Playoff Predictions are hilarious! Every year, thousands of hockey analysts come out of the wood-work at the beginning of Playoff Season, and depending on whether or not they see their collective shadow, there is either six or eight weeks of hockey left.
With this years Cup Final set to stretch into the dog-days of August, it is only appropriate that most of the Final will be played in the winterless smog of Los Angeles.
Yes, it's the upstart New York Rangers vs. The Recent Champion Kings.
Unfortunately for the NHL, this has created a bit of an awkward situation no one really wants to address: The two best teams in the NHL - by a wide margin from where I'm sitting - just slugged it out over seven games for the right to face a team that won a very weak conference.
Never has playing for the Stanley Cup seemed so arbitrary. Now,of course everyone is going to follow protocol and act as if NYR/LA is a big deal, but how can it not be a let down after what just happened?
The LA/Chicago series was - by all accounts - a classic series. Two great teams, each a recent champion, some of the best hockey players in the world, going toe-to-toe for seven games.....it was awesome hockey and you didn't have to be a fan of either team to enjoy it.
Of course, this could all be solved by a 1-16 seeding after the regular season is over, but I digress. One of the best things about the NHL playoffs is that sometimes all you have to do is make it and anything can happen.
There is a real chance that the New York Rangers can knock of a superior team that is a little bruised up after playing the Hawks for seven games. To say nothing of the emotional/psychological strangeness of playing a faux championship series for right to play a lesser team.
Here is a quote from my Round 3 Prediction Blog: "Unfortunately a real danger here is that LA and Chicago kill each other and then are let down playing the Eastern team who then goes on to win the Cup."
Who could have foreseen that, am I right? Only someone paying at least slight attention to the playoffs could have made such an obvious (and yet, devastatingly accurate) prediction!
Here is another gem, from the same article: "Overall, and keep in mind this completely meaningless, I am picking the Canadiens in five and the Kings in seven."
Don't think I am not going to brag about predicting accurately that two evenly matched teams would go the distance. I am going to ignore the fact that i went 50% (i.e exactly what my non-hockey-watching grandma likely would have predicted) and focus on the out-of-context fact that I nailed the LA/Chicago series, pushing my total playoff record to debt-inducing 4-10.
So, based on the coin I just flipped, I am taking the Rangers in six. Angry at the offensive idea that LA already proved themselves the best team in hockey in "the Real Final" they will turn their offense into offense, and win in.....let's say six.
Just a Final Thought, and I probably am not the first to say this: But has a team ever played a team in the Cup before that was worse than any team they played all playoffs? No offense to the Rangers, but San Jose, Anaheim and Chicago are all superior teams....Makes you feel sorry for the non-clutch, chokemeisters called the Sharks, since if nothing else, this years playoffs really prove that match-ups are the determining factor in playoff success. Maybe they should think about it a little before they decide to blow up their team. I mean, it's ironic that the Sharks are failures and the Rangers are heroes, and yet the failure team is actually way better. Shhhh though, don't tell anyone! Luck being a massive factor in sports is a big secret, just keep acting like it really does come down to "clutchness"....
Thanks for reading. Tweets:james_tanner123