Back in October, I predicted a Calgary-Tampa Bay 2004 re-match as this year's Stanley Cup final with the right team winning this time. (For the record, Pace predicted Anaheim over Boston, mainly because he likes cute animals for team logos.) Of course Tampa went and screwed up my plan by playing beyond terribly this year and not even making the playoffs (which also means Pace already has more hockey insight than his old man.)
Anyhow, I thought I'd redo it now that the crystal ball is a little bit less murky. (I hate how the NHL now seeds teams in the second round by record. I like the old days when you had division-based, bracketed playoffs so you could project a team's potential progress through the whole “second season”.) Anyhow, if I think of it, I'll do another post when the seeding for the second round is confirmed.
Montreal over Boston
Pittsburgh over Ottawa
Washington over Philadelphia
New York Rangers over New Jersey
Nashville over Detroit
Calgary over San Jose
Colorado over Minnesota
Anaheim over Dallas