The San Jose Sharks proved to be the best team in the Western Conference in the regular season and their reward for their efforts are the Colorado Avalanche, who managed to hang onto their playoff aspirations, almost down to the wire. The Sharks will get another opportunity to try and beat the stigma of not being a good playoff team, while the young players for the Avalanche will tackle the learning curve with reckless abandon.The difference between the two top point-getters in this series (through the regular season) was only one point and it again tackles our starting goalies paragraph that I want to do with these introductions. Evgeni Nabokov was the best player between the two teams in the regular season, picking up 94 points, and will be in the crease for the Sharks, while Craig Anderson is the number one guy in Colorado and he had 93 points in the regular season. The biggest difference between the two goalies will be how their teams will rely on them, as the Avalanche will need Anderson to be a stud, while the Sharks' offense will give Nabokov some room to breathe, but either one could fail in this series, so I won't say its really cut-and-dry.
The Sharks will be going into these playoffs feeling pretty healthy. According to my injury list, they don't have any names on the list, so it should be all guns a blazin' there. The Avalanche, on the other hand, won't be so lucky and will have a few concerns entering this series. Peter Mueller is currently out with a concussion and won't be ready for the start of the series and his chances of appearing in this series are marginal at best, in my estimation. Mueller apparently had some workouts today, so he's moving in the right direction. Matt Duchene didn't play in the last game of the season for the Avalanche, but he's only listed as day-to-day with a torso injury and remains hopeful for Game One of the series.
The series begins on Wednesday night and will be covered in Canada by CBC.
The Chicago Blackhawks will have to go through a division rival to make an impact in these playoffs, as their first opponent this year will be the Nashville Predators. These two teams will really grind themselves into a playoff pulp, which should be fairly entertaining, to say the least. Patrick Kane finished in 14th in pool scoring this season with 88 points, leading all players in the series in regular season scoring. He'll definitely have to be the number one guy for the Blackhawks this year to help propel the team into the later rounds of the playoffs. For the Predators, leading the charge in points was Pekka Rinne, who finished with 32 wins and 7 shutouts for 78 points this year, ranking him 29th among all players this season. The Predators are known more for their scoring by committe approach, especially since their first skater isn't ranked until 115th in pool scoring this season, Patric Hornqvist.
Starting goaltending is going to be a point of contention for the Blackhawks, as it appears that Antti Niemi is going to be the go-to guy to start the playoffs, likely getting the nod for Chicago in Game One against the Predators. The biggest point of contention is that Cristobel Huet was named the Blackhawks goalie on the Playoff Pool Sheet, but that isn't to say that he won't see any time. Since Huet is in the box for the Blackhawks, only he can register points in that box for the Blackhawks, so if you're going to gamble on Huet, what you're really doing is betting against Niemi not making it very far. If one was going to be safe, they may want to take three top forwards for the Blackhawks. For the Predators, it does look like it's Pekka Rinne's job to lose this Spring, so he was the easy choice to put in Box 12 for the Preds.
Injuries will play a part in this series to start, as the Blackhawks will likely be at least a little short on the blueline. Brian Campbell still has about a month to go before he's ready to go from his nasty spill earlier in the year, which broke his collarbone and ribs. We won't be expecting him in this first series at all, but we'll re-evaluate if the Blackhawks clear the first round. There is also some concern around Kim Johnsson, who suffered a concussion this season, because he hasn't skated yet for the Blackhawks. It doesn't sound like he'll be good to go at all in these playoffs. The Predators are in a little bit better shape with their injuries, but they still have some nagging ones in the pool at the moment. Denis Grebeshkov has been ruled out of the first two games against Chicago with his lower-body injury, but the team is definitely optimistic that Patric Hornqvist will be ready to go from his upper-body injury.
This series will see most of it's games televised on TSN and TSN2 in Canada, starting on Friday night.
A real West Coast battle in the first round sees the Vancouver Canucks host the Los Angeles Kings as the team with home-ice advantage. This series is considered to have a fast & physical pace set to it going in and looking at either side, there shouldn't be any disappointment in that area. There are enough good skaters and physical players to really get the fireworks started early and have them go off often.This series has the league's best scorer in Henrik Sedin, who also earned the hockey pool's MVP nod this season with his 112 points in the regular season. Sedin was a model of consistency throughout the year and was a very big reason as to why the Canucks won the Northwest Division in 2010. For the Kings, they rode on the back of Jonathan Quick into the playoffs, who ranked 2nd in the league in minutes played with 4,258, amassing 39 wins, 4 shutouts and an assist for 87 points, ranking him 16th in pool scoring. Both players will be relied upon heavily to anchor their team's chances at moving on.
The goaltending match-up is pretty straight-forward. Without a doubt, the Kings will start the guy who led them to the playoffs in Quick, while the Canucks will have Roberto Luongo in the net for Game One. Luongo finished just ahead of Quick in the rankings this year, finishing with 40 wins and 4 shutouts for 88 points, but in only 3,899 minutes played. This should be a very good head-to-head match-up in this first round, according to the numbers.
On the injury front, the Canucks look to be only missing Sami Salo from their Sheet line-up going into Game One, as he's suffering from an undisclosed injury, which he suffered while having a night off as a healthy scratch. Go figure. He's considered day-to-day for now, but it doesn't sound like he'll be good to go for Game One. The Kings will start the series will a completely healthy line-up for the Sheet pool, so feel free to take anyone without the worries of injuries before they even get started.
This series will get going on Thursday night and will be featured on CBC in Canada.
Finally, the last playoff match-up in the Western Conference sees last year's Cup Finalist from the West take on the biggest surprise from the desert. The Phoenix Coyotes will take on the Detroit Red Wings as the home team after clinching 4th place in the West and this could be the most intriguing match-up in the Western Conference by far. How far will the upstarts go or how far will the tired old men travel?Ilya Bryzgalov leads the charge out of Phoenix, as he had a tremendous season for the Coyotes. Bryzgalov finished 6th in pool scoring this season after winning 42 games, shutting out 8 and earning an assist on top of it all for 101 points this season. If you really like the Coyotes to surprise in the West, this is your man. For the Red Wings, it's also their starting goalie heading to the playoffs that led their charge from the outside looking in to almost a home spot in the playoffs. Jimmy Howard ended up winning 37 games, shutting out 3 and picking up a pair of assists this season, taking over for Chris Osgood, who will be backing up Howard this Spring. In terms of actual scoring, Pavel Datsyuk led the wings with 70 points in 80 games, while Wojtek Wolski had 65 points in 80 games between Colorado and Phoenix.
On the injury front, the Coyotes are still waiting for Robert Lang to return to their line-up from a lower-body problem that has kept him out for quite a while already. Lang was at practice for the Coyotes last week, but the team was in no hurry to rush him back into their line-up, since their playoff spot had been sewn up. I can't honestly say that Lang will be in the line-up for the Coyotes come Game One, but there does appear to be a chance, if all the timing works out. The Red Wings, despite their injury plagued season, will go into the playoffs with a clean bill of health, in terms of their pool players. They might be healthy as a whole, but for those players looking to improve your Playoff Pool team, you should be fine with the Red Wings.
This series will get started on Wednesday night and will be featured on TSN in Canada.
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