NHL: Playoffs, round 2

The first round is behind us, and it's time to see how my picks worked out. Just for the hell of it, I'm going to compare myself with Adam Proteau of the Hockey News, who also made some playoff picks. I love Proteau's stuff on THN and have the greatest amount of respect for him as a hockey journalist and pundit. That's why I get a kick out of comparing my picks to his.

East:

Boston - Montréal
I said: Bruins in five.
What happened: Bruins in four.
Adam said: Bruins in five.
What can I say? The Habs were even worse than I thought.

Washington - New York
I said: Caps in six.
What happened: Caps in seven.
Adam said: Caps in seven. Nice one, Adam!

It's testament to the Rangers' unbelievably rubbish offense that they didn't win Game 7 of this series. After the lackluster way the Caps played the first two periods, the game should have been something like 5-1 after 40 minutes. But it wasn't, so I stand by my original prediction that the Rangers' horribly deficient offense led to their downfall.

New Jersey - Carolina
I said: Devils in six. Wrong!
What happened: Canes in seven.
Adam said: Devils in six. Wrong!

Wow. The Canes pulled off an incredible turnaround in the seventh game, with two goals in what, the last two minutes of the game? Amazing. I didn't think they had what it took, and New Jersey looked terrifyingly good at times during the season.

Pittsburgh - Philadelphia
I said: Pens in five.
What happened: Pens in six.
Adam said: Flyers in seven. Wrong!

The Flyers stick to form with a second ridiculous playoff failure against the Penguins. What is it with the Flyers and the Pens? Philadelphia was horrible in this series. Their defense was rubbish, but above all their offensive play was just horrible. They had more turnovers than completed passes in most games. How can they be a consistently terrible playoff team two years in a row against the very same franchise?

Overall I got the winning team right three out of four times, only failing with the Canes. That's one better than Proteau! Go me.

**

West:

San Jose - Anaheim
I said: Sharks in six.
What happened: Ducks in six.
Adam said: Sharks in six.

I figure me and Adam both expected the Sharks to finally get over their playoff troubles. Despite some great stepping up by Joe Thornton and captain Patrick Marleau, we were wrong.

Detroit - Columbus
I said: Jackets in seven.
What happened: Wings in four. Wrong!
Adam said: Wings in seven.

I admit I was far too optimistic. I'd like to echo what THN's Rory Boylen said about the Jackets: you'd think that after waiting this long to make the playoffs, they'd at least have been prepared. It got pretty ugly at times. Still, my bad for stupidly picking a first-time playoff franchise to win a series.

Canucks - Blues
I said: Canucks in six.
What happened: Canucks in four. Right result, wrong number of games.
Adam said: Blues in seven.

Chicago - Calgary
I said: Chicago in six.
What happened: Chicago in six. Hooray!
Adam said: Flames in six.

For obvious scheduling reasons, I see way more Eastern Conference games than Western, and that shows here. I only got two right; then again, Adam only got one right. Go me!

Overall, by winning team, I was 5/8; slightly better than random!

**

The conference semi-finals start this weekend, so let's get in some picks!

East:

Boston - Carolina
This is the first real test for the Bruins. Do they have what it takes? I think they do, but the Hurricanes will put up a real fight. Either team can win this.
Bruins in six.

Washington - Pittsburgh
I think just about everyone who watches hockey has been looking forward to this series. The way I see it, Washington has a clear advantage in goaltending and defense, and that should swing the series in their favor. The referees are going to blatantly favor Pittsburgh again, like they did in the Flyers series earlier; in the deciding game, I counted six blatant fouls on Flyers players with the puck in the Pittsburgh zone during the last period alone. None were called. It's going to be a tough series and an unfair series.
For the Caps, the question is which team shows up. If the Caps from Game Six of the first round show up, they'll win in five games. If the Caps from Game Seven show up, they'll be swept.
Caps in seven.

West:

Detroit - Anaheim
This is a tough series. Just because of Teemu, I want to believe in Anaheim, but I don't see it working out for them. This will be an epic series, though.
Wings in seven.

Vancouver - Chicago
The Blackhawks already got in some good practice in smashing a Northwest division trap team, and that should come in handy here.
Hawks in six.

**

I freely admit that my picks in the West are slightly influenced by my desire to see a Chicago-Detroit conference final. It would be epic. My belief is that ultimately the Cup will stay in the West, if only because if the Eastern final ends up being Bruins - Caps, there won't be a single intact player left in the Eastern champs' roster.

A couple of teams will face some big questions after their elimination from the first round, none more so than San Jose. I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with the team; they're a young organization, and their most important players don't have that much playoff experience. One way of looking at this season is to say that they continue to fail miserably in the post-season; another is to say that they're looking an awful lot like Detroit around the lockout. And that isn't necessarily bad.

The situation in Calgary is more dire. They've only got past the first round of the playoffs once since 1989, when they last won the Cup. I believe one of the biggest reasons is that Kiprusoff plays far too much in the regular season, but over the last season or so Mike Keenan has turned the team's defense into a shambles. A big reason Kiprusoff's stats are down, at least judging from the games I've seen, is the ineptitude of the defense in front of him. I don't believe Calgary is anywhere near good enough to make a deep playoff run.

In the east, I firmly believe the Rangers have to get rid of GM Glen Sather. I agree completely with what Adam Proteau said in his post on the topic: "the Rangers, yet again, have been constructed by GM-from-an-undisclosed-location Glen Sather to be just good enough to make the playoffs and just bad enough to enjoy minimal success in those playoffs." The whole roster is founded on misplaced hopes that players like Scott Gomez and Chris Drury will suddenly become top-line players who can lead a team to playoff victory. Well, they didn't. Once again, a slow, old team in front of Henrik Lundqvist just isn't enough for success. If they stick with Sather, it's going to raise the question: are the Rangers even trying to do better?

I'll finish off with the most amazing fact of the first round of the playoffs. In Game 7 in the Caps-Rangers series, the best skater on the ice, by far, from both teams, was Sean Avery.

You figure this guy out.