Early Season Favourites
We all have our early season cup favourites, for example last year we all thought the Stanley Cup Final would have the Sabres from the East facing off with the Ducks from the West. Most of us predicted wrong for the East but we did a pretty good job.
We chose the Ducks because they have 2 solid goaltenders, a great core of defenseman and a mix of young and old forwards. Guys like Teemu Selanne and Rob Niedermayer are great mentors for the Dustin Penner’s and Ryan Getzlaf’s. Basically they had it all because of crucial transactions made by GM Brian Burke.
1 – signing undrafted players to fufill your top line (Chris Kunitz, Andy McDonald)
2 – stockpiling your team with impact players such as Travis Moen and Brad May and now Todd Bertuzzi
3 – trading away your prospects for the now (Chris Pronger)
We chose the Sabres because they have 2 franchise players in Daniel Briere, a smooth skater and stickhandler and Chris Drury a player who performs in very crucial times. They have stellar goaltending in Ryan Miller and above average defenseman.
These two teams combine for a very exciting Stanley Cup Final. Instead, the Senators who had an up and down season beat out the Buffalo Sabres to advance to the final. Just like we thought the Ducks prevailed to win the Cup.
Now let’s talk about this year, from seeing what has been happening this offseason the majority of us think the Rangers will win the East while the West is a total wild card between the Wings, the Avs, the Sharks or even the Ducks again. I personally think we’ll see a match up consisting of the Rangers and the Ducks, once again.
Like last year we didn’t expect the Pens to make a playoff run but they were the suprise up and coming team. This year I expect that to be the Flyers. They had some many great additions in the offseason, so they do look great on paper but we’ll see when the season starts.
Here’s the coles notes:
Eastern Conference Champion: New York Rangers
Western Conference Champion: Anaheim Ducks
Up And Coming Team: Philadelphia Flyers
Share your thoughts…