If the season ended today

We are at this current moment 25-30 games away from the end of the regular season. This season has been exciting with some great story lines and is setting up to have two of the best conference finals in a long time should the standings hold true throughout the playoffs. With that said though, we may be in line for the most boring first round of the playoffs ever. I cannot realistically see any 6, 7, or 8 seeds challenging and of the top 3 seeds in either conference.

East

1 Boston Bruins vs 8 Florida Panthers

Boston is currently the best team in the league and outside of it's hiccup last night vs the Fighting Nabokovs, has rarely been beaten badly this season. They score on 23% of their power plays and kill 82% of their penalties. Tim Thomas hasn't woken up yet from his dream season and is playing out of its mind. Florida does not possess an offensive line that scares anybody nor have they picked a goaltender to lead them into the playoffs. Is it Vokoun or Andersen? Who gets the nod to start game one? After either gets shelled in game 1, how long until you see the other in the series? And with all signs to them trading Bouwmeester, the odds of them even making the playoffs are slim at best. But seeing how we are looking at today's standings only, the Panthers are in the playoffs, but won't last long.

Prediction: Bruins 4-0

2 Washington Capitals vs 7 Buffalo Sabres

The most important player in this series will be none other than Alexander....... Semin. Please use the next 20 seconds to throw something against the wall, calm down because I didn't say Ovechkin, and regroup. We good? Great. Alexander Ovechkin in my eyes is the best player in the league. He can score at will, is physical, and creates absolute havoc when on the ice. I have no doubt he will light it up in the playoffs. I am not saying he is not important to the sucess of the Caps. But here is my fun fact of the day. Alexander Semin and Alexander Ovechkin EACH score on average 1.3 points per game. Each averages .7 goals and .6 assists. But the difference is that teams will key on Ovie and try not to let him beat them in the series. This will leave opportunities for Semin. If he can capitalize on those opportunities, these team will go far.

Prediction: Caps 4-1

3 New Jersey Devils vs 6 New York Rangers

It pains me to say this being a Rangers fan, but short of a miracle, they have no chance in the playoffs this year. Let's look at the best case scenario here for the Rangers. Hank plays out of his mind, stands on his head, and allows no more than 2 goals a game. A Devils team who decided the last 15 years of boring hockey wasn't going to cut it decided to go out and get some offense because Brodeur was getting up there in years and was due for and injury letdown (which happened). Marty comes back for the playoffs, with trememdous rest, and the Devils revert back to boring hockey. In that scenario, do the Rangers win 4 games vs. their arch rival. No chance. The Rangers have trouble finding the back of the net and their defense is just bad enough that other teams get multiple scoring chances and cash in on 2-3 a game. Hank does his best to stop them all but he's also human. With Parise, Elias, Zajac, Langenbrunner, Rolston, and Shanny, the Devils are finally poised to take the load off of Marty's back and score more than 2 goals a game. The Garden may give the Rangers a game or 2, but no more.

Prediction: Devils 4-1

West

1 San Jose Sharks vs 8 Minnesota Wild

The Wild are the Rangers of the west. They play great defense, but can't find the back of the net against regular goalies. Evgeni Nabokov is no regular goalie. Nabby has the ability to play at 75% and shut out inferior teams. He will be able to yawn his way through the first round. The only chance the Wild has is if Backstrom matches Nabby and forces games into OT, where suddenly tensions run high, heart rates rise, and every shot could be the last of the game. That, or if the Sharks overlook the Wild and ready for a 2nd round matchup. In my opinion though, both things are highly unlikely and in this bout, Goliath beats David.

Sharks 4-0

2 Detroit Red Wings vs 7 Vancouver Canucks

Outside of Roberto Luongo (who hasn't looked at all himself since returning from the injury) and the Sedin boys, how are the Canucks ever going to match the offensive fire power of the mighty Red Wings. The Wings boast the top PP in the league (over 27%) and have the most goals in the league by a large margin. The 2nd place scoring team can put up a Dallas-esque 10 in the next game and still be trailing Wings in goals scored. If you are facing Detroit, which guy do you target the most to stop? Datsyuk or Zetterberg? Or Hossa? Or Lidstrom? What about on the PP? Because when you are watching those 4, Samuelsson and Hudler and Holmstrom wreak havoc and light the lamp. This team is simply a matchup nightmare, and Vancouver doesn't have the power to do anything about it.

Prediction: Detroit 4-1

3 Calgary Flames vs 6 Anaheim Ducks

This is by far the most intruging matchup of the 1st round and I strategically left it for last. Somehow after losing two of their top scorers from last year in Tanguay and Huselius, the Flames filled in the cracks and are sitting atop their division and in third in the conference. (Michael Cammalleri take a bow) Each year the Flames are the ugly ducklings of the playoffs. They rely on basically two guys to carry the load on their backs (Iginla and Kipper) and use role players the rest of the way to keep the ship going. With that said though, those role players all take turns stepping up and being the heroes of any given game. The Flames win ugly, but the key is Mike Keenan has found a way to keep them winning.

The Ducks on the other hand don't have "it" this year. They look almost bored out there. This team used to be fun to watch. They hit, they fought, they scored, and they looked like they were having fun out there. Now, they look like they are simply going through the motions until the end of April roles around. There is no sense of urgency or want with this team. While I am not saying that is the end all and be all when it comes playoff time, it is something. On top of that, who is getting the nod game 1? Is it Hiller or Giggy? Easily you can make cases for each, but Giggy hasn't been himself since his father passed away and Hiller is inexperienced. Also, whichever one does start will be looking over his shoulder the entire time, especially once one or two losses happen. I think this will be the closest series that isn't a 4-5 in the playoffs, but for some reason I think the Flames want it more and therefore will take it.

Prediction: Calgary 4-2

There you have it, what may be one of the most boring first rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in recent memory.

Headlines For 3/11/08

I think I'm going to start doing more of these. Here's how this is going to work. I'll pick a few headlines every day and write a quick little reaction to them. These will not be the only posts I ever make. On the days that have a normal full length blog, I'll push these headlines to the bottom of the post. If any of you have suggestions on what you'd like to see me comment on feel free to leave your ideas in the comments section.

Jarome Iginla Sets Flames Scoring Record

This is wonderful news. Iginla is one of the best players in the league and doesn't get enough recognition for it. He's a natural leader that can put the puck in the net, but that's not all. How many other guys have a skill set like him and still throw down to defend his teammates?

His 365th career goal passes Theo Fleury (legendary pest) and secures his name among the all-time greats that have suited up in Calgary.

Congrats Jarome I know you've made Gopher proud.

(Side note: This week marks the first week of the playoffs in our league. Gopher has the 1-seed. I finished as the 3-seed and missed a first round bye by 10 points in the standings. There will be a post coming soon about how the week is going for me soon.)


Rangers Win Again, 8-0-2 In Last 10

As stated in a recent post, will the Rangers continue to play at this level or is this just another big streak before the inevitable downfall?

Henrik Lundqvist has been playing out of his mind recently. Did anyone see the game against the Bruins on Sunday? He was saving goals that even a blind kid with one leg and one good arm should have been able to hammer home. There was one sequence where he dove across the crease with the glove and makes the save on Glen Metropolit only to see the rebound bounce out into the slot where he made another save ON HIS BACK! I don't care who you are, you have to be impressed with that.



Upon further review, that also gets my nomination for "Save of the Year" to go along with Cristobal Huet's save on Jordan Staal from the same day.

Hossa Hopes To Return To Penguins This Week

All I can say about this is "YAY!" Yes I'm a Pens fan and not even Gopher can roll his eyes about this one since he has him on his fantasy team.

The Pens only have 2 games this week, Wednesday against Buffalo and Sunday against Philadelphia. Both games are at home and as expected he will be on a line with Sidney Crosby. Stay tuned for more updates on this as they come in, but getting him back in the line-up could help the rest of the team in the shots on goal department.

And lastly for today we turn to baseball...sort of.


NHL Considers Yankee Stadium For Next Outdoor Game

Let's get this out in the open now before baseball season gets into full swing. I am a Red Sox fan so naturally I loathe the very existence of the New York Yankees and everything that goes with them.

Except this.

How cool would it be to send Yankee Stadium out with a real bang and not the implosion scheduled after the season? Just to keep the theme going with the Boston/New York rivalry, the Bruins and Rangers should face-off in the next installment of NHL Outdoors. It doesn't get much better than two Original 6 teams from two cities that hate each other in an iconic stadium where a standing room only crowd will witness an instant classic.

To Gary Bettman I say this: Please for the love of hockey get this done. The Winter Classic this year was amazing and couldn't have been scripted better than the game turned out. It's a brilliant marketing tool and can only grow the game even more.

Also, SIGN A DEAL WITH ESPN ALREADY.

Thank you.

Well that's it for now, but check back tomorrow for the latest headlines!