The Stanley Cup Playoffs

Sweet, that's eight people! Party at my buddy's house!

 

I am in the minority of Canadians who is picking (and hoping) for the Ducks to win. JS Giguere played for the Halifax Mooseheads and his wife is originally from the Maritimes. It would be great for him to win the Cup. When he played for the Mooseheads, he was solid in goal here and he is a great person off ice.
Since the start of the season, I picked Anaheim to win the Cup, so I pick them to win in six games.

 

That's just swell. Will he promise to pout and sniffle if he loses the Cup but wins the Conn Smythe, like in '93?

 

Although I'm a Devils fan through and through, I live in SoCal and thus, I've already secured my ticket for Game 1. Can't wait. First Cup finals game I've seen since Devils-Ducks, Game 4 at the Pond.

I've been harsh on Scott Niedermayer of late, but I'm rooting for him to win another SC. If I'm a hockey beat writer around SoCal, I not only talk about the Ducks, but I also catch up with Joe Corvo (former Kings player) and Bryan Murray (former Ducks coach/GM) and I also do a feature on Ducks forward Andy MacDonald, who was injured and thus was unable to play in the Ducks' first Cup finals appearance.

Edit: Forgot, too, that Martin Gerber is Ottawa's backup goalie. He was Giguere's back-up when the Ducks made it to the Finals in 2003.

 

Actually, I think you're in the majority.

Most Leafs fans would rather see Paul Bernardo go free than see the Sens win the Cup.

Also remember it's the team from our Nation's Capital and all that entails. The slimy politicians like Harper will be all over Parliament Hill wearing Sens sweaters and acting stupider than normal

And then, as a colleague pointed out, there's those fucking Sens fans who have been whining from Day One about HNIC being Torontocentric and how they don't get no respect, blah, blah, blach. Self-entitled douchebags.

And at the same time there was that fraud Rod Bryden trying to extort money out of the Canadian taxpayer--didn't he have a daily press conference for a stretch?

All valid reasons not to cheer for Ottawa.

I want Ottawa to win for a very specific reason: the Cup belongs in Canada.

 

Detroit = underachievers. Once again, it sucks to live in Detroit. Why couldn't my parents just have had me in North Dakota, then I could hop on any bandwagon and say, 'That's my team.'

 

What changes are coming for the Detroit roster in the wake of this season's finish?

 

Although the Ducks didn't face the Sharks and Ron Wilson, it would have been funny to see them face all of their former coaches in one postseason since they've already beaten Babcock and will face Murray in the finals.

Edit: No one called me on this, but, of course, the Ducks' other head coaches have been Pierre Page, Craig Hartsburg and Guy Charron.

 

Hard to call them underachievers this year. Considering it was supposed to be more of a rebuilding year, with the loss of Yzerman and Shanahan and the playing of the youth (Hudler, Filppula, Lebda, etc) more.


As far as roster changes, Lang is likely gone. Igor Grigorenko, a top prospect from Russia, is coming over. He was one of the top players in Russia about three years ago, got in a pretty bad car accident, played two more years in Russia after recovering and is coming over now.

Big question on any other roster moves

 

The Wings as underachievers? What? They took a chance on a 42 year old goaltender. They gave big time minutes to a 45 year old defenceman. They lost lots of leadership in Yzerman and Shanahan and pretty much handed things over to Zetterberg, Datsyuk and Holmstrom, and a bunch of guys named Filppula and Lebda and Kopeckny and Calder and finished as the top seed in the Western Conference and, based on their play at least, probably deserved to beat the Ducks.
They'll be fine. They need to develop a long term replacement in goal, but for a team rebuilding on the fly, they had a pretty good year.

 

I agree with huntsie on this one. The future does bode well for the Red Wings with their young players. Like the Avs, I see the Red Wings coming back to the top (like the dynasty years). They do need a goaltender soon because Hasek will not be around that much longer in the league. Once they have that in place they will contest for the Cup and win again. I also like the Avs chances too.

On another note, it is great to see Bryan Murray's fruits of labour paying off. He built the Ducks team and now has led the Sens to the Cup final. Murray deserves to be in the Cup final spotlight for sure for his past efforts with the Ducks and current success with the Sens.

 

adding a sentimental reason....Elgin

That story broke my heart.