Thursday, October 1, 2009

Gut Reactions: Playoff Seeding and Stanley Cup Winner

The guessing gets even ... guess...ier... *cough*

Eastern Conference

1. Washington Capitals
2. Philadelphia Flyers
3. Boston Bruins
4. Pittsburgh Penguins
5. New Jersey Devils
6. Montreal Canadiens
7. Carolina Hurricanes
8. Buffalo Sabres
Just missed: New York Rangers, Florida Panthers

Commentary: This is NOT necessarily how the playoffs would turn out. Generally, I think Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Boston all project to be better post-season teams but Washington will feast off of a weak division to take the #1 seed.

I feel a little uncomfortable picking Montreal and New Jersey to place that high, but after the top four I'm pretty stumped.

SCF Conference Rep: Boston Bruins

Western Conference

1. San Jose Sharks
2. Detroit Red Wings
3. Calgary Flames
4. Chicago Blackhawks
5. Vancouver Canucks
6. Anaheim Ducks
7. Columbus Blue Jackets
8. Los Angeles Kings
Just missed: St. Louis Blues, Dallas Stars

Commentary: The criticism for San Jose has gotten a bit extreme. Why not throw a little vitriol to Calgary or Vancouver as they've disappointed over the years in their own way? It's fine to make some jokes about the Sharks, but you win the games you can win and worry about the playoffs when they come.

SCF Conference Rep: San Jose Sharks

STANLEY CUP WINNER: San Jose Sharks

5 comments:

Chris Kontos said...

I don't know if it was me or RudyKelly but I'm glad to see that you've finally come around on the Los Angeles Kings.

Navin Vaswani (@eyebleaf) said...

You forgot the Leafs. I trust you'll make the necessary changes.

Joe said...

Boston to leave the East? That'd be cool, but I doubt it. They're just not going to be quite as good as last year, having lost Kessel and through regression to the mean on some rate-based stats. Its PIT/PHI for sure. And hopefully Detroit again in the West.

CLS said...

The Leafs are odd balls. They should certainly be an interesting team to watch this year.

I dig Boston's size, depth and goaltending. I think that will shine through in the playoffs even if the Bruins aren't quite as dominant statistically as they were last season.

Unknown said...

I remember that I had read an article at hostpph.com about the Stanly cup winner and it was as good as this one! :)