as much as it looked like this was the year for the leafs with the addition of francis and leetch, i didn’t really expect them to make it. i don’t know what it is, is it because of quinn or sundin but the leafs never really show up to play. they kind of play haphazardly and are generally lucky enough to get a enough goals to win. both in the regular season and the playoffs. they seem to play like sundin, he just skates around the ice until he gets a nice pass so he can use his skill to score. he doesn’t play with determination like say someone like roberts.

although there were so many future hall of famers in detroit, the heart of the team was still stevie y, and once he was out indefinitely, detroit would not win the series. now that calgary’s the only canadian team left, they have all of canada supporting them and they will be the team that rides their momentum the most of the final four. but how far can it carry them?

the tampa & canadians series was pretty much expected, the canadians were over their head. while the avs lost their series, they were the underdogs in the matching and they let the sharks go up 3-0 which pretty much spelled their doom. so here are my results compared to everyone else with the total playoff results in parenthesis.

pierre mcguire: 3/4 (9/12)
maggie the macaque: 3/4 (5/12)
dave hodge: 2/4 (7/12)
favorites: 2/4 (8/12)
globe & mail: 2/4 (7/12)
gord miller: 2/4 (7/12)
james duthie: 2/4 (7/12)
underdogs: 2/4 (4/12)
bob mckenzie: 1/4 (5/12)
gino reda: 1/4 (7/12)
me: 1/4 (8/12)

some of the guys from my last ranking aren’t in here because they apparently didn’t pick in the second round. so anyways, i didn’t have as much luck this round as their previous one. so i’ll have to make better picks this round!

lightning vs flyerstampa had another quick series against montreal and it wasn’t really bruising compared to the toronto philly series. so they’re rested and ready to strike like lightning against the flyers. one thing that i don’t think they’ve really faced is a team that can bruise them into submission which the flyers are able to do. it’s be a race to see if tampa can exploit the flyers injured backline or if philly can smash the lightning’s defence into making errors. i think tampa will win it even tho i had picked the flyers to win the cup, but that’s mainly because the flyers have too many injuries and are too tired to take on tampa.

sharks vs flamesi keep hearing that the sharks are a good team, and after they’ve dispatched colorado and the blues pretty easily, it seems that they are. the flames, as mentioned above are riding huge momentum after two upsets. they have the killer instinct when it comes to overtime and a goalie that can get them to overtime. but how long can they keep hitting people without their injuries really catching up to them? i should also mention that the sharks traded kiprusoff away to the sharks for next to nothing, so there’s something more for him to play for. both of these teams are over their heads this year but the sharks have used up less of their luck in getting here. i want to pick the flames cuz of the excitement surrounding them, but i’ll take the more rational bet and say the sharks.

quarterfinal predictions
first round predictions

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: hockey