Eastern Conference Finals Preview

The Conference Finals kick off on Saturday evening in the East, as the surging Lightning head to Boston to take on the big, bad Bruins.  This series will likely be another battle of wills, as the Lightning's 1-3-1 defense will try to stop the rugged push from a persistent Bruins club, which should make for some great hockey.

Game One will provide a good glimpse as to what we can expect in this series, I would imagine that it will be some pretty tight hockey with the goaltenders coming to the forefront.  Both Dwayne Roloson and Tim Thomas are battling goalies that hardly give up on any plays and they'll be under the microscope for four to seven games.  The goalies will be key in the pool race as well, as only one team in the top ten (seen below) have a goalie in this series, the majority going to Thomas, but our first place club, Superstar, is riding Roloson and a Lightning series win will only further their progress for the win.

By the numbers, the Bruins are the favourites in this series, both in the regular season standings and the picks in the pool.  The Bruins finished with 200 of 228 selections, while the Lightning picked up 124 selections.  Thomas is the most popular player in this final, having 47 selections.

Roloson leads all pool players in scoring going into this series with 18 points, followed by Thomas with 16 and Vincent Lecavalier with 15.

	Superstar	Tryst'n'Grant	Langdon River Dogs	Don't Call Me Ray	seaherwet	Another Brick in the Kronwall	Neils Corndogs!!	Pucking Luck	Tony the Tiger	Granny Smith
	209 points	-7 points	-10	-14	-19	-20	-21	-22	-22	-22
Martin St. Louis (14)	x	x						x
Vincent Lecavalier (15)		x			x			x
Simon Gagne (18)			x				x		x
Teddy Purcell (19)		x	x		x		x
Victor Hedman (20)										x
Pavel Kubina (21)				x						x
Eric Brewer (23)	x		x	x	x	x			x	x
Dwayne Roloson (24)	x
Patrice Bergeron (13)					x					x
David Krejci (14)			x	x	x				x	x
Milan Lucic (15)							x
Nathan Horton (16)			x			x
Michael Ryder (18)	x							x
Brad Marchand (19)	x			x					x
Zdeno Chara (21)	x	x				x	x	x	x
Johnny Boychuk (23)		x
Tim Thomas (24)		x	x	x	x	x	x	x		x

It looks as though Superstar has a pretty good handle on this series, having all six possible players and some pretty good ones at that.  Their key will be Roloson over Thomas, but if Boston goes on a pretty good tear and their top players go for a run, look for seaherwet to close the gap in this series.

There are a couple of injury concerns going into this series, as the Lightning are dealing with a couple of upper-body injuries in their line-up, both players supposed to play a role in the money race in the pool.  Simon Gagne has been dealing with an injury, but he is supposed to be ready to go on Saturday night for Game One, while Pavel Kubina, taken twice in the top 10, is still dealing with a head injury and he didn't travel to Boston, so he will be out for Game One at the very least.

The Bruins are not altogether healthy, as Patrice Bergeron is dealing with a concussion, which he suffered earlier in the Flyers series.  His week is already up for minimum time missed in the concussion protocol and has been skating already.  It does sound rather unlikely he'll be playing too quickly in this series, but he could find his way back soon.  It's all very cloak and dagger with him.