NHL Conference Finals Preview

Hello everybody my name is The Beard and I am here to give a small opinionated preview on the NHL conference finals. Dom and Ben lack hockey content and have spent most of their time covering the NBA finals (sick league).

I do not want to go into too much detail to recap this post season but it has been an unbelievable NHL playoffs thus far with all 4 division leaders exiting in the first round. There have been several surprises – the Blues are in the western conference finals and have been on an incredible run. They sat dead last in the Western conference in January and have rallied to make the playoffs defeating the Jets and Stars in the first and second round. The Blues will match up against the Sharks - a team that has really gotten their shit together this post season. They defeated Las Vegas (in a game 7 3rd period come back) and Colorado. In the East, the Hurricanes defeated the defending Stanley Cup Champion Washington Capitals and the Islanders. The Hurricanes will run into a playoff seasoned Boston team, who defeated a talented Toronto Maple Leafs squad and a red-hot Columbus Blue Jackets team. The Jackets had the biggest upset this post season, sweeping Tampa Bay. To establish creditability, I have futures on San Jose to win the west, San Jose/Boston to meet in the finals (at a cool +3150), and Boston to win the cup – the only future I lost was Tampa Bay to win the cup (NBD).

Blues vs. Sharks Prediction: San Jose in 7

I love the San Jose Sharks. They are deep team with a lot of hungry players. I want nothing more than Joe Thornton to host the cup this post season. He is 108 years old and is one of the most deserving players in the league. The Sharks have seemed to rally behind their captain Joe Pavelski who had a scary accident in game 7 of the Vegas series. He recently returned in game 7 of this last series notching the first goal and added an assist later in the game. I believe San Jose has been tested more this post season than the Blues. San Jose played in a tough first round match up again Las Vegas who I believe would be in this position if they won that game 7. San Jose is too deep, has home ice, and too much momentum. They have also been in the mix to win the cup for what seems like forever. I believe this is their time and they will at least get past the Blues.

Bruins vs. Hurricanes

Prediction: Bruins in 7

I love the Bruins in this series, but the Hurricanes scare me. They are red hot and PNC arena has proved to be one of the toughest buildings to play in this post season. From a match up perspective, the Bruins stomp on the Canes. First line matchup: Marchand, Bergeron and David Pastrnak vs. Teuvo Teravainen, Justin Williams, Warren Foegele and Nino Niederreiter – lol. I do believe the Canes have a leg up on D, but Tuukka has been a brick wall making the defensive side of this match up somewhat even. Hurricanes have faced some incredible goaltending but Tuukka has proved to be the best goaltender this post season – silencing the scrutiny he has faced in previous years. There is so much playoff experience on the Bruin’s side but I fear some sort of bs Hurricanes cinderalla story. Gotta take the Bruins here – lets see how much real estate Marchand can own in the Hurricanes’ heads after this.

Thanks for reading. Dom asked me to write this and I swear if this mushes all my futures, I will delete his number. In the words of Ryan Whitney, “Nobody has a fucking clue what’s going to happen in these games.” Praying for a PBS bump. I will work with Dom/Ben on some NHL plays but I like the series to play out a couple games to hopefully catch on to trends and understand the match up.

Game 1 Action:

1 unit Boston ML .5 unit Boston PL

1 unit Boston Under

1 unit San Jose ML

.5 unit San Jose PL