<p>West: Anaheim Quacks, San Jose Sharks, Los Angeles Kings, Colorado Avalanche, St. Louis Extremely Blues, Chicago Blackhawks, Minnesota Wild, Dallas Stars</p>
<p>East: Boston Bruins, Tampa Bay Lightning, Montreal Canadiens, Detroit Red Wings, Pittsburgh Penguins, New York Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers, Columbus Blue Jackets</p>
<p>Sorry about that, English-speaking Canadians.</p>
<p>Let’s go Red Wings! They’ve made the playoffs every year I’ve been alive though this year was way too close for comfort. </p>
<p>Let’s go Sharks! The Sharks-Kings series will be a dandy. Our young Teenage Mutant Ninja Hertl is back, just in time to punish the Kings for knocking him out for most of the season.</p>
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<p>No apologies necessary, CF. As long as the majority of players are Canadian, still many teams for us to cheer for, including the Habs, a majority of whom are not French-Canadians. </p>
<p>I’ll cheer for Montreal for fun, Pittsburgh for some friends there, but mostly for Detroit to beat those evil Bruins. 
I think this is going to be a year for the West.</p>
<p>I don’t see the Wings making it past the first round (but they’ve surprised me many, many times before). </p>
<p>I cheer for Columbus and whoever is playing against the Blackhawks. Unless it’s the Penguins. </p>
<p>FYI, since 2000, 4 teams have won both the Stanley Cup and the President’s Cup for best NHL regular season record. Those are the Avs in 2001, the Wings in 2002 and 2008 and the Blackhawks in 2013. So 14/4 = 28.6% chance for the Bruins. </p>
<p>Go Kings!!! They are a wonderful organization.</p>
<p>The Kings and the Sharks love to hate each other. And their fans love to hate each other, too. It’s gonna be fun… You might need earplugs on Thursday night, even if you are watching on TV, to block out the BEAT LA! chants from the Tank.</p>
<p>Fang…IOK…I am using my self control voice…We will be so civil as we move through the playoffs. And…you must realize that, while you are sharks…disgusting as sharks may be…We are the Kings (which means lots of nice jewelry. </p>
<p>I will be happy, when the Kings win the cup…to send you a picture with the Ellebuds kissing the Stanley cup. Go Kings!..now smile.</p>
<p>(note: This is not a snark attack…Actually if you are in our neighborhood…please stop by for dinner. I hope to be serving shark.</p>
<p>Picking a team based on a jewelry… I’ll admit, that’s a first 
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<p>I’m also not expecting the Wings to go too far, but I’m glad they didn’t break the streak of 23 years in a row. It was a very tough season with lots of injuries. </p>
<p>No…I didn’t choose the Kings based on jewelry…although that doesn’t hurt. (However, I have always viewed jewelry as an art form). The Kings have…among other things have panache.</p>
<p>I feel sorry for St. Louis. They were cruising and now they’re down essentially their top 2 lines and their defense … and the Bruins fans here complain about our one big injury of the year. We’re very ignorant here about other teams. </p>
<p>I have no interest in jewelry. Just don’t care about it. This may be a good thing as a Sharks fan. It’s not like the Sharks have any Stanley Cup rings. </p>
<p>OTOH, it’s not like one Cup in almost fifty years is anything to write home about. If I were picking a team based on hardware I’d be sitting next to Rom rooting for, ugh, it’s hard to even type this, rooting for the WIngs. Pavel Datsyuk, now there’s a player with panache.</p>
<p>Some people may say the Kings have panache. I’ve never heard that said about any Darryl Sutter team though-- the conversation is more likely to veer towards mucking in the corners and a hard forecheck, and how Quick’s a good goalie.</p>
<p>Whoever wins the Sharks-Kings series probably won’t have to leave California for the second round either.</p>
<p>I was kidding about the jewelry… I thought that was obvious but I forget that sometimes things don’t translate to text lol. My apologies. </p>
<p>Romanigypsyeyes there is totally no need to apologize. I knew that you were kidding…And as much as I like jewels I really can’t wear a tiara to the market.</p>
<p>You should totally wear a tiara to the market, Bevhills. Start a trend!</p>
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<p>I do, too. What a terrible way to end the season and lead into the playoffs. Even Ryan Miller looks off his game. Injuries can certainly throw a wrench into the process. I was a little surprised to hear yesterday that Pittsburgh had more games lost to injury this season than any other team. Having good depth at each position is certainly a benefit.</p>
<p>It will be interesting with this new playoff format. It may change things up and end in results that would have been different had they stuck with the old conference format.</p>
<p>A note about the difficulty of winning the President’s and Stanley Cup: if you go through the list, it changed when the equipment changed and the game became more violent. Helmets, face shields, more pads, bigger goalie pads and so on, plus for a time the interference game at center ice - thank you New Jersey (sarcasm) - and the game became substantially more violent. That’s my theory, with no real proof offered. I think the overall issue is that to get the most regular season points, you need to play closer to playoff level hockey every night. The Bruins for example have played at around that level for most of the last 6 weeks. But most teams don’t. They may ramp it up for a game or two but that’s it. This has 2 effects. First, there’s more “upside” in a lower seeded team’s game because they’ve increased effort and concentration by a larger percentage. Second, they’ve seen the top team’s style and intensity through the season and are prepared for it. I put in the stuff about violence because the trend changes and that seems to fit as an explanation: more contest, more violence, less overcoming the other team with pure skill. </p>
<p>The Bruins won in 2011 because they stuck like superglue to their system. They weren’t able to play at that concentration level in 2013 and lost. They’re a more talented team than in 2011 and 2013 but 2011 shows that concentration and doggedness can overcome talent. </p>
<p>I’d say the Bruins are the favorite for the Cup, not because of their talent but because for the first three rounds, they get to play Eastern teams.</p>