BBRoundtable

To face the Montreal Halaks. Er, Canadiens. *ahem*

Previous two such comebacks were the Leafs over Detroit in '42 and the Isles over the Pens in '75.

Which fairy tale team makes it to the final? Well given that the top ranked teams have done great in the west, and terribly in the East, I'm inclined to call it Sharks/Habs right now just to complete the West/East mirror.

Weird playoffs.

That was probably the most pathetic choke I've seen. They're like the black sheep of Boston... only team we got that can't do squat right Granted I think they would've been slaughtered by the Habs in the next round anyway, but still... choke artists

Nakor wrote:Weird playoffs.

*DING DING DING!* Congraturation, you win the Massive Understatement of the Year Award!!!

These playoffs have not been weird, they've been outright looneytacular. They are also, by the way, the most entertaining playoffs thus far that I think I've ever seen in any sport, ever. So far, we've seen:

1) Montreal, with the worst record of any playoff team this year, come back from down 3 games to 1 to beat the Caps in 7 by having Halak go apeshite crazy and stop something like 98 of 101 shots over the last three games of the series
2) The Flyers wipe the floor with the #2 seeded Devils in only 5 games after just BARELY even making the playoffs at all by winning in a shootout in the final game of the regular season
3) Boston give the boot to the Sabres, who were supposed to have better goaltending and offense, especially since Boston was still missing their best offensive player (Savard) at that point
4) The Sharks finally stop sucking in the playoffs and make it to the conference finals again
5) The Habs knock off the defending Cup champions in 7 games, including jumping out to a 4-0 lead in the first period in game 7
6) The Bruins pull off possibly the biggest choke job in sports history (though the Flyers deserve a hell of a lot of credit for being that gutsy, obviously)

How in the crap can this NOT end up be the most entertaining playoffs ever? We've already gotten all that, and the things are only even halfway over! Plus, no matter who wins the Cup, it's gonna be someone who hasn't won it all in a fairly long while, which is fine by me. The Habs haven't won the Cup since '93, the Flyers since '75, the Hawks since '61, and the Sharks have never won it at all. Now there's a change of pace for ya.

Roemello wrote:That was probably the most pathetic choke I've seen. They're like the black sheep of Boston... only team we got that can't do squat right Granted I think they would've been slaughtered by the Habs in the next round anyway, but still... choke artists

Yeah, yeah, you don't have the right to gripe. At least your other sports teams are good. Try being an Ohio sports fan of any kind... like me.

Don't forget the Canucks actually winning the first round in spite of an under 50% penalty kill in the series against LA. (Sadly ended up costing them against Chicago, along with injured defencemen.)

Oh, and there's Ovechkin and Crosby being totally unable to score on the Habs as well.

Philly hasn't only been knocking off unexpected teams, they've been doing it with Michael Leighton in the last few. He'd only played 66 NHL games in his career prior (34 this year) and none in the playoffs, but he's rocking a .943 save percentage.

And have you seen the too many men on the ice counter? The one that finished Boston off was the 33rd Too Many Men penalty of the playoffs this year (74 games played).

Both series finals will be worth watching just for the hockey entertainment value alone I think. Sharks/Hawks is guaranteed to be entertaining (I guess I'll pull for the Sharks there), and Philly/Habs isn't a series I would've expected to say this about, but frankly, it's lining up to be insane.

For the record, I'm calling Sharks in 6. As for the East, how could I not predict Habs in 7? (Maybe we'll have a repeat of the '75 Isles, watch Philly go down 0-3 again, catch up to 3-3 and lose in game 7.)

The Canucks' PK was under 50% in the first series? El BARF. How in the crap did they manage to win that thing?

What's really funny is that Montreal, in spite of being the 8th seed, has now effectively lost the fair use of its mantra this whole postseason, that being the whole "Nobody gives us a chance, nobody thinks we can win" underdog thing. Nobody thought the Flyers could get this far, either, and after watching Halak's Superman act for two rounds, the Habs are probably the favorite in this series. On top of that, since the road team keeps winning all the game 7s this postseason, having the home ice may actually be a disadvantage for the Flyers. How kooky is that, the 8th seed being the favorite, even only to some degree?

So I recently learned since the implementation of the current playoff system, no 7th or 8th ranked team has ever won the cup. (In fact, all but two times since the divisions were set it's been won by a division champion.) Considering this is a playoffs that seems to be set to break the standards, could this be another Habs year?

Well, regardless of who represents the East, they're gonna have a chance to break that title goose egg by 7th and 8th seed teams. They're gonna have their work cut out for them, though. Both the Sharks and the Hawks are really good this year.