NHL Playoffs

[Troll King]

Kovalchuk's not eligible for the Calder. It's his third full season already.

And why do people still think Messier is a Lady Byng candidate? Even if you ignore that spearing incident, his numbers are nowhere near Lady Byng worthy. The Lady Byng is awarded to players who finish fairly high in scoring with few penalty minutes. Winners are among the top 20 scoring leaders and have fewer than 20 minutes. Messier's got just 43 points and 42 penalty minutes. You won't win the Lady Byng with nearly as many penalty minutes as points.

Defencemen rarely win the Lady Byng, as they tend to pick up more penalties but if any defenceman deserves it, it wouldn't be Chelios with his 61 minutes in 69 games. That's nearly a minute a game. Fellow Red Wing defenceman Lidstrom would be a better choice, playing 81 games, scoring 38 points and having just 18 minutes.

[Cops]

Who will Toronto play in first round? (if you can figure it out yet), It would be nice to see Toronto do fairly well this season, I wont expect them to win but top fourth would be nice.

[Nethila]

its Toronto vs Ottawa in first round

[Da1andonly]

Most hated Leafs player:
1. Aki Berg (This guy just doesn't know defense.)

OMFG words of wisdom. He's probably retarded cause all he does is take penalties...and when it's a worldcup in hockey, our stupid coaches always takes him with the Finnish team. Doh.

[Cops]

its Toronto vs Ottawa in first round

Toronto will win round one vs the sens imho.

[Troll King]

Okay, here's how it's going to be run. To play, you select your prediction for who will win each playoff matchup and in how many games the series will last. When the series' end, you get one point for correctly selecting the winner and 2 points for guessing how many games it will go. The person with the most points at the end of the playoffs wins.

Post your selections in this thread. Selections for the first round can be made up to Wednesday at 3:00 pm EST (for those in different time zones, I chose that time to make it easier for you. I'm writing this post at about 2:47 pm EST, so round up on the hour and you'll know what time 3 pm EST will be locally for you.) Predictions will be accepted only up to that deadline. If you post your predictions early, you can still make changes up to the deadline. Changes will not be accepted afterwards.

Remember, playoff series are run in a best of 7 format. The first team to win 4 games advances. The higher seed gets 4 home games and the lower seed 3. Games are scheduled in a 2-2-1-1-1 sequence, meaning games one and two are at the higher seed's arena, three and four are in the lower seed's home, then they alternate back and forth to the higher seed's, then the lower seed's and finally the higher seed hosts the seventh game if necessary.

The first round playoff matchups are below. The numbers in parentheses are the team's seeds.

Eastern Conference:

Tampa Bay Lightening (1)
vs
New York Islanders (8)

Boston Bruins (2)
vs
Montreal Canadiens (7)

Philadelphia Flyersj (3)
vs
New Jersey Devils (6)

Toronto Maple Leafs (4)
vs
Ottawa Senators (5)

Western Conference:

Detroit Red Wings (1)
vs
Nashville Predators (8)

San Jose Sharks (2)
vs
St Louis Blues (7)

Vancouver Canucks (3)
vs
Calgary Flames (6)

Colorado Avalanche (4)
vs
Dallas Stars (5)


To those who are not followers of hockey but still want to participate, I will soon post a mini-scouting report that will help you to make informative predictions.

[Troll King]

Bah. Go to Adman's thread for the pool and scouting reports.