me to believe they still have something left in their engine. Their second round matchup is against their classic rival, Detroit, so it’ll be a very abrasive series. Detroit even brought back Darren McCartney for old times sake! I think the Avs will win this series.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: hockey