Pool Update & Round 3 Precitions

After a brief break, NHL playoff action resumes tonight with an 8pm start in Boston betweem the Bruins & Lightning. The action has been great to this point. The 2nd round got off to a bit of a snoozefest with the East providing very little intrigue in the way of 2 sweeps. That said the West more than made up for it, specifically the Sharks-Red Wings series.

As for the pool, We've a tie @ the top of the standings between Harold Ballard & The Ducks with 256 points. Can the owners of both teams contact me and we'll get prizes arrangments sorted. Those of you wondering about prizes & payouts - those are covered in the 04/17 - Weekend Update posting.

The overall pool is still very much undecided as there are a number of teams with alot of players left. The more players you have the longer the playoffs go, the better yur chances of finishing in the $$$. Luck of the Irish still has ALL of their players left which is mighty impressive - they do however have alot of ground to make up being 37 points out of the lead. Other teams of note are Zamboni Nation (yep - my team) with 19 players remaining, Gar007 with 18 left and 6 more teams are tied with 16 players remaining.

Before we get to my predicitons, I wanted to point you to the EA Sports Simulator and it's prediciton of a Bruins-Canucks Stanley Cup Final. So far I've done pretty well on the prediciton front, going 7 of 8 in round 1 and 3 for 4 in round 2. Not bad at all. Only series I missed last round was Boston's. I just can't peg that team.

Of the 4 teams that are left, none of them have ever faced each other in the playoffs before - me likey. It's gonna be very interesting to see how this plays out.

Eastern Conference Finals

 vs. 

Has there ever been a meeting of 2 teams so late in the playoffs where the starting goalies combined age is nearly 80 years old? I dunno what else to say about that other than wow.

With both teams having swept their previous opponents & not having played in what feels like 2 weeks - I'm thinking this series is due for a slow start. Tampa's dispatching of Washington looked way to easy & Boston redeemed itself after last years collapse against the same Flyer team. Couple things about that series - Boston had Tim Thomas in net this year & Philly has no less than 5 regulars having or had off season surgery since being swept.

The Bruins had trouble with a faster smurfish Habs team in round one. Tampa coach Guy Boucher coached a number of Montreal's players as their minor league coach last season & is quite familiar with alot of those same players so I'm betting Tampa does alot of the same things. Boston will be missing a huge piece in Patrice Bergeron when the series starts and I've no idea if he's due to come back. Rookie Tyler Seguin is set to make his playoff debut tonight in his place & I think he's gonna be overwhelmed. But with Bergeron out & Savard before him - that's alot of depth in the middle that's now gone. Also something that can't be ignored is the Bruins putrid powerplay - having scored only 2 goals in 2 rounds. That's not how you win playoff series. But as we all know - a goalie is capable of stealing a series - and Tim Thomas is certainly capable of doing that.

Zamboni Nation Predicition: Bolts in 6

Western Conference Finals

 vs. 

Since this years All Star Break, these teams had nearly identical records. Vancouver's record was 23-9-0 where as San Jose was 23-6-3. Another similarity is last year both teams were knocked off by the Blackhawks. Vancouver held the edge in the regular season series but the majority of those games were in the 1st half before the Sharks really start clicking. If Vancouver is expecting the same regular season sharks - they're in for a huge surprise.

Both teams face high expectations - but until the Canucks barely held on to beat the Blackhawks this year, they'd never really done much of anything against good teams in the postseason. The same can be said of the Sharks but they've now beat Detroit in back to back playoff years which should silence some critics. San Jose is a little more of a veteran team with players such as Thornton, Boyle & Marleau and have been here before. Neither Luongo or the Sedin's have been this far before - this is new ground for them and they've not done anything to prove doubters wrong yet. If the Sedin's still can't score in the playoffs & the Canucks rely on Kesler to be Mr.everything like they did against Nashville's pop-gun offense - the Sharks are gonna have a feeding frenzy. Marleau, Thornton & Boyle all played with Luongo during last years olympics so that'll be intrgigint o see if they try & exploit anything. Also of note, San Jose's Chicago imports - Anti Neimi & Ben Eager have both faced this same Canuck team & won.

Zamboni Nation Predicition: Sharks in 6

Regardless of whoever wins either series, the Finals is going involve ALOT of traveling. Boston & Tampa Bay couldn't possibly be any further from Vancouver or San Jose.

Thanks everyone. Enjoys tonights action.
-PD