It’s my Parting Shot for my – May the 4th be with you – Monday Musings…..
Yes, quite the opening round series in the Stanley Cup Playoffs as Montreal overcomes Tampa Bay. All seven games were decided by one goal and the Canadiens copied what the Saskatoon Blades were able to do in their first round W-H-L post-season set about a month ago against Edmonton. The Bridge City Bunch started on the road and won all the odd-numbered games in the series – Games 1, 3, 5 and 7, while the Oil Kings won Games 2, 4 and 6. In other words, no team won two in a row and the Blue and Gold won three times at Rogers Place, including Games 5 and 7 when the series was even at 2-2 and 3-3 and Edmonton had the supposed home-ice advantage. The same thing happened for the Habs! Now that they’ve had their fun, Montreal can fall in four straight to Buffalo now, just as the Blades did to Prince Albert!!
The Fearless Predictor correctly picked seven of the eight first round winners in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. T-F-P will have more on that tomorrow as he reveals his choices for the Conference semi-finals.
One thing to note is that the top team in each Conference won their opening round series as Colorado in the West and Carolina in the East are both in the second round. You have to go back to 2001 for the last time the top team in the regular-season in each Conference met up in the Stanley Cup final. In that season, Colorado needed seven games to vanquish New Jersey.
I bring that up because the top team from each Conference in the W-H-L are meeting in the league’s Ed Chynoweth Cup final, starting Friday in Everett, Washington. The Silvertips will be tangling with the Prince Albert Raiders. This will be the eighth time since 2001 that the top team from each Conference will meet in the W-H-L final and the reason for that is simple – the top Dub teams load up and the disparity in talent, age and experience is greater than what it is amongst N-H-L teams. The chances of, so-called, upsets is much greater in the N-H-L because the margin of difference between the two teams is so small! Which is why T-F-P had P-A and Everett in the W-H-L, but doesn’t have Colorado and Carolina meeting in the N-H-L final! We shall see, of course!
By the way, T-F-P will give his final W-H-L playoff prediction for 2026 on Thursday in this space! I have a funny feeling I’ll be even less popular in P-A than I already am! Don’t miss it, unless you really can!! Haha!
That’s my Parting Shot. I’m Les Lazaruk…and it turned out nice again!
