Right 25% Of The Time

For those who miss my sparking prose and universally interesting topics, Michael Berube and I have a preview of the NHL playoffs over at his place. One cool thing about the NHL playoffs, unlike some other leagues I could name, is that 1)there’s some serious doubt about who will meet in the finals, and 2)the first round is terrific fun. Anyway, the short version:

I’ll take Detroit, San Jose, Calgary, Colorado in the west, the first two near-locks, the last two tepidly. (Michael, like pretty much everyone else, thinks the last pick is crazy.) Michael takes Ottawa, Carolina, New Joisey, and Buffalo; my only disagreement would be about the Rangers, and that’s really more statement of my conviction that “momentum” is a Latin word meaning “bullshit” rather than a serious prediction.

The only other disagreement I have is that I think, especially in recent years, that Ottawa’s inability to beat increasingly inferior Leafs teams was more due to Lalime’s sieve-like properties than the fact that Quinn’s teams are always ready with the cheap shot. A problem, as Michael notes, that it’s not clear they solved with Hasek probably not ready to play. But then the question is, who’s going to beat them? You got me, but then Toronto shouldn’t have been beating them either, so…who knows.