Who do you want in round two?

ok…so here’s my line up…and why I’d take the Canes…

Boston-I wouldn’t mind seeing cause I want to go to Boston to catch a game live this year.

Caps-I just got through dealing with the Flyers series..I can use one series off of dealing with an uneducated amped up fan base.

Devils-Would be too boring I think of a series. Even it goes 6 or 7. (then again the Canes-Devils isn’t exactly snooze button of a series)

Canes-Not scared of their D-Men, and I think that shutting down the likes of Staal, Cole and the “Wizard” can be done. Call me crazy but I like the match-ups and I think it would be an exciting and hopefully not too stressful of a series.

All that being said…it’s the playoffs and you never know what you are going to get in a series till the puck drops.

I think it’s pretty clear (based on what we saw in game 6) that the Rangers are packing it in and we’ll be treated to another blowout in which Antropov and Zherdev spend the entire night avoiding the front of the net and not finishing checks. So that pretty much limits us to Boston or Washington. In both cases, in spite of the lack of home ice, I like the matchup for the Penguins.

In general, I think both the Bruins and Caps are going down in the second round (unless Lundqvist absolutely steals game 7 for New York and they end up with Boston). While both teams are loaded with talented players, each locked up their division fairly early and spent the last 2 months of the season playing crappy, passionless hockey. That, combined with the lack of playoff experience on each side, tends to spell trouble for a team when they come up against a talented, healthy, and experienced side in the postseason. If the Bruins get Carolina in round 2, I think that’s their worst nightmare: a red-hot team 3 seasons removed from a Stanley Cup that’s not intimidated by anything. Just as I think the Capitals don’t win a round 2 against New Jersey, a team with an excellent goalie and, unlike New York, an actual offense.

As far as specifics, my sense of the Bruins (having watched them a lot this season) is that they’re very flat when Kessel and Lucic don’t play well. And that happens more frequently than you might expect. The player Kessel reminds me of is Alex Kovalev; he’s tremendously talented, but he just vanishes for 2-week stretches for no clear reason. And Lucic seems to lose focus whenever he’s not playing the Canadiens (and discipline when he does). My sense of the Capitals is that, while they’ll get their goals, I just don’t trust their defense or their goaltending over the long haul. Without Theodore’s awful game 1 performance and Lundqvist stealing a couple of wins, Washington would have easily exposed how weak the Rangers are this year. In other words, I think both of these teams will struggle when they have to face serious competition, and the Pens are exactly the kind of talented, hit-you-in-the-mouth team that they may not be ready for.

I’m surprised no one wants to Bruins. They didn’t close the season out strong and swept the Canadiens in the first round (which isn’t saying much). Seems like there’s a pretty big consensus for either NJ or Carolina in the first round.

I would like the Pens to have to deal with the faster team first, rather than later, after another round and more physical exhaustion. Take care of the Canes now.

The Carolina/New Jersey series isn’t half bad either. Game 7 is tomorrow at 7:30 in NJ and will ultimately stand as the deciding factor in whether or not Devils fans will cry all offseason about that goal Marty allowed with .2 seconds left on the clock in Game 4.

Meh. Not really, or at least not this Devils fan, anyway. Brodeur responded to the outcome of Game 4 with perhaps the greatest performance of his legendary career by pitching a 44 save shutout in Game 5, giving the Devils a 3-2 series lead and a chance to put the ‘Canes down for good in Game 6, a chance they quite obviously did not take. The Devils are quite capable of beating the Hurricanes and winning this series, but if they don’t they really have no one to blame for it but themselves. One could even argue that had the Devils not gone on six-game slide near the end of the regular season they had a good chance of locking up the second seed and a slightly less probable one of taking the conference. Instead they let their game slip and fell to third in the standings, thus drawing what has proven to be the toughest lower-seeded opponent in the Eastern Conference and entering the postseason on a down note. That said, I’ll be rooting for them tomorrow tonight and hope they can get their junk together and pull out a win.

Boston is the team to beat this year in the East. The Bruins are solid, and don’t have any obvious weaknesses. There’s talent, grit, and depth galore. No one is better than Chara in the league on D and he should get the Norris this year, Thomas has been solid and is a Vezina finalist, and the team finished second in the NHL in goals for, and first in the NHL for goals against. They easily swept the Habs without even breaking a sweat. Plus, they’re healthy. If any team in the East beats the Bruins, it’ll be considered an upset.

All that being said, it’s not as if the Pens don’t have what it takes to beat the Bruins. It’s just that all other teams in the East have obvious weaknesses the Pens would have a much better chance of exploiting. If the Pens played the Caps, Ovechkin could ring up a hat-trick every night and it wouldn’t make a difference. Crosby/Malkin/Stall would still put more pucks behind whomever the Caps put in goal (let’s call him “Jose Varlamov”), and the series would be over in 6. The Devils/Canes? Both have playoff tested veterans, but aren’t good enough to overcome the Pens talent. The Rangers? Yeaaaah. Chris Drury could have a clutch goal every game of the series, and the Rangers would still score only 5 goals.

boston would be a great series (6 gamer), devils would be a 5 gamer, and caps and canes would probably be 6 gamers as well. either way i think that the one team i dont want to face is carolina. these guys look determined, gritty, and down right tough to play. with the caps, devils, and bruins you can expect to see the cheap shots. morso from the caps then anyone else. i would much rather see the devils in the next round.

I voted for the Devils, simply because I think that would be the series that’s over and done with the quickest. However, my Rinkotology bracket has the Pens playing the Caps (and winning in 7 games), so I kind of want that, too. :p