yave1964

@Brewin Flames Larsson and Keith Petruzzelli are considered something of goalie prospects for the Wings which is good, we have had years of Harri Sateri and his ilk playing at the A, Howard and Bernier aren't really the answer, more of a stop gap at this point and it would be nice to develop a nice young cheap tandem for 20-21.I love watching AHL Hockey, looking forward to seeing Larsson in person next year.

With the Boston win It shows once again The cup wont be lifted By a Canadian outfit

And if anyone says they have a bracket that is in good shape I am calling shenanigans.

Boring snoozefest absolutely zero interest. The Winner of Columbus/Boston will win the East and represent in the finals no matter who wins this one. I will not waste one second of my life on watching this series. Canes in 7 just because.

I absolutely think he should be given the shortest of short leashes going forward, Poille is a solid aggressive GM who always adds at the deadline and in the offseason, at some point failure to launch needs to land in the coaches lap. I would have to say Lavy at the least has a very hot seat, hotter even than Babs is sitting on right now.

As long as said scouts dont try to convince you that guys like Fehr, JT Brown, Pateryn, Read and Aberg are not the final pieces to get your team over the top all is fine.

I went Sharks in six, the Knights/Sharks in two short years has turned into one of the games best rivalries and I expect the Sharks to be a bit drained and for the Avalanche to hang around a bit but in the end the Sharks are simply too deep.

In all seriousness these two teams play the same style, four solid lines who can all score and play defense, a solid blueline and a top tier goalie. Comparing the two teams: HEAD TO HEAD They played three times down the stretch, Columbus blew them out 7-4 the first time, Boston won 2-1 in OT the second time and then Boston took the third game 6-2 in the third from final game of the year, the only game that CBJ has lost in the last 11. GOALTENDING Bobrovsky was the difference or one of them anyway in their series win against Tampa, many in Boston have called for Rask to be benched at times in the Toronto series although he was extremely sharp the last two games. DEFENSE To me this is an edge for Columbus with apologies to Krug, Chara and the emerging Carlo, Seth Jones is becoming one of the best defenders in the game, Werenski is a fantastic number two and David Savard has quietly turned in an amazing second half. The edge is slight but it is there. FORWARDS Boston deserves the edge here based off the top line in all of hockey and the fact that their depth on the other three lines is the equal of what Columbus has. HOME ICE Boston has home ice but lost two to Toronto at home in the first round. INTANGIBLES Columbus is well rested, extremely so after dispatching Tampa in four what seems a lifetime ago while Boston will be playing Thursday with only one day off between series after besting Toronto in game seven on Tuesday. Columbus has had a chance to allow their nicks and bruises to heal but often too much rest creates rust. Boston is mostly healthy and they seem to be peaking but a lot of times there is a letdown game after an emotionally draining series. Columbus in seven is my real pick but man this one is close.

Bluejackets in five for one simple reason: I have tickets for game six.

I dont like Vegas AT ALL, I was sick of their narrative by midseason a year ago and I am glad they lost. But. That was two minutes IMHO. The fact that Pavelski hit his head on the ice and was injured on the play is why they called it five, it was a fluky play with kind of a double whammy with a second hit by Stastny as well but even with that, a 3-0 lead with ten minutes to go blowing the game was their own fault. 4 goals in four minutes was a collapse of epic proportion and bad call or not, the Knights have only themselves to blame.

Preseason I picked the Leafs to beat the Blues for the cup. Of course like everyone else I changed my mind a dozen times along the way but the reason I took the Leafs is the reason you listed above. PLUS Babs. I have a hard time blaming him, I think he is a tremendous coach, one of the top two or three in the game today and dont see what can be brought in that would be any better/ O'Keefe? I understand the ties between he and your GM so that is a maybe but IDK, a hungry young vet team with a rookie coach doesn't sound right to me. Babs has years remaining at a crazy salary as well. I think at the least he has another year, possibly two. And dont write this series off yet. Game 7 in two days. And personaly if you lose in 7 hard fought bloody games the one I would point a finger at is Kadri first, second and third. I said when Babs left my Wings and went to Toronto that if he didn't win he would be hated, if he broke the Leafs long cup drought his face would be on the money up there. Still think that. It was gutsy for him to take over the Leafs, it takes a lot of faith in yourself to put yourself out there like that as a coach who could have taken a safer post in Buffalo or stayed in Detroit even.

PRESEASON OUTLOOK Coming off a 101 point season the year before and a disappointing early playoff bounce the Ducks hoped to have the same regular season but a better run in the playoffs this year. Hopes were pinned on a mix of veteran players with some good young kids to transition from the Getzlaf/Perry era without the need for a rebuild. FINAL RECORD 35-37-10 80 points 10 points out of a playoff spot. Dead last in the league in scoring. HIGH POINT OF THE YEAR The Ducks battled injuries in the first half of the season behind what can only be described as brilliant goaltending from John Gibson who seemed to face 40 plus shots a night with very little offense, after playing at or near .500 for the first month or so they caught absolute fire between November 21st and December 17th winning 11 of 13 to push their record to 19-11-5 looking like a sure fire playoff team and as if they were destined to battle for the division title as well. There were reasons to worry, the offense was still bad but Perry and Rackell were due back and hopes were high in Anaheim. LOW POINT OF THE YEAR Pretty much everything from that day until the end of theyear to be quite honest. They lost their next 12 in a row at that point scoring more than 2 goals in a game only twice during that stretch as a bad offense became inept, then after winning 2 games they went into another tailspin losing 13 of their next 16. In total during that Bataan death march they went a God awful 5-21-4 wrecking what had started out so promising. Somehow they hung around the fringe of a playoff race into the last few weeks not because they were good but because the bottom of the West was so bad. WHAT WENT RIGHT John Gibson tailed off towards the middle but he had a brilliant season and if not for his heroics this team could have been biblically bad. Getzlaf led the team with an anemic 48 points the lowest total for a Ducks team leader in non strike year since...Well hell I am not even going to look it up but it has been forever since it was so low. Silferberg led the team with 24 goals and had a solid season. Henrique had his usual 42 point season. Josh Manson established himself as someone you dont want to run into in a corner fighting for a puck. Is that really it? Yep, that is, Gibby really is the only player who outperformed expectations. WHAT WENT WRONG Lets see... Cory Perry missed over half the year and did zilch upon returning, he is done. Ryan Getzlaf played all year and scored 8 points, he has nothing left. Not using injuries as an excuse but Henrique is the only player on the team who appeared in over 76 games, on top of lack of offense there was no cohesion as bodies were moved in an out due to injuries, desperate trades and kids being sent down then called right back up again. Rackell missed 13 games and counted on for 35 goals contributed only 18. Josh Ritchie was expected to be a Tom Wilson type, 25 goals and strong rugged two way play, he scored 9 and took a slew of dumb inopportune penalties. Ondrej Kase started great with 11 goals in 30 games but then missed the rest of the year just when they needed him most. Patrick Eaves only managed to play in 7 games giving him 9 total in 2 years since signing his ridiculous three year extention based off a couple of hot months in what seems a lifetime ago. Lots of injuries, lots of bad play. Kids got icetime few stuck out. FREE AGENTS Well the good news is Ryan Kesler is talking about career ending back surgery which would allow the Ducks to bury his nearly 7 million a year which he is owed for the next three seasons.Not actually a free agent but if he retires it does them a huge favor. Ryan Miller is almost certainly gone unless he wants to come back on the very cheap for one more year, guys like Hotzler, Chad Johnson, Derek Grant wont be coming back. OFFSEASON QUESTION MARKS? To me the Ducks aren't as bad off as it might appear, especially if Kesler retires and they can use that cap space to build. Health is a concern, if Rackell can stay healthy and approach 30 goals it is a key. Can Getzlaf and Perry still contribute? My opinion is yes (Getzlaf) and no (Perry) but they are on the hook to them for 17 million combined per season over the next three years so they have to hope. Lots of kids especially at forward which gives reason to hope. I wouldnt give up on Ritchie yet, the whole offense struggled and he has a high ceiling, kind of a Josh Anderson thing if he catches a break. He along with Kase, Kiefer Sherwood, Max Jones, Sam Steel and Maxime Comtois should all slot into top nine roles this year giving hope for the future. Gibson is key, they wasted a brilliant season the same as the Oilers wasted one from Mcdavid in Edmonton and they need to add a 1C and another solid defender to the mix and with a few breaks could bounce back to at least respectability.

Great point, one I meant to bring up and it slipped off my list. The Canes/CBJ and Habs were in a three team dogfight until the last few days of the season, every game for weeks was hyper critical. Columbus caught fire at the end winning 7 of their final 8 gaining confidence and the old and new meshed. As you mentioned, fighting for the playoffs was like being in the playoffs in a lot of respects. Dallas and Colorado had to hold off the 'Yotes and Hawks down the stretch as well. On the other hand, the Flames, Capitals and Lightning all more or less had the divisions wrapped up with little to play for, Nashville didn't win their division until the last day of the season but frankly injuries to some of their heavy style players has crippled them a bit as Dallas has gotten healthy. I think this postseason is going to change the thinking of a lot of GM's going forward, more teams are going to follow the Columbus model, especially if they happen to win at least another series, and a lot of teams at the top are going to look at Tampa and Calgary who did little or nothing at the deadline out of fear of screwing up the chemistry and they will be more aggressive as well instead of just sitting back and letting potential opponents close the gap talent wise.

As of now the top two teams in the league, Tampa and Calgary have both been knocked out, and not only that we are looking at: Stars and Hurricanes the other two wildcard teams have legit shots at taking their own series. 3 seeds St. Louis, Toronto and Vegas all have 3-2 series leads with two chances to close out their individual series. It is possible, EXTREMELY so that by next week the highest ranked team left in the playoffs is the 2 seed New York Islanders with all the number ones at home as well as the other three number twos. My question is simple, Why? Why now? What has changed? Dont get me wrong, there have always been upsets, as a Wings fan I still get angry when someone mentions Arturs Irbe as he stole the first round from us in 1994 and Pronger did so in 2006, the undermanned Kings did it to us in 2001, but lets face facts the reason they sting even today is the Wings were the better team in every single one of those fiascos and we lost the series more than the bad guys won them, they were exceptions, not the rule, but now it seems to have switched, no series is safe, anyteam that makes the playoffs with the right breaks can beat any other. It is not like the NBA where you know that unless the same 4 teams are in the conference finals every year it means the fix is in. A certain parity is to be expected but man this is getting crazy. The rock bottom causes IMHO Salary cap created parity is the biggie. Look at the Stars/Preds series, the Stars scratched their way into the playoffs with a week or so to go, the Preds won the division but when you look at them, the Stars only finished 7 points behind the Preds. Same with the Hurricanes who as a wildcard were 5 points behind division winning Capitals. The difference between good and very good is closer than ever. Home ice/last change doesn't matter as much as it used to, in fact that pendulum has been slowly turning closer to even during the regular season more and more, in decades past a bad team at home could upset a good team on the road with a certain regularity but that has changed. teams dont fear other teams barns as much as they used to. And? That is all I have does anyone have any thoughts as to rock bottom causes for how/why there are so many upsets this year?

lol. All seriousness, Dreger has been saying for months that he thinks, not so much from a source but from a hunch that Holland is going to end up in Edmonton either as GM or as an exec tutoring a young GM. I have been critical of Holland, stating that he handled the decline of the Wings poorly refusing to acknowledge the rebuild instead continuing to give up young assets for washed up vets such as Legwand, Zidlicky and Cole to sneak into the playoffs only to lose in five games in the first round for several years before it fell apart completely. IDK, maybe he would rediscover something that has been missing with a new organization, if you want him you can have him.