NHL Playoffs: Who Will Win the West?
Writing by admin on Tuesday, 17 of April , 2007 at 3:28 pm
Weren’t the Calgary Flames supposed to put up a fight?
The Detroit Red Wings are flat-out embarrassing Calgary at every facet of hockey. They won the first two games of their first-round playoff series with relative ease. This is a Flames team with plenty of talent, and Detroit is almost toying with them. But that hasn’t been enough (yet) to make Wings the clear favorites to represent the Western Conference in the Stanley Cup finals.
At press time, the Wings were tied with the Anaheim Ducks at 5-1 to win the Cup. Anaheim has also made a cakewalk of its first-round series, winning the first three games over the Minnesota Wild. The Wild were considered a possible upset candidate based on the goaltending of Niklas Backstrom (.929 save percentage), but Anaheim has snuffed out Minnesota’s already questionable offense, allowing the Ducks to win each game by a single goal.
Detroit and Anaheim were leading the futures market even before their first-round playoff opponents were determined. However, the other two Western series feature strong teams that deserve their share of attention. Both Vancouver-Dallas and Nashville-San Jose have been entertaining, closely fought matchups. Pick any of those four teams to win the conference, and you run the risk of not even making it to the second round.
The Canucks have a 2-1 edge over the Stars, thanks to pair of overtime victories that could easily have gone the other way. And perhaps they should have; Dallas has generally outplayed the Canucks, who have relied on timely bursts of offense and the goaltending of Roberto Luongo.
The Predators, meanwhile, put the hammer down on San Jose this past Friday to tie their series at one game apiece. Earlier in this space, I picked Nashville to win the West and the Cup. I see no reason to change that, despite San Jose’s 3-1 victory over the Preds on Monday night which gave the Sharks a 2-1 series lead. The Predators are far from finished.
Category: Online Hockey Betting
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