Changing of the guard....

The NHL season is drawing to a close and not too many people are predicting a Eastern Conference champion at the end of the year.... but I think this postseason will be a harbinger of things to come. Lets make a quick comparison of the best team's each conference and the engines that make them run:

Detroit is a team driven by strong puck possession and controlling the tempo of play... Their team is driven by the some seasoned vets Nicklas Lidstrom (37), Dallas Drake (39) Kris Draper (36) Tomas Holmstrom (35) Kirk Maltby (35) Darren McCarty (36) Brian Rafalski (34) Chris Osgood (35) Dominek Hasek (43) and the undead Chris Chelios (46)..... A quick look at that lineup tells me desptie some excellent younger talent like Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk the Wings are likely nearing the end of their year over year dominance.

Ok so the Red Wings for the most part are an outlier and are not truly representative of the West - Lets look at the defending Stanley Cup Champions Anaheim Ducks --- They have some young talent too but the core of their team Rob Niedermayer (33) Todd Marchant (34) Teemu Selanne (37) Doug Weight (37) Scott Niedermayer (34) Sean O'donnell (36) Mathieu Schneider (38) Chris Pronger (33) so it seems to me that their run might be coming to an end.

Now perhaps singling out those two teams is not fair. Its certainly not the case around most of the Western conference that teams that teams are built solely around youth - but if you compare these top teams in the West to the top 3 in the rankings in the East: Pittsburgh, Montreal, Washington.

Pittsburgh is a team thats run by a group of young stars, and a smattering of seasoned veterans... In stark contrast to Detroit their top players are as follows: Sidney Crosby (20) Evgeni Malkin (21) Maxime Talbot (24) Tyler Kennedy (21) Jordan Staal (19) Kris Letang (20) Ryan Whitney (25) Marc-Andre Fleury (23) Dany Sabourin (27)....

Ok for argument's sake lets say Montreal ends up being the best team in the East.... Lets look at their lineup Mikhail Grabovski (24), Chris Higgins (24), Andrei Kostitsyn (23) Sergei Kostitsyn (21), Maxim Lapierre (23), Guillaume Latendresse (20), Tomas Plekanec (25), Mike Komisarek (26), Josh Gorges (23) Ryan O'Byrne (23), Jaroslav Halak (22) and Carey Price (20).

Now its time to also look at the team likely to finish 3rd in the east- Washington.... How are they doing... Nicklas Backstrom (20) Boyd Gordon (24) Brooks Laich (24) Alex Ovechkin (22) Alex Semin (24) Milan Jurcina (24) Steve Eminger (24) Mike Green (22) Shaone Morrison (25) and Jeff Schultz (22)

Sure all 3 of the teams have some seasoned veterans on it, and I think its very important in either of these situations that there is a balance between youth and veterans. So who is better positioned to survive the marathon NHL postseason? Is it the time with veteran wile? Or the team that is built around youth?

I will take the youth movement - especially a youthful lineup with proven veterans. So who are my finals picks right now?

The smart money is on the Ducks and Penguins, but I've never really believed in the smart money. Here is what i think will happen....

I think at the end of the day the two teams you will see in the NHL finals will be the Sharks and Canadiens.

More playoff previews to come... once all the matchups are set.

Surprises all around

Ok so its almost the end of the season – the end of a crazy season in the NHL. Well allow me to correct that statement the end of a crazy season in the Eastern Conference…. The West has been a little helter skelter all year but in the end its turning out the way a lot of people envisioned at the beginning of the year… You take a look at the preseason predictions and I suspect more than a few people had the following:

1. Detroit
2. San Jose
3. Minnesota
4. Anaheim
5. Dallas
6. Colorado
7. Calgary
8. Nashville

Well outside of Nashville perhaps that’s basically how a lot of people probably saw this shaking out…..

But lets take a peek at the East…would anyone in their right mind have the following….

1. Pittsburgh
2. Montreal
3. Washington
4. New Jersey
5. NY Rangers
6. Boston
7. Philadelphia
8. Ottawa

Which as I write this its becoming more and more likely.

Now lets break it down seed by seed – did anyone really think that Pittsburgh would be on top of the Eastern Conference despite having lost Sid the Kid for a significant portion of the regular season.

How about Montreal??? Did anyone see this coming – I’m a diehard Habs fan and I insisted they weren’t lottery bound as many people predicted because I had seen their kids play and knew how good they could be --- but this good? This soon? Even the craziest Habs fan would likely not have had them higher than 4^th.

Washington – now they still have to win a game to get in but I have a feeling that now that they are so close nothing is going to stop them now. Not too many people thought they would have enough to beat out Carolina for the Southeast division title but they are on the verge of doing just that…. And the smart money is that they will do it.

New Jersey – yes no worries there that’s pretty expected.

Rangers – yup that’s about right, although most people expected them to get to the top of the East….Didn’t happen.

How about the Bruins??? This one still perplexes me…I mean this team lost their best young player, their best scorer at a key time, and their second leading scorer…. It simply does not make sense… Especially when you think they have done it with defense and goaltending --- and not even blue chip goaltending. They’ve done it with the journeymen of journeyman goalies… Tim Thomas. And his backup none less than the frequently rejected Alex Auld! Again some things in life just make no sense.

Now Philly is another one that really doesn’t make too much sense either… they started hot and then got REALLY REALLY REALLY cold - losing a franchise record 10 games in a row at one point during the season – yet they are in.

Finally Ottawa….what does the hottest start in league history equal? Apparently this year in the NHL it means barely squeaking in to the playoffs. To be honest this is no great mystery to me – because going into the season I was very surprised by their hot start because I simply thought that they had not gotten stronger but rather had gotten weaker in the offseason. I wasn’t sold on their goaltending, nor did I think their forwards or defense were as deep as they had been in previous years. Even with these doubts I highly doubted that they would be anywhere near as bad as they ended up being. I’ve said this before and I’ll say this again but it’s a shame that for as skilled as they are at drafting forwards and D they can’t draft a decent goaltender. I mean to compare them to the Habs --- arguably Montreal’s top 4 goalies at the start of the season…. Huet, Halak, Price, and Danis are better than either Gerber or Emery. At this point I might even say Cedrick Desjardins who was toiling in the ECHL for most of the year is better than any of Ottawa’s goalies..

Maybe Ottawa should draft this kid - he looks like he has good technique.

All this to say it simply makes no sense in the east this year. But that’s why you simply have to love hockey – for all the “experts” out there in the world – No one and I guarantee you no one got these even close to right.