This playoff season will mark my 2nd year participating in the annual Aaron Reinard Hockey-Blog Spectacular!
Opening Round Picks:
East: Rangers (in 6); Bruins (in 6); Devils (in 7) Pens (in 7)
West: Canucks (in 6); Blues (in 7); Hawks (in 6); Preds (in 7)
This year's opening round is really hard to gauge, least for me. All four lower seeded Eastern Conference teams won their season series against their higher seed opponents, so it's hard to be super confident, and so i have each match-up going 6 or 7 games. Out West its even crazier. The Canucks have never won the President's Trophy and Stanley Cup in the same year. So are they really the favorites? As you can tell I am by no means confident in my picks, but I will throw my inhibitions to the wind and we'll see how it shakes out.
Rangers have looked pretty steady all season, but 1994 is a long time ago, so they will have to stay strong if they are going all the way, plus the Sens just don't seem like they are on the same level. Equally hard to go against last year's champs, so I have the Bruins (and my boy Timmy Thomas) beating the Crapitals. Sorry Ovechkin, still don't like you. Now for my Eastern Conf. upset I'll take the Devils over the Panthers. First time in team history Florida has won their division? - hard to believe, so I'll take experience over the upstarts. As for the Pens/Flyers, yes I am a homer but its also because I share Aaron's hatred for the Flyers. Pens need to step up the D and sure up Fleury's miscues over the last month. Only reason I have it going 7 games is due to Sid's health. But c'mon Line 1 - Malkin, Line 2- Crosby, and Line 3- Staal? What is not to like?
As for out West, I cannot express how much I really want to pick the Kings over the Canucks....but I'm not. Vancouver's in the same situation as last year, best team, great weapons, but as good as Luango was last year, he's been inconsistent down the stretch and it might hurt them to go back and forth with their goalies. Next I like the Blues over the Sharks. Again inconsistent play from San Jose worries me, but they are scrappy so it should be a good series, maybe 7 games. Coyotes/Hawks should be a good series too, even though they won their last 5 games and 11 of their last 12, having never won a playoff series, Phoenix still has to show me something. Lastly, I am loving the Preds and if Rinne can duplicate his play from last year's playoffs they can beat Detroit in a slug-fest and get to the conference finals.
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