This is it! The sun is shining, the weather is finally warming and the playoffs are at hand!
The first round of the Cup Playoffs is absolutely the greatest two weeks in sports. Tonight it all starts again. Creamy goaltending, struggles on the power play, upsets, a new level, endless overtimes…no sleep for ANY of us…this is just the best.
And the eight matchups this year are truly among the more intriguing we have seen in some time….so lets look at the four series starting tonight…..
Boston vs. Florida.
The last two President’s Cup Champs are meeting in the opening round for the first time since that award has been handed out…These two are very much a Tale of Two Seasons…
On the Bruins… What more can be said if the team with the best regular season EVER? The Bruins have it all, and have barely been challenged so far…In fact, the most challenging part of their season may be how often they’ve had to say, “It doesn’t matter how good we were. It means nothing until now…… But the talent level and experience in that room….ALWAYS matters..
On the Panthers…. It also doesn’t matter how good they were in many ways. The Panthers made a conscious decision to learn how to play all sorts of ways. The strong seasons of the past have been met with an inability to win low scoring games the way you need to in the playoffs. They have shown they can wins those sorts of games this year, but how consistently they can do that under pressure is anyone’s guess…It will come down to goaltending. Hopefully, Bobrovsky can do his thing…If he does, this series gets scary really fast…
Prediction: Boston in 7. But the Bruins will have their scares…for sure… Game 1 coul very much be one of those scares…
For the rest of my predictions on the series starting tonight….
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— Michael Augello (@MikeInBuffalo) January 5, 2021