If I could afford to travel to one series and go to all the games in a series it would be this one...
These are, in my opinion, the two best teams in all of hockey.... I know there are people in the East who might disagree with me, and I am not dissing any of the final eight teams when I say this, but I feel the Jets are going to be a force for years to come. And the first thing they must do is find a way to defeat the cream of the NHL in Nashville.
This is a series of matchups...plain and simple...
In Goal...
Two of the three Vezina candidates face-off against each other in this series....Pekke Rinne and Connor Hellebuyck are set to put on a show....but oddly enough, in the regular season these teams scored a ton of goals against each other...44 in 5 games...almost 9 per game...
I give Rinne the edge here though..based on experience and composure...Rinne will know how to handle this situation an although Hellebuyck played well in most of the first series, the Wild were nothing offensively compared to what Connor will see in the Preds 4 lines...
On Offense and Defense....
The Preds defense is tops and the Jets offense is equally scary...I will call that a push...but to me this comes down to the Predators offense versus the Jets defense....And there I give the Preds an advantage...that and the playoff experience...
Prediction:
Nashville in 7
What say you?