Sorry it took so long for me to post lads; I wanted to see who my 16-year-old (a perfect 8-0 in the opening round) was picking before I waded in with my choices. One more round like that and TSN will be using him instead of that 4-4 monkey.
Buffalo over New York in 6: The Rangers’ Sean Avery ensured that the NHL will be monitoring his every move by collectively threatening the Sabres in the lead-up to the series. Even with Jaromir Jagr and Michael Nylander leading the way offensively, the Rangers have been recast as a lunch bucket team since the Avery acquisition. The way he’s playing now, Henrik Lundqvist may be the equal of Sabres’ goaltender Ryan Miller, but on balance, Buffalo has too much scoring depth and that should make the difference as the series unfolds.
Ottawa over New Jersey in 6: The Devils represent the exact opposite challenge of the Penguins, Ottawa’s first-round opponent: The NHL’s most experienced playoff goaltender in Marty Brodeur and an experienced, defence-first squad that can get scoring from unusual sources. It’s why Senators coach Bryan Murray kept preaching the gospel of defence to his team all season; so that if the Senators need to play a patient game, they can do so. Ottawa needs more from Dany Heatley than they received in the first round and if they get it, they should be able to reverse the result from 2003.
San Jose over Detroit in 6: The Sharks were my pre-season pick for the Stanley Cup; there’s no logical reason to stop riding that horse until they falter. That said, the Red Wings showed me a lot in their first-round win over Calgary; officially, they won only four of six games on the score sheet, but they were the demonstrably superior team every night out. Still, the Sharks have a presence at centre in Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau that few teams can match. Detroit coach Mike Babcock can have Nicklas Lidstrom out there against one of them, but unless Sharks’ coach Ron Wilson doubles them on the same line, as he is occasionally wont to do, he can’t get Lidstrom out against both. And with Niklas Kronwall on the shelf, the Red Wings’ No. 2 pair isn’t nearly as effective as the No. 1 pair.
Anaheim over Vancouver in 5: A telling first-round stat: The Canucks led for just 45 minutes and 55 seconds out of a total of 512 minutes and 55 seconds played in their series against Dallas. Playing even or from behind every night is a hard way to win and it took Vancouver seven games to do it. The Canucks have the edge in just one department, goal, where Roberto Luongo was exceptional in the opening round, while his Anaheim counterpart, J.S. Giguere, played just one full game in the Minnesota series. Think of it this way: If the Canucks had a difficult time scoring against Dallas, how will they ever penetrate a Ducks’ defence that revolves around Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer?
First round: 7-1 (missed only the Anaheim-Minnesota series)
