Buffalo Sabres

From the Outside - 2nd round reflections and 3rd round predictions

Wow, what a great round of playoff hockey! Three series went to seventh games, and all four were (generally) great series. Plus, I went 3-1 on the prediction front, for a 9-3 overall record going into the final two rounds.

But when I was wrong, boy was I wrong! The Hurricanes were more than up to the challenge of the Bruins. The early season Bruins were nearly unbeatable, and the way they man-handled the Habs I assumed they were back at their stride. The fact is, Carolina is playing with skill and passion, and totally deserved to win that series. It IS funny that the Bruins smothered Carolina in their 3 wins, only allowing 2 goals, yet couldn’t make it 4.

The Pittsburgh-Washington series was the one I saw the most of, watching a couple of full games, and the ends of many of the others. Sabres management often claims that the league has tightened up approaching pre-lockout days, but I would say to them…”You’re wrong, and this series is example 1. You just don’t have the talent you did 2-3 years ago.” When you get two offensively talented teams together like that, great, exciting hockey comes out. It’s too bad the series ended with a stinker. In the end, I said goaltending would be the difference, and I think it was. That, and I think the Caps started to run out of gas towards the end of this series.

Out West, Detroit managed to eek out past the Ducks. As expected, I didn’t get to watch nearly as much of this series as I would’ve liked. I heard some (slight) complaining about the game-winner, but I watched it, and I don’t think Hiller really ever had it frozen, and therefore there is nothing to complain about…and being from Buffalo, I know about series ending goals.

Chicago handled Vancouver the easiest of the bunch, and though I picked this series right, I won’t pretend to have know enough to analyze it. I am still hugely impressed by how far Chicago has come in the last two seasons.

So, the stories wind up, and a new set begins - Round 3. Each round, to me, gets harder to pick, as any team that makes it this far is playing extremely well to get here.

Pittsburgh (#4) versus Carolina (#6): It’s telling that these were the two hottest teams in the East for the last two months of the regular season, with both teams on the outside looking in at mid-February. Yet here they are playing into the end of May. This is a really tough pick for me. Pittsburgh was 2-1-1 against Carolina, though they lost the last two they played. On paper you would say Pittsburgh is the better team, with Crosby obviously playing at the top of his game in the last series. But Carolina is keeping in the mix, they have only 4 players with 3 or more goals compared to Pittsburgh’s six, but (Eric) Staal has nine goals in the first two rounds, which is nothing to sneeze at and Jokinnen has been clutch. The big difference might be in goaltending, though, where Cam Ward has the highest save % of the remaining goalies, 0.927 versus Fleury’s .901. Now that may be a function of opponent as well, but Boston was one of the top offensive teams in the league. My feeling is if Pittsburgh can’t make quick work of Carolina, then this series is going to swing in the Hurricanes favor. I am going to pick the ‘Canes to go to the Stanley Cup again this year. (It hurts me to say that, too - I still hold ill will towards Carolina for stopping our “Team of Destiny” 3 years ago.)

Detroit Red Wings (#2) versus Chicago Blackhawks (#4)
Both teams were 3-2-1 in the season series, with Chicago winning the last two games of the season when they were meaningless games to Detroit. Chicago has the offense to keep up with Detroit’s firepower, and has eight players with 9 or more points, the most of the four teams left. But there is no doubt that Detroit has the ability to score as well, and even though they played the 7th and 8th seed, they had the hardest test of the two in the Ducks. Detroit however, is superior in defense and probably superior in goal. Osgood gets a lot of criticism saying that he is not that good, and that its all the Detroit system, but the guy has a 0.921 save percentage. Playoff experience counts for something and outside of their goaltender, the Blackhawks have very little. I stated last round that whichever of the Ducks/Red Wings made it to the conference finals I would pick that team to go to the cup finals, and I am sticking by that. Detroit wins this series in less than seven games.

So, there you go, I guess I am picking Carolina vs Detroit for the Stanley cup finals. (Another reason to pick Carolina, when’s the last time the same two teams met two years in a row…the answer ‘76 & ‘77, the Montreal Canadiens versus the Boston Bruins, back when there were only 18 teams. And to save you looking it up, the Habs won both times.)